Editor’s Note: Steven Halbert is about to bite the hand that feeds him and shoot himself in the foot as he places it squarely into his mouth. In September of 2009, I disabled my Facebook account. That was eight years ago. I had been leading up to that for several months by being less and less active, but in September 2009, I finally pulled the plug.
The Great Recession was in full force, President Obama would struggle for another six months to pass the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and we were all anticipating exactly how the creators of the TV series Lost were going to salvage the show in its final season . . . they did not. I had graduated with an MA in English from Auburn University a little over a year prior, and was settling in to my first “real job” as a division director for a non-profit in my hometown. I decided that Facebook was a distraction, and I wanted to pursue real friendships instead of just pretending to be close to someone who I hadn’t spoke with for years but about whom I knew an inordinate amount of details. People with whom I had been close at one time or another, but with whom I had lost all but digital contact due to the effects of time and distance. And so it began. Nearly a decade without Facebook. Then, three weeks ago, I signed back on. It was like putting a key into the lock of a home that you have rented out but haven’t visited in eight years. Everything is still there, but everything is very different. Some people are glad you’re back; some people don’t care. Some people are married; some people who were married, aren’t anymore. Some people have kids. Some people are far away; some people are closer than you thought. There are new people. Lots of new people. And there are stores and other businesses too. It’s become an entire online community. And therein lies the reason for my return. I’ve written a book. I’ve written a book that no one will publish, because I don’t have a “platform.” If I had more of an online presence with a few thousand follower, perhaps my book might be more intriguing. But with the rise of online retailing and eBooks, the big box stores are only buying a “sure thing.” How is a publisher to survive except through online retailing, and how is an author to have success unless he or she has an online platform? So I dove back into the world of Facebook (and my wife has been helping me get reacclimated). I’m trying to master “liking” and “sharing” – which weren’t things when I left. I’m dabbling in ads and I’m trying to build a following before I self-publish on November 6th 2017 (if I have to do all this work regardless, I might as well reap some of the benefits by self-publishing, right?). Turns out that writing the book was the easy part. I have forty backers on KickStarter, and eighty-eight followers on my Facebook author page. Not bad for three weeks, right? . . . wrong! In order to really be successful, a book has to move a high volume in short amount of time (think 1,000 to 3,000 copies in the first week). Then it starts showing up on people’s radars and might get larger distribution orders. But enough about the book. What I’ve really been encouraged by in my return to Facebook is the amount of support I’ve received. People who I haven’t spoken to in years are genuinely interested in what I’m doing and in supporting me (sometimes to a degree that I’m shocked and humbled by). And it really has been a treat to browse through the last eight years of someone’s timeline to see what they’ve been up to. Although, since I’ve been off Facebook and don’t have a timeline, I’m still not sure how to succinctly answer the, “what’ve you been up to?” question. When I signed back on, Facebook wanted me to pick three favorite pictures from the last eight years. I’m still wondering if I picked right. I felt like that was a really big decision. How do you encapsulate eight years with three pictures? While it has been wonderful to be back on, I am more acutely aware than ever of some of the dangers. More acutely than ever, because my re-entry is still fresh and I can see these things more keenly. I have not yet grown numb and oblivious to them. So here are my four observations about Facebook after having been back for three weeks. First, Facebook is a time-sucker. I used to read the news, be more attentive at home, or, in general, use my time more constructively. Facebook is like the water in a jar that has been filled with rocks, then pebbles, then sand. It seeps into all the areas of our lives that used to be filled with other pleasantries. Second, Facebook encourages disingeniousness. It is a rare day that someone posts a struggle or a mess. When they do, it is usually far enough after the fact that we can “laugh about it” (or say something funny and get some “likes”). I put my life and the lives of my family on display in order for you to think that everything is awesome. And when people do put real struggles out there, it is often met with awkward silence, unhelpful advice, or a genuine disinterestedness because the digital community was never meant to function in the more serious realm of real problems. Third, it increases hubris. We are eager for “likes” and comments. To illustrate this point – I am writing this article while on an airplane. Just before powering down my phone, I posted that I was thinking about writing this article and asking a few questions like, “How has social media changed (and changed you) over the past decade?” and “What would it take for you to get off of it (i.e. what changes would happen in your life if you dropped Facebook)?” I can’t wait to land to see if I got responses. I am genuinely interested in the responses, but I’m also interested in the response rate. Fourthly, and finally, Facebook encourages me to bring a consumeristic mindset to the realm of relationships. It commodifies people. On Facebook, I can collect friends and followers like material goods. I can take them out and look at them whenever I want to and I can hide, block, and otherwise ignore them when I feel like it. They are there for my convenience. All that being said, here I am. The best way for me to describe Facebook – along with the rest of the burgeoning social media industry – is that it has become a marketing tool for everyone’s personal brand, and corporations are becoming more and more savvy at tapping into that so that our personal and corporate images are beginning to mingle. Despite all this, I’m still on. For those of you using social media innocently and in positive ways, don’t be discouraged. It is a powerful tool with the ability to bring people together like nothing else in history. Just recognize the dangers and take measures to guard you and your family against misuse. This is the world we live in. In less than two decades (Mark Zuckerberg is only thirty-three-years-old), social media has already rooted itself deeply into our social fabric and our cultural psyche. As someone coming back into this world after an eight-year hiatus, my one piece of advice: Click Responsibly. Steven Halbert is the author of the book, The Relational God. In the spirit of clicking responsibly, for more information, please visit, follow, and share Steven Halbert’s author page or order the book. Thank you.#Facebook#socialmedia#TheRelationalGod#post