Facebook fatigue
2008-01-11 12:24
Georgina Guedes
I came back from the holidays full of energy - I unpacked my bags the day after I arrived home (unheard of), I cleaned the house, made lists of things to do, billed clients, did things on the list of things to do, and even managed to plan and throw a New Years party amidst all of that.
This is a strong recommendation for not going straight back to work after coming home. We could only secure a booking at our holiday destination for the two weeks before Christmas, and so, our little group of friends was in Johannesburg for the week leading up to New Year.
We were all filled with similar housekeeping energy. It's not as if there was anything else to do in Jo'burg during that week.
But no Facebook
Interestingly, the one thing that didn't fall under into the category of the seriously sorted out was my Facebook profile. I just somehow couldn't be bothered.
I toyed with the idea of putting "load holiday photos onto Facebook" on the To Do list, but realised that since social networking is supposed to be a leisure activity, if I didn't feel the inclination, I certainly wasn't going to cut into my admin time by making it into a chore.
Then, my friend Tim, who went on holiday with us, who had collected everyone's photos onto his laptop, posted and tagged my photos on his Facebook page. There was now no need to do absolutely anything more.
I've even let my wedding Group and event page lapse, and there are a terrifying number of notifications that I haven't found the time to wade through.
What now?
I am guessing that lots of people are feeling a similar Facebook fatigue. You've loaded all the apps that you were going to, you've deleted the irritating ones (Zombie, Funwall), you've connected to a web of friends, haven't bothered to even look at all their profiles and you've done endless pointless quizzes.
I considered joining the Group, "I see the Group title, I smile, I join and I never look at the Group again", but I figured that if ever there was a self-fulfilling title, that was it.
I still have a couple of live Scrabulous games, which I quite enjoy, though.
I've logged in once or twice, haven't updated my status, even though the mandatory "is" has been removed, allowing me to state "Georgina Guedes finds Facebook boring" rather than "Georgina Guedes is finding Facebook boring".
The thing is, I was never a particularly ardent social networker to start with. I set up my profile, linked to everyone I could think of, responded to all kinds of requests, and then I kind of thought, "now what?" Other than the Scrabulous, of course.
The one thing that I did enjoy was looking at friends' photos, and receiving photos of my own. Now, thanks to Tim's December posting, the one task I felt obliged to perform is out of my hands (and thanks so much, Tim, for heeding my request about keeping those waterfall photos under wraps).
I would almost be inclined to make sweeping predictions about Facebook's impending decline, but then I realise that as soon as real life kicks back in, and there are deadlines to meet and work to do, Facebook will regain its appeal as a Wabbing (work avoidance behaviour) tool.
And that's why so many businesses ban Facebook on their work networks, isn't it? Facebook isn't about avoiding life.
Georgina Guedes is a freelance journalist. She "is" thinking it's time for Facebook 2.0
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