Inheriting an old iPhone from my stepmom has created new habits for me. I check my Facebook account several times a day. I had a period around 2007, when I joined, and until about 2009, when I came home from Bolivia, when I used Facebook kind of regularily. Not much, but I uploaded pictures sometimes and sent messages to friends. After that, though, my Facebook habits have become more and more irregular and the last year, I haven’t been active at all. But, now that I have an iPhone, with internet connection everywhere, it’s just so easy to just pick up the phone and do some Facebooking while waiting for a lecture to start or the pasta to be done cooking. It’s not as if I have started doing more on Facebook, leaving a trace of myself there. No, I spy on other people. Mainly, read the news feed.
I know that Maija, the Finnish friend I made in Tanzania twelve years ago but haven’t met for atleast six years, lives happily in London. I know that her little brother is studying in London too. I know that Helena, a girl I used to ride with as a teenager, now lives in Miami with her husband and competes in show jumping with her beautiful horse. I know that Sanna and Niklas, old classmates from highschool, are still trying to make it with their rock band. I know that Jessica, another riding buddy, has twins. And that Lottie, a friend of an old highschool friend, just bought an apartment. The list could go on and on and on.
What do I need all this knowledge for? These are all people I lost contact with years ago, that I’ll probably never meet again and whose lives are so completely different from mine. They mean nothing to me anymore. But still I can’t stop. It’s like the tabloid headlines – you just can’t not read them. It is gossip, and I compare with myself, and mostly it just makes me irritated. But I keep on doing it.
I need to learn how to handle a smartphone. Otherwise, it will ruin my life.
Katja Malmborg 