Today has been one of those days that has reminded me of how much social networking is completely ruining human interaction and how irritating it can really be. As a self-proclaimed Facebook addict, I am ready to get up on my soapbox and share with all the Wonderlings what drives me crazy about my favorite, irritation-inducing website.
1) Random People Asking to Be My Friend
When it comes to my personal Facebook account, my main agenda is to keep in touch with family and friends. Pictures and news are shared amongst people who often can’t get together because they are separated by miles, time zones, and busy schedules. You can understand my frustration when I get requests from people who are just trying to increase the number of “friends” on their profiles or want to share their thoughts with strangers. For me, Facebook is not the place for such interactions. That’s what blogs are for, especially because you can subscribe to someone else’s opinions without them having to subscribe to yours.
2) Political/Religious/Moral Discussions
Wasn’t there a time when it was rude to talk about money, religion, or politics? Now that practically everyone is online, people are finding it easier to connect with others who share similar ideals. However, I get so tired of repeated efforts to sway the opinion of voters, agnostics, or people who just don’t care. Everyone needs a cause, but spamming my news feed with pro-/anti-cause propaganda is only bound to get your posts hidden.
3) A Play-by-Play of Someone’s Every Move
No one wants to know what you eat at every meal (or what it looks like for that matter), every event you attend, how great or awful your day was, or why you just can’t understand something. There is such a thing as too much information and if you find yourself posting status updates more than once a day, you’re probably guilty of over-sharing.
4) Playing the Pity-Me Card
Do you know anyone who frequently posts things like “Why do bad things always happen to me?” or “Just another shitty day…?” Wah wah wah! Friends can only extend so many virtual hugs and offers of support before their sympathetic resources are depleted. Eventually, cries of anguish are going to fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Repetitive mopey posts by repetitively mopey people will be repetitively ignored. Plain and simple.
5) “Cleaning Up My Friends List” Posts
I’ve never really understood why people feel the need to declare that they’re cleaning up their friends list. The only thing I can think this accomplishes is to inform whoever it is that is being deleted that they are soon to be deleted just so they’ll notice. Why even announce it?!?! I’m not in the habit of deleting people off my profile, but when I have, it was a matter of personal preference that I didn’t feel needed the attention of everyone who reads my statuses.
6) Fighting With Spouses Through Status Updates
Speaking of deleting people, I recently unfriended some casual acquaintances who were married and shared a profile. In the last year, their relationship status has changed from “married” to “it’s complicated” to “single” and then back to “married” in one day more than a dozen times. After what seemed like the 48th time of witnessing their constant fighting in my news feed, I had enough and unfriended the perpetually unhappy duo. Chances are, if you’re fighting your battles on the internet, I don’t put much stock in your relationship going the distance.
7) Checking Into Places Like the Grocery Store
I am guilty of checking into places. However, I limit my check-in’s to places that I rarely visit (usually when I’m on vacation) as more of a way to capture fun times and less of a this-is-where-I-went-today series of diary entries. I don’t share when I have a doctor’s appointment or when I work out at the gym. If I wouldn’t care that one of my friends went to any of these places, why would they care if I did?
8) Taking Things Personally
Nothing bothers me more than people taking the internet so freakin’ seriously. I have personally dealt with folks being bothered that their friend requests weren’t accepted, engagement or birth announcements were received in a news feed rather than through snail mail, or found out that friends were hanging out without extending the invitation to all friends. Get over it! The internet is not the end-all-be-all of existence. How about putting some time into maintaining relationships in the real world rather than the virtual? Sometimes, I long for simpler days without the extreme sensitivity of the masses.
9) Mushy Declarations of Love
We get it, you’re in love. I’m all for couples sharing wedding, vacation, and family photos or exciting, life-changing news. What I don’t like is couples that post endless musings about how much they love the person they are with. An “I love you” every once in a while is fine, but if you check out someone’s wall and all you can see are posts from their significant other gushing about how amazing they are, my eyes will have inevitably rolled into the back of my head and I may or may not slam my forehead into the nearest wall. I can’t help but feel that these excessive online displays of affection are insincere and lacking any real depth. It just seems so phony to post daily about how wonderful someone’s partner is. If you want to do that, do it in private.
10) Copy and Paste Statuses
These have become the chain letters of the 21st century. Between the “post if you know someone who has battled cancer” to the “re-post if you support the troops,” they are all meaningless. For the record, many of my family members have succumbed to cancer and working for the military, I most definitely support the troops. Whether or not I re-post those generic statuses does not change anything.
Ok, I’m off my soapbox.
Defining Wonderland 
LOL! I laughed so hard at this. AWESOME! Thanks.
Thanks! I’m happy you found the humor in it. =)
WORD! So true! I hate all of those things too, especially the long, anooying declarations of love and poilitics. Yucky. Great post! Couldn’t have said it better.
Thanks! I knew I wasn’t the only who couldn’t stand certain Facebook behavior. I’m glad you could relate. xoxo
Great post! Among these, Playing the Pity-Me Card irritates me the most, the others are not much behind in the game too
Thank you! Playing the Pity-Me Card is definitely irritating especially when folks like to make their situation very ambiguous as a way to get people to ask what’s wrong. At the end of the day, if you are posting anything on the internet, chances are your life really isn’t that bad.
Amen Sister!
Could not agree more!
Cheers,
Laura
Thanks, Laura! I’m glad you agree. xoxo
Great post, I agree with everything you said. Facebook is more and more irritating and yet, we keep on spending so much time on it… I try to check it only 3 times a day and not to get too involved in it now.
Thanks, Cécile! I wish I had your self-control to only look at Facebook three times a day. Sadly, my phone alerts me far too often of posts, messages, and comments and I find myself logging in to see what’s new. It’s a vicious cycle.
This post could not be more perfect or fitting!! I agreed with all ten of your fantastic reasons!!
Thank you! I knew I couldn’t be the only one out there who felt this way. 😉
OMG, couldn’t agree more especially with points 4, 9 and 10!! Nice job – I found you through the Freshly Press yourself post on Truth and Cake!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. =)
That is great! I love them all, but #10 takes the cake! I always feel guilted into them, though I never do the reposting thing – but always imagine the person assuming I don’t care! 🙂 Great blog – found you though the amazing-ness of Truth & Cake..glad to be here 🙂
Thanks, PaperKeeper (what a great name)! You’re not alone… I feel guilty too. But those statuses are designed to make you feel guilty which is precisely why I can’t stand them. Truth and Cake is pretty amazing and I’m glad you like Defining Wonderland. 🙂
Fighting with spouses via status updates is bad…but fighting with ex-spouses is worse! Have seen it…blocked them both.
Cheers,
Laura
Good for you, Laura! I swear, social networking is bringing out the worst in people. Whatever happened to discretion?
Oh my god… so true!!
I’m glad you could relate, Kristen. And might I say, that picture is adorable! 🙂
Yep. You hit the nail on the head. Pretty much every last thing that annoys me too. I’ll go ahead and add one too: people that share their FB profiles with their SOs. It’s creepy and weird. Do they have no trust in each other? Are they not enough of an individual to have their own profiles? It disturbs me.
Oooh, that’s a good one too. I know quite a few couples that do that, but for the most part it’s because one member of the pair is more active on Facebook than the other. At least, that’s what it seems like from what I’ve seen. Still, I don’t think I would ever share a profile. It’s not that big of a deal to just create your own even if you rarely use it.
Right. Exactly.
I was going to list all of the ones that I agreed with. I agree with all of them. I never thought of the announcement of deleting friends as a way to let people know you are deleting them, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Whenever somebody does that, I’m usually thinking, “Please delete me. I’m sick of your religious, political, every-five-minute, drunken, fighting, copy-and-paste posts.”
Emily, I nearly spewed water out of my mouth after reading your plea to be deleted! Hahaha! I think YOU are the one who hit the nail on the head. 🙂
GREAT list! Thanks for a fun post! The daily play by plays drive me crazy and the relationship status thing is a hoot! Thanks for the giggle!
I’m glad I could tickle your fancy! I had to rescue this comment from the spam folder… not quite sure how it ended up there, but never fear, Defining Wonderland is here!
This is awesome, I agree with every single point! I especially agree with the ‘we are so in love’ updates. It always makes me a bit suspicious. if you were so in love then why are you posting on Facebook about it every 5 minutes rather than just being in love?
Thanks, Daile! My boyfriend and I occasionally comment on each other’s posts, but we don’t go out of our way to profess our devotion each and every day with saccharine pet names and gag-inducing mush. In fact, we don’t even have our relationship status on Facebook. The people who need to know, do know and that’s all that’s important.
Some of the “cleaning up my list” posts when I was on FB were from people who played FB games, the pixelated ones, not the mind ones. They didn’t want to keep someone on their list who no longer played the game. Other “clean up” posts were from people who rarely used FB and were just trying to keep their feed from being so cluttered.
I got tired of the endless instagrams of people’s food. Is that a thing anymore? I hope not. And the endless someecards. Save me!
I see nothing wrong with “cleaning up” on Facebook, but I don’t think everyone needs to know that people are doing it.
I am definitely guilty of food photos, but that’s because I like to cook and show off my creations. It’s not a chronicle of my daily meals. That would just be excess.
The daily chronicles kill me. “Here’s my bowl of cheerios. I think this Instagram filter sets it off nicely. I know it looks Honey Nut, but it’s PLAIN!”
Haha! Damn those filters!