Hell, even my company is working its converged ass off to create a Facebook "identity" and wants me to be its friend. Goodbye, damage control. Somewhere, somehow, the ghost of George Orwell is having a hell of a laugh.
Goddamn it, all I want to do this weekend is get shitfaced and silly with my friends without having to worry about what people at work are going to say. Not because I'll be hanging out with them, but because, inevitably, somebody will post an unflattering picture of me on Facebook, and tag it with my name. Then I've got 'splainin' to do.
And forget about Twitter, the Internet's version of an irritatingly obsessive-compulsive town crier. You don't need to approve the people who "follow" your 140-character musings. So, an innocuous post about, say, weekend plans, can suddenly become fodder for discussion among strangers. It feels a bit like being caught naked in your apartment by a crowd of people who were able to waltz in, unannounced.
See what I mean about ruining my summer? Nobody can do anything without doing online damage control.
And we're just regular people. Be glad you're not a celebrity who has to put up with digital wildfire one hundred fold.
CrackBerry rehab
Try as we might, we're now too invested in Facebook and the like to just shut down our computers or, worse, delete our accounts. Were it not for social-networking Web sites, how else would we keep up with who from high school had babies or got fat or married, what events are happening around town, who broke up with whom, and who's going on vacation?
We need our online crutches, even as they slowly suck the life out of us.
So how do we begin to take back our back yards and enjoy the precious few weeks of sunshine that are left of this wretchedly waterlogged summer?
The process of reclaiming social ownership seems more complicated than just chucking laptops and phones out the window and breathing a sigh of relief. It's about asking ourselves, "Why is it more important that my online microcosm of connections knows that I'm eating this cheeseburger than it is to actually taste this cheeseburger?" It's gooey and plump and there's juices from it running down my arm and that's what this simple pleasure should be about — not wiping my fingers on the side of my jeans in my haste to tell the world what I'm doing this instant.
(Easier said than done — over the course of writing this article, I've tweeted twice and checked my Facebook page about 40 times. Research. That's what I'm calling it. Not pathetic, just research.)
Ultimately, there's a decision to be made; would you rather read a poorly spelled, hastily written one-liner about how your "friend" went to a movie, or would you rather go to the movies yourself? Click on a link to a blog about waterskiing, or jump in a lake? It's a screamingly Pollyanna-ish notion, but the key to giving up online addiction seems to be to substitute it with real-time action, to remind yourself that, ultimately, your best moments will be actual, not virtual, and that it's okay if your entire realm of contacts isn't updated on how you're feeling about the ice-cream cone you purchased nine seconds before pushing "send" on a text message to Twitter.
A few of my friends recently pared down their Facebook connections, "un-friending" anyone with whom they aren't personally acquainted. Some have sworn off Facebook altogether. I may follow suit — at least until I can thwart my own "Look at me! Look at me!" compulsions to share my business with the world.
It's the first step I'm making toward actually enjoying my summer. So, unless you hear about it directly from my mouth (not my fingers), you won't hear a peep — or a tweet — about it. I'll be outside, unplugged, hearing only the birds and the tourists, not my CrackBerry, chirping.
Will the forthcoming college co-eds follow suit? After all, the requisite "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essay surely requires more effort than simply aggregating and printing your BBQ-related tweets. What are you going to write about, kiddies, if all you have to write about is writing about things? Meta? Yes. But, sadly, increasingly on point. Now, excuse me. I have to go create a TinyURL for this article and blast it to my friends on Facebook.
Sara Faith Alterman is updating her status. She can be reached at salterman@thephoenix.com.
