I am Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who conceptualized Facebook from scratch, the guy who wrote every detail and created every feature onto the very first Facebook web pages people ever saw, after  working on a website at Harvard College that rated  female students there against each other in terms of beauty noticed one very interesting thing. He noticed that his website had a great audience because people went there to see other people they knew, who were in their circle of friends. This then became the central focus of what later was created after, Facebook.

He was right, the main attraction of Facebook is that we go there to chat with our friends, see their pictures, and see what’s happening in their lives. In short the reason we habit such social networks is so we can share the lives of our friends rather than the lives of those we do not know. It’s like the lives of the people we see are an extension of our own lives. We live a particular part of life through them.

On the face of it there isn’t much harm with chatting, messaging, looking through friend’s pictures or sharing the lives of our friends. I would say it has improved human communications and relations a great deal, making it easier, faster, cheaper and much more fun to stay in touch with relations, friends from long ago and new people we meet.

It does become a problem however when sharing the lives of others makes you feel discontented with your own life. At some point everyone will feel that way if they frequent social networks. My theory is simple: We all have some aspects of our lives that we are unhappy with. We have some need in our lives that is not met and there is someone somewhere at exactly this minute that is showing off what we do not have in our lives on his or her Facebook page and he happens to be someone who is our “Friend” on Facebook. We will see what he has, and since we already want it, we will naturally feel like that thing is needed in our lives, like something is so desperately missing from our own lives.

As an example, let’s say a girl who has been desperately, I mean seriously badly wanting to get married but for some reason cant get any man to marry her goes through the Facebook page and comes across pictures of a friends wedding ceremony. For sure she will be happy for her friend. But a part of her will be crying inside wishing it was her on that alter, her being told “for better and for worse”. Won’t it get much worse when she comes across pictures of another friend showing a family photo of three smiling faces of the friend, her husband and a baby boy having fun somewhere?

Let’s take a look at another scenario. Suppose you are a guy who is doing pretty okay but you need a serious breakthrough. You have been praying for over a year for a job because the one you are working on just isn’t something you can build a future on. You try and you try but hey there just is no progress, you feel like you are stuck in a rut with no one to pull you out. Now let’s say you log in to your Facebook page to check your messages. Somehow you get sidetracked, decide to see what people are up to. Among the many status updates and the image uploads you see some “I love my job”,  “my boss is sending me to Switzerland “ statuses as well as pictures of people in an office that looks like your dream place to work in. Part of you will shrug and say that’s their luck but there is always a part that wants that blessing for yourself.

Now let’s say there’s a guy out there who feels his life seriously sucks. He doesn’t party, he has no girlfriend and has no friends to hang out with: zero social life apart from Facebook. He is a lonely guy and feels pretty much down low. Should we then expect this guy to not wish he was at this party he is seeing on this picture or he was with that girl who looks so pretty or he had someone to chat with as good as that person is chatting with that one on that wall?

We go to social networks to connect with friends and have them share their lives with us and ours with them. Percentages of our time on such sites are divided between messaging, commenting on a friends status, group chats and looking through peoples profile information and pictures. Its fun, it passes the time, it’s the thing in our generation right now, it’s just a part of our lives that happens to be technological. It’s who we are; Facebook is now a part of our identity. We are Facebook.

As natural and harmless as Facebooking, Tweeting etc may be to the millions of users in today’s world we must take special care that our social networking experience does not make our lives seem dull, empty or meaningless. If we do start to feel this way then we will fall into all sorts of sins that will ensure us a VVIP seat in the lake of fire when the world is called to judgment by Jehovah.

For if we should desire the blessings of others we run the risk of falling into sin. The bible clearly says: ““You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Deuteronomy 5: 21).

I should think in today’s technological world that law would translate to the following: desiring you were the one with that nice family rather than your friend or colleague on that picture on Facebook. Wishing you were the one with enough money to take your family on holiday overseas rather than that guy who is saying he is doing so on his status update. Wishing you had that great job instead of that guy. Wishing you were in that group of friends like your friend in that picture there. Even worse wishing you were the one having sex daily and drinking and partying continuously as many are prone to say they are doing.

Regardless of whether or not such claims by people are true we should always remember that it is God who designed life and tailor-made you to be what you are. It says in Acts 17:26 that he planned where you will live, what you will do and what kind of person you would be. We might not always like who we are or what we have but you cannot always have things the way you want them, that’s just life.

Either way the bible says every man should be content with the lot in life that he is given (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13). That means the life he is given to live, and the things and people (or lack of) that naturally come with that life. If we learn to be satisfied with what we have rather than chasing other people’s achievements we will be a lot happier, I think.