addendum

a friend of mine from childhood—whom i respect, admire and love—has taken issue with me for 1) quitting my blog; and 2) railing against Facebook and other technologies that have, in my opinion, made people socially lazy (she disagrees).

this friend (i’ll call her George) is, you could say, an opinionated woman. she posted a bit of a diatribe on this blog’s Facebook wall yesterday and this morning—in response to an e-mail i sent her last night in response to her diatribe—she sent me an impassioned message, which i read before i got on the PATH and then thought about my entire commute. in fact, i had so many thoughts swirling in my head on the matter that i am un-retiring two days after retiring (Brett Favre, i feel ya) just to expel them.

countering my argument that people rely on Facebook too much—to remember birthdays, to remember to say hello to friends, to (ahem) remember to check for blog updates—she basically said, “so what? how is that different from me putting a reminder in my phone?” she also said that years ago people complained about something called e-mail, wondering what happened to old-fashioned letter-writing or picking up the phone. this—Facebook, etc.—is just the next step and helps busy people stay in touch. 

i thought about this on the train. i happen to be reading a chapter in Simplicity Parenting currently about scheduling—or, rather, over-scheduling—and how having too many things to do (sports, dance classes, art classes, karate lessons, swim lessons, piano lessons, cooking lessons, language lessons, etc.) is robbing kids of (among other things) the thrill of anticipation. being so busy is raising their expectation baseline. there’s no time to be bored, no time to rest, no time to look forward to the next thing.

and it’s not just kids, obviously. most adults—at least where i live—have everything going on and the faster it can all come together, the better. the less time they actually have to spend involved in something, whether it be ordering or preparing a meal, communicating with friends and family, watching a show on TV, the better. if they can do any of those things simultaneously, jackpot. living this way seems convenient—even necessary—these days. but why?

i suspect many people (perhaps George included) would answer, “because i have no time! i’m too busy to write a letter or pick up the phone or watch commercials or leave my BlackBerry at home when i take my kid to his baseball practice!”

again i ask: but why? must you be so busy? obviously there are things we all have to do and at certain times in our lives the workload gets even greater. but just as many obligations that feel so important, so integral, could easily be let go in exchange for a little sanity. 


i think of it this way: at the end of your life will you be glad you crammed in eight million things? will you have a true recollection of any of those things, or will it all be a blur? will your life be cut short because you developed a stress-related ulcer or had an anxiety-induced heart attack?

seriously. i know you think i’m being dramatic, but think about it.

why the hell are we all so goddamn busy?

In Simplicity Parenting, Kim John Payne cites a definition of addiction as put forth by one of his colleagues: “an increasing and compulsive tendency to avoid pain or boredom and replace inner development with outer stimulation.”

i floated an idea to Michael the other week. (it seemed like an epiphany to me at the time, though i’m sure it’s far from it.) i realized that most of our technological advances (Facebook included) have been instigated by science whizzes who, i would be willing to bet a large sum of money, are socially awkward or inept. it makes sense that the people who have the most trouble communicating and interacting face-to-face with others would be creating ways to connect that don’t require actually connecting.


right?

look, George had a point this morning when she said that without Facebook, she and i would not have reconnected at this stage of our lives, and i know we both are grateful that we have reconnected. but the most rewarding part of that reconnection has been the time we’ve spent together, in the same space at the same time—in each other’s backyards, at various get-togethers, traipsing around our former grade school while drinking wine….

that is what matters most in life and that’s what i want to keep alive. i’m not denying the role Facebook played in getting George and me to the point where we could be in the same space at the same time, but what worries me is how it seems to be replacing actual, substantive relationships overall.

when you consider how society has changed over the years—people used to know their neighbors, people said hello to each other on the street, co-workers would actually talk to each other in the hall or in the kitchen rather than relying on e-mails or instant messages—it’s not totally insane to imagine that someday, maybe perhaps in my son’s lifetime or his children’s lifetime, human interaction will go the way of the Discman.

these are the things that concern me, that keep me up at night. am i weird? absolutely. but it’s true all the same. and leaving Facebook was one little way i could think of to buck the trend. will it accomplish anything significant? not likely. there are a trillion people with active accounts who don’t worry about the future of humanity. but i felt strongly about quitting the site, so i did.

and i quit my blog in part because i realized my readership went down after i left Facebook. and that pissed me off, quite frankly. a friend apparently posted a link to one of my recent posts on her wall the other day and my page views shot up like you wouldn’t believe. and i thought, see? see?!? if it doesn’t happen on goddamn Facebook, it doesn’t happen at all.

so, yeah. that’s my very personal, not-for-everyone take on it. i don’t begrudge other people their social media or even their technology. (hi, i still own an iPhone.) i’m just more old-fashioned at heart, i guess. i got away from that for a while, as i said in my last post. i fell victim to the i’m-so-busy-i-must-be-extremely-important mindset. but having a kid has put things back in perspective. i really, really want my son to benefit from my presence (both physical and mental) and to grow up believing that life can be lived one moment at a time (not sixteen moments at a time).

and i want, at the end of my life, to know that i lived in a way that felt right and meaningful and memorable to me.

mbm