Facebook: the cause of and the solution to...

 ...I was going to say insomnia but it isn't always the case.

I caught a glimpse of an article recently that said it was being held as a trigger for more and more divorces. I can see that. People do some dumb things online.

I wonder what makes them do it, asks the woman who has probably posted things on this blog that would preclude her from gainful employment and possibly Sunday School. I don't know if it's is because I grew up in a small, rural town and am friends with a large number of folks I grew up with or if it is perfectly normal for people to air out dirty laundry, passively aggressively call people out, and otherwise post things that they wouldn't dare to say out loud if you were in the same room with 'em. Okay, so there are a few people who are what they are and are every bit as brash in person as they are online.


I have spent the last two hours, changing the privacy on a bunch of stuff and catching up on the post of the weekend. It occurs to me that very often, the people that are (or at least used to be) my actual friends in real life don't pop up in my feed. I think it has the something to do with Facebook's "Let's make Jenny look like a D-bag" algorithm which I could do without because frankly I don't need help in that department.

All in all, since I have been on Facebook I have come to conclude that: the town I grew up in cursed, the more lacking in grammar skills the more likely to post long painful to read "deep thoughts", every other mother has Munchausen by proxy, people love doom and gloom and will spread it via petitions posted incessantly on your wall, and some people are so completely spazzy that they make a good case for spiking the town's water supply with Thorazine.

It's a train wreck at best which is probably why I've not been able to walk away.

I tried looking at people's profiles for awhile. Something I haven't done in a long time. I have 500 and something friends and I am not even sure who is there anymore. I'm sure as I transition through this phase of life into my next I will pare down that number. I rarely pare off people that I actually know but every once in a while I make an exception. The exceptions usually have to do with their online behavior and repeated TMI posts of a graphic nature or extreme drama that never goes away. I don't hide people. It would be easy but I find it disingenuous to do so.

I am not sure where I was going with all this but I do feel lighter and I finally going to be able to get some sleep. Thanks for listening, you're a good friend :)