That's it! I'm done! I have completely cut off my relationship with...Facebook. Why? Well, let's start by sharing a little bit about this love/hate relationship I had with Facebook.
I joined Facebook mainly at the prompting of other youth ministers in my area. They used this social networking tool to communicate important events and other things to the teens that attended their youth groups. Some of them also used it to "keep an eye" on their teens. I thought it would be a good way to share with them the different youth group events and to minister to them--to share a bit of my faith with them. So I joined. At first, I didn't know what I was doing, and the whole idea seemed pointless. And then I started finding friends. Not teens that were coming to my youth group, but old high school and college friends. So I started adding everyone I once knew to my list of friends. I also found the teens that come to youth group and added them as friends as well. I even created a fan page for the youth group so I can communicate directly with them.
As time went on, I began to have an almost addictive desire to check my Facebook page..."What's so and so doing?" "Did anyone comment on my status update?" I would pull myself away from family time just to check and see if anything was happening on Facebook, only to discover that nothing was happening. Nothing ever happened on Facebook. Yes, every once in a while, someone would post a funny YouTube video or an inspiring quote from some saint, but as a whole, Facebook, for me, was nothing but a time waster.
I would try to put links to my blog posts and inspiring quotes and scripture passages up on my Facebook pages, in an effort to expand my ministry to the teens. Whether they got anything from those efforts or not, I don't know. You see, the problem with Facebook, at least for me, is that the "relationships" I had there weren't real. There was no real connection to anyone, even the teens that I see on a weekly basis. Yes, it was neat to reconnect with old high school friends and to see what they were up to these days, but after that initial connection, there wasn't really much to say. After 15 years of not speaking to someone, it is hard to re-start a relationship. Now there are exceptions to this. My wife, for instance, reconnected with a friend through Facebook that she hasn't spoken to for many years and they have really connected. We stayed with her recently when we visited St. Louis, and they are coming to Florida this summer to see us. But that sort of connection does not happen often, at least it hasn't for me.
Facebook gives a false sense of friendship. I had 147 Facebook friends, but were they all really my friends? Some of them, yes. But most of them, the only connection I had with them is through seeing what their status updates were. That isn't friendship. A true friend is someone you have an open dialogue with, preferably face to face. A true friendship at the very least, requires verbal communication. Facebook can't give that.
So, in the end, I decided to sever my relationship with Facebook because it was a waste of time. I decided that it was more important for me to foster my face-to-face friendships than it was for me to spend time voyeuristically seeing what everyone else was doing. I need to spend more time connecting with my wife and children. I need to spend more time connecting with the real friendships that I do have. I need to spend more time connecting with the teens in youth group. Facebook never provided the connection that I thought that it would when I joined.