My fingers itch for it, but I’ve been able to stay away. It feels like quitting smoking. Cigarettes were a reflex. They were linked to specific contexts, like the waiting-for-the-bus cigarette.
The waiting-for-the-bus Facebook.
It took me many tries to leave cigarettes behind 100%. The fails taught me all the ways not to fail, one painful lesson at a time.
I don’t miss the same overposting marginal acquaintances, day after day. Some of them I was charmed by, but with most of the people whose posts appeared in my feed, we had no relationship apart from the algorithmic sizzle.
I got crushy on one overposting marginal acquaintance – that’s how good the posts were. She dated a slightly less marginal acquaintance who lived across the hall in my freshman dorm. I was not super impressed at the time, but over the decades our tastes must have converged. It wasn’t a sex appeal thing, only the posts.
A few of the people in my feed were real friends, and the social network nourished our relationship in a way that was genuine. One of those folks sent me an email a couple of days ago as a followup to a Facebook thread a month back. I’ll need to develop new lines of connection with the people I care about.
I might even send some letters, that’s how bad things are. At least I still have Twitter.
