For one who writes a blog as personal as mine, an internet community such as Facebook shouldn’t be a big deal. I started my career as a citizen of the internet at the tender age of 12, when I became ZebraGirl @ Lunarstorm, a Swedish internet community. There, I kept a journal, wrote to my friends and had some really strange conversations with strangers. And from there I guess my internet identity started to grow, through several other internet communities and the blog that I started at 18, until Facebook came like a tsunami over the world and more or less destroyed all the competition.
I was 19 when I joined Facebook, and to start with I found it really practical. It had so many extra features, and since it was international, I could reconnect with some of the friends that I had outside of Sweden aswell. Especially during my travels in South America, I used Facebook alot – to upload photos, write to my friends and stay in touch with all the new people that I met on the road. A few of them I have actually been able to contact now, thanks to Facebook, so that I have couches to sleep on both in Portland and San Francisco this summer. Used as an extended address book, Facebook is an amazing tool.
But it’s the new developments with Facebook that have come with the introduction of smartphones that I find uncomfortable. Maybe I’m just scared and conservative and don’t understand the thing because I don’t have a smartphone. But people seem to live their lives through Facebook, updating their profiles with everything, photos and music and ideas and opinions and it’s kind of like high school, this showing off, and that automatically leads to me feeling inadequate.
Someone told me once that she envied and respected my integrity. For a reader of this blog that might sound strange, since I reveal just about anything about myself here. But for me it’s not the same thing. Here, I strive for some kind of artistic quality. I know that that sounds pretentious, and I’m not saying that I succeed with it – but it’s a goal. I haven’t totally lost hope yet of one day being able to call myself a writer, but to end up there I have to practice and practice. On this blog, with the knowledge that someone might read what I write, I have to make myself write well. With the potentiality of a reader, my writing becomes more alive. Not at all like my diary. That is probably the most boring read you could ever have.
And really, there are a lot of things that I don’t write about here. The everyday stuff, details. The things that someone might publish on the feed on Facebook. For me, that feed has become a way to stay distant from the people that I claim to know. I can read what they do and they can read what I do without us ever having a single conversation. It’s like tabloid headlines, but instead of celebrities the featured persons are my former classmates and stable buddies and collegues. I don’t really know why, but it makes me feel really sad and disconnected. It has gone so far now, that I try to avoid Facebook altogether. For other than the extended address book features, I stay away.
Because there is a difference. Here, on the blog, I am the writer and you are the readers. Here, I require no two-way dialogue. It is part of the concept, and I am well aware of what I write about. But there, on Facebook, we’re supposed to be friends, and for me friendship is about mutuality. If I tell you something, I want you to tell me something in return. My need for social interaction has never been dominant, I have always enjoyed my own company too much. So when I do spend time with someone, I have actively chosen to do so because the person intrigues me, challanges me or I like the way the person makes me feel. Small talk with no one in particular doesn’t appeal to me. And friendship isn’t something that I take lightly. It’s about sharing, about a personal connection – and on the Facebook feed I feel as if I loose all control over who I share what with. I feel as if I loose myself. I guess that’s where my integrity draws my line.
Katja Malmborg 