Read the previous post.
The final face of Facebook is the most telling because it gets at the personality preference which is actually the driving force behind social media. It’s a face that I know well because I see it in the mirror every day.
The Introverted Face
Extroverts draw their energy from being around other people, which means actually being physically present with them. Having a preference for extroversion does not equal constant communication. In fact, some extraverts are not especially talkative, but they do process things externally more than inwardly, and too much solitude is draining for them.
People with a preference for introversion tend to prefer communicate through writing, especially to express the thoughts, feelings, and ideas they’ve been processing internally. If they can do it alone, all the better. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the internet, including social media sites, is dominated by introverts. And Facebook is pretty much a dream come true in terms of managing relationships. So much less draining to connect with people without actually having to engage in small talk or make lots of phone calls or be under the pressure of having to think of what to say on the spot.
Ironically, extraverts are less likely to be enmeshed in online communities because sitting alone at a computer for long periods of time is simply antithetical to their personality type. Nor can they be stationary for hours reading and writing instead of moving about and speaking face-to-face. My extraverted husband is the perfect example. When he goes online, it’s rarely to socialize. It’s to read the news or watch youtube or look up something. He doesn’t check his Facebook every day and when he signs on, it’s only for a few minutes. This is not to say extraverts are immune to compulsive behavior with social media, but that would likely be a symptom that they were either in a deprivatory state (not being around people enough) or overindulging that preference (not wanting to be by themselves in any way).
Having established that the face (personality) of the most active users of Facebook is introverted, a dichotomy arises. Introverts, being as internal as we are, have a deep need for privacy. We are careful about who we let into our lives and we don’t like to be surrounded by people. Earlier on in this series, I compared status updates to having one’s own personal billboard to announce the mundane happenings of your life (or your deepest thoughts) to 50 or 300 or 2000 people you’ve met (or not even). If you’re an introvert, that kind of behavior is not just absurd, it’s going against who you are.
Or is it?
Well, maybe it is, when you get nothing in return from the majority of your audience. After all, an author or a speaker who tells all gets applause or book sales or fan mail for their transparency. They know they’ve been heard and that others valued their communication. Imagine if someone wrote an autobiography and distributed it to all their family and friends, but only a couple people ever responded. Might this person feel somewhat naked and embarrassed?
So they’re insecure, but aren’t we all? They chose to reveal their flaws, their fears, their struggles, so it’s not fair to fault them for expecting an acknowledgement, a validation of their humanity, a simple, “me, too.” Anything but the silence which seems to shout TMI, TMI! (Too Much Information)
I think I’ve made my point by taking it too far. That’s exactly what happens to some kinds of people on Facebook. I can speak for them because I was one: an introvert, a writer, an idealist, a techo-geek, a woman of conviction and intellect at home alone with three young children, still struggling to acclimate to the demands of domesticity, now embarking on the education of her oldest child, and soon the younger ones.
Keeping myself in the third person, because it feels safer there…she loves her roles as mother and teacher and even homemaker, but they’re still foreign to her, and she’s overwhelmed, because she’s always been more heady than hands-on, more about ideas than externals. So throughout the day she retreats to her online world. It’s a way to keep exercising her mind and her gift of writing, but it’s also a way to connect with other grown-ups, or so she thinks. But she has too many expectations on her 166 “friends” on Facebook, none of which (except her husband) she has any kind of consistent communication with offline.
She spends too much time investing in these relationships on Facebook, even though she’s not there all the time. Because she’s the way she is (loving to read and write and learn more than anything, except maybe eating), she also surfs the web, researching topics, reading news, posting to her blog, and most of all, checking. Checking email, checking comments, checking statuses, checking stats, checking, checking, checking! She wishes she could have a check in her checking account for every time she’s checked something.
All in all, her screen time is adding up to a big distraction from her actual tangible life. She is slow and methodical and not naturally a multi-tasker, so it takes her longer to do tasks than other people (this is often true of introverts). The organization of her home is suffering (despite her outstanding organizational abilities), her cleaning skills certainly aren’t improving, and her projects (photos, filing, document preservation, etc.) are all years behind. More importantly, she is not as present with her children as she knows she should be, and of course it affects her marriage.
Ironically, in her inner world, her creativity is forever procrastinated as it’s nickeled and dimed to death eeking itself out in status updates and blurbs instead of being channeled into carefully crafted prose. And in her online life, she struggles with the tension between her need for privacy and her need for transparency, her desire to connect and her desire to withdraw, her urge to communicate and her desire to be restrained. She begins to realize that she experiences Facebook very differently from most, if not all of her 166 friends. There are a few kindred spirits and a number of others who she very much enjoys relating with, but the bulk of her network is just sort of “there” …and not there at the same time.
In all of her distractedness and angst, she is still doing lots of things right, and grace seems to cover over the rest, but that same grace makes her want to change. That grace actually beckons, entices, woos her away from her laptop and into the life she has been given.
To fully receive it, but she has to give up something. It can’t be her writing, because she’s done that before, and it always finds a way out, so what will that way be? She doesn’t want to give up her friends, but if there is no real relationship with them outside the internet, is that really friendship? Yes and no. It’s not clear. But the word “simplify” keeps coming back to her.
And so she gives up Facebook. She keeps her blog, but she is not compulsive about checking it for comments or stats (well, maybe a little, but nowhere near all the checking she did on Facebook). She quits Twitter (which she had only been on a month) but signs back on, this time without following anyone back. She still likes microblogging but wants to do it on her own terms, even if it’s antithetical to the system.
In another life, one where there were no kids at home, and she was paid to write or research or be a techno-geek, she could justify spending hours online, but that is not her life, and it pales in comparison to the rich life she has been given, the one that she has just barely mined the surface of, and which will disappear before she knows it as her children grow up and she ages.
Happy Mother’s Day!
12 Comments
May 9, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Blessed Mother’s Day my beloved^_^
May 11, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I enjoyed your article about Facebook. It is a strange time we live in, isn’t it? Anyway, let’s get together sometime soon, you have my email address. I am around on weekends if you have time.
May 15, 2009 at 10:06 am
I read your 4th entry about Facebook and it resonated so much with me, although I am an ENTJ. I am an extrovert, and have such a conflicted relationship with FB. Yesterday I learned of a dear friend’s passing, by accident, happening upon it in a photo album of a complete stranger. It was horrible. I learned of two friend’s divorces on FB, and other things better left to phone calls and immediate prayer and processing with another person. Not staring helplessly at a computer monitor. As an extravert who also struggles with being home 24/7, I confess FB is an escape from my life, but also such a distraction that I don’t even understand what I am trying to escape from. My children do pay a price. I am seriously considering signing off too. Thanks for the nudge.
May 15, 2009 at 11:35 am
Donelle sent me this way after we started talking about FB. I’m not a huge fan of Facebook. I find it to be an excellent way to get back in touch with people that I haven’t seen in eons. But it’s a horrible way to actually have any sort of meaningful conversation with those same people. (I much prefer Multiply.com which is the exact reverse of FB. My experience is that you have to drag people to Multiply, but once you get them there, you can have some really incredible and deep conversations with them. You mention telling people about your life and then not getting much of a response and then feeling kinda weird about it. I see that not only on Facebook but in blogs on livejournal, wordpress, blogger, etc. And yet on Multiply, the conversation after the post is often far more interesting than the post itself. And I even have one friend that’s been complaining to me that I have one conversation going that just won’t stop! But I digress majorly here.)
I find that Facebook is very much like being in a crowded and smoke filled room. As you look around, you see many smiling faces that are familiar and you wave to each of these people. But that’s it. You can try to talk to these people but the room is so loud you can barely maintain a decent chat. And before long you feel worse off than before you saw them because now you Do see them, but you’re no closer than when they were just fond memories.
Facebook was created with the intent that college students could find other college students… primarily for dating. It wasn’t at all made for close friends and family to share things online (like photos, videos, recipes, and long conversations).
Why Facebook has grown to its current size baffles me. The only thing that I really like about it is the ability to find and support causes through their system. But other than that, it’s really just a mass of quizzes and games that interfere with trying to connect in a system that already has a crappy infrastructure for connecting.
As far as the introvert/extrovert bit goes, I tend to agree. I find that, as an introvert, I can think through my thoughts before I add them to a conversation, which is far more comfortable to me than being put on the spot and not knowing how to answer, then coming up with the perfect response 3 hours later when the dinner party’s over. Hate that. By using the internet to talk with people, I find that I’m able to focus more on the conversation and worry less about whether they’ve gotten enough to eat, is the room warm enough or should I turn up the thermostat, should we move to the living room now, etc. Not that all those things are important parts of learning to be hospitable and welcoming people into my home. But I like both. And when it comes to a really solid conversation, I feel more comfortable engaging online than in person.
May 15, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Donelle, thanks for touching on another disturbing aspect of the Facebook experience. My husband and I have both been left wondering about marriages where suddenly the status says “single.” I suppose it’s better than not finding out about a divorce or a death at all, but I can understand it being jolting. So sorry that happened to you.
Meg, Multiply is intriguing but unlike Facebook, there is no way to make one’s location private. I checked the help section and
The bottom line, though, for me is the time issue. I love have in-depth conversations online or off, but it’s time consuming, and for every person or group that I network myself to, that means more minutes, hours…posting, commenting, etc. which is simply not available to me as a wife, mom to three young children, homeschooler, homemaker, and business partner with my husband. Beyond that, my callings are to writing and ministry within my own church and the greater community. And let’s not even mention exercise, getting out into nature, etc.
Blogs are immune from consuming too much time either (initially I didn’t even have comments open, but when I left Facebook, I changed that). But I have experience with blogging–I learned a lot during the season when I was an accidental avid blogger (not this blog), so I have boundaries now that help me not to overdo it. I won’t have the popularity or “relationships” I had before since I’m not going to play by the rules of the blogosphere this time (networking myself to death). Again, there’s a lot more I could say about this, but I’m not ready to just yet–and responding to all these comments, I’m definitely over my time limit! I’ve definitely enjoyed your input here, Meg, though, so I hope you’ll visit when you can (or add me to your RSS reader, tee hee
May 15, 2009 at 8:11 pm
wow, donelle. how did i miss your comment? that’s kinda freaky. i remember seeing the first two comments but not yours.
myrrh, there are actually a couple of ways to make your location private. the one most people use is just to put in 000000 for their zip code. as much as i love multiply, their FAQ leaves a bit to be desired. http://mtutorials.multiply.com or http://usersupport.multiply.com are both better places to go to get tips and help with using multiply.
as far as consuming time. in some ways it definitely does and in some ways it’s a time saver. i have friends who check in with my blog and they always know how i’m doing. they don’t spend much time commenting, but when we do chat (usually via email) i don’t have to go back and fill the in on all the details of my life because they already know most of them from my posts. instead we can actually get to the nitty gritty of our lives and HOW we’re coping with things. i don’t have to start with 30 minutes of explanation and then lost that actual discussion time.
i have another friend who doesn’t read my blog and then she’ll write and say, “so how’s your dad?” or “how’s the remodel coming along” and it actually hurts that i’ve spent so much time and energy making sure my friends have a means of keeping up with me and instead of using it she expects me to repeat, just for her, what i’ve already posted for her to read. it’s like writing a letter to a friend and having them call you and say, “i just got your letter and haven’t read it yet so why don’t you just tell me what it says.” i simply cannot do that for all the close friends i have that i want to keep in touch with. i would be spending all of my time on that and not on kids or work or family. i love my friends. and i want to spend quality time with them. but i don’t want to rehash the same exact stuff for each and every friend when i could do it once and move on to the meat of our relationships instead.
May 15, 2009 at 9:52 pm
The reason you didn’t see her comment earlier is because it was posted to the About page, and I’m such an organizational control freak that I moved it :p
I see I didn’t even finish my sentence earlier (I’m always doing that) but thanks for the tip on how to hide location. I also often miss the obvious
May 15, 2009 at 10:19 pm
HI, Just getting caught up on your blog. I haven’t been “checking” my regular blogs lately. Somehow real life has consumed my blog-reading and facebook-checking time lately. I’ll attribute it to trying to sell our house, nursing and preschool activities. I digress. Reading your blog reminded me about the mbti. We are going to do it this week. Thanks! It was good to read your posts.
May 16, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Always nice to hear from you, Kaarin. I totally understand your being otherwise occupied! Being present in the present (attending to the here and now) frees us to engage creative ideas and future possibilities. At least that’s what I’m telling myself so that I’ll finally get unplugged long enough to catch up on the past and install order that I can maintain, so I won’t get bogged down again. There I go talking about it again instead of taking action!
October 5, 2009 at 6:33 am
[...] writing about introverts in general and INFJs more specifically, she wrote this little gem in Part 4. I sent her an email and said she must have been living in my head the past few months because [...]
November 11, 2009 at 7:21 pm
[...] The Many Faces of Facebook [...]
December 24, 2009 at 1:58 am
Confession time…I’m back on Facebook (but in a whole new way–well, sort of). Epilogue coming in 2010…