Facebook Can Be EVIL

I am a Facebook addict.  I admit it.  I currently have over 700 Facebook friends and actively manage 3 Facebook Business Pages.  Facebook (from here on known as FB) can be great - it reconnects you with friends, keeps you in touch with your out-of-town family and can keep you in touch with your friends and plan stuff.  For business, it's great - free advertising!

On the flip side, it can be bad for you.

I think FB is an enabler.  We get to see into our other friends' lives - what they are doing, where they are going, what they have recently gotten.  We can get green with envy or we can portray ourselves as doing better than we are to present a good face.  Other times, I think people post things to throw it in other people's faces.

FB is rampant with cliques (yes, grown women do have cliques...even in their 30's and 40's) posting on each other's walls about what is going down that night for "Girl's Night" or just one or two friends posting about "had a blast this morning!"  or "can't wait to do it again!".  If you happen to be that one friend that was not included, this can quite frankly piss you off.

I will admit I do get jealous when I see that friends of mine have gotten together without me.  Sometimes I would have been able to go, sometimes not, but we all just want to be included.

Then there are times FB can make you feel like a third (or fourth or fifth) wheel.  Friends will comment on stuff you were at or involved in to each other and it would be like you were not even there.  I could go on forever about me and A lately feeling like third wheels, but that's another post for another day.

I've seen this happen to people I know and it's happened to me.  For all the glory FB gets, there's this downside that no one talks about.  It can make a person feel horrible.  Guilty.  Depressed.  Left out.  I do my best not to let the little things get to me, but as a human woman (hormones and all) it does get to you no matter how you try not to let it. And yes, I was inspired to write this post after seeing something posted on FB.