How to deal with Facebook envy

A few years ago I set up a Facebook account using the email address I use to get feedback from readers of this column.  My intent was to give readers another way to stay in touch with me, but it turned out that not very many people who read my column wanted to stay in touch with me enough to bother “friending” me on Facebook.  My Friends List was embarrassingly small.

But once I had an account I went ahead and connected with family members, coworkers, and some people I went to school with.  My Friends List is still pretty small compared to the hundreds, if not thousands of “friends” a lot people have on Facebook, but for an introvert like me the illusion of having that many social connections was pretty satisfying.

I think the key to my satisfaction with Facebook is the fact that once I was happy with the size of my Friends List I stopped logging on to it.  My generally favorable opinion of the site is probably closely tied to the fact that I don’t use it to actually try and communicate with anyone.

A recently published study by two German universities would seem to validate that theory.  It found that 1 in 3 people who use Facebook regularly were measurably less happy with their lives as a result.  The ones who were most likely to be unhappy were users who merely browsed other people’s contributions to the site and did not actively post information of their own.

The source of their unhappiness seemed to come down to envy.  The most disenchanted Facebook users tended to be driven to despair by the fact that they received less birthday wishes and fewer “likes” and comments on their pictures and postings than other users on their Friends List.  It sounds a lot like high school, doesn’t it?  No wonder I never felt compelled to spend much time there.

Facebook reminds me a bit of the year-end newsletters that some people stick inside their Christmas cards.  You know what I’m talking about – the ones where they tell you how awesome their lives have been over the last year.  They don’t actually include the line “you should be jealous of me,” but it’s certainly strongly implied.

Facebook is a lot like that, it’s just more high tech and it’s available all the time instead of just once a year.  It’s just another way technology is making our lives better, I suppose.

So you should probably stay away from Facebook, but if you just have to see what the people you love, like, or barely know are up to, keep this in mind.  Just like they do with those Christmas newsletters, people edit heavily on Facebook.  They tell you all the good things that happen to them but they generally leave out all the unpleasant or embarrassing details that befall all of us with great regularity.

Most people aren’t going to tell you that their son just got a DUI, their daughter got another tattoo, or that Mom broke Dad’s nose when she found out he was sleeping with a coworker.  A very small number of Facebook users do actually post about embarrassing stuff like that (and frankly they are the only ones that are worth following) but most people are going to whitewash everything and make their lives seem nearly perfect.

Just remember that a person’s Facebook profile represents what they want their life to seem like to the outside world and you should be able to keep your envy down to a reasonable level.  If that doesn’t work just post this quote from a recent CNN article as your status on Facebook today and you’ll feel a little better:

“Research from Western Illinois University showed a link between the number of Facebook friends you have and how active you are on the site to the likelihood of being a ‘socially disruptive’ narcissist.”

Time for GOP to make their stand

This is a tough time to be a Republican.  First they lost the presidential election and then the whole fiscal cliff thing seemed to put them in an even worse position.  Many of them ended up having to cave in on their no-tax-increase-ever pledge and that seems to have caused more division within their already fractured ranks.

Honestly, I feel bad for them.  They were put in a really tough spot having to decide whether to vote for a plan that would raise taxes on some of us or do nothing and see taxes raised on almost everyone.  I’m not going to pile on Republicans who voted in favor of the plan.  I might have done the same thing in their position

But the Tea Party crowd is not as understanding as I am.  They are promising to challenge any tax turncoats who voted in favor of the fiscal cliff compromise in the next election cycle.  I understand their frustration, I really do.  And I don’t think for a minute that the legislation that was passed was any kind of solution to our perilous financial situation.

But I think we need to show a little patience – this thing is not over yet.  Republicans still have a chance to take a stand against the outrageous deficit spending that is the real root of all of our financial difficulties.

We have once again reached the point where our national debt ceiling will have to be raised in order for the government to be able to pay its bills.  And many of the Republicans who voted to approve the tax increase at the first of the year have stated that they will not support raising the debt ceiling unless it is coupled with serious cuts in deficit spending.

Our own Senator Saxby Chambliss, who voted in favor of the fiscal cliff compromise, is one such legislator.  He’s getting a lot of heat from some right-wingers in the state (such as Telegraph columnist Erik Erikson, who sadly will not be running a sure-to-be entertaining campaign against Chambliss himself in 2014 as was briefly rumored) for having displayed an increasingly disturbing trend towards moderation.

Chambliss has stated bluntly that he will press hard to tie major spending reductions to the raising of the debt limit.  Other Republicans who voted in favor of the tax hike have echoed that sentiment, and the lead Republican in the Senate has said that further tax increases will not be considered in future deals with Democrats.

Our president has other ideas, however.  He has declared that he “will not have another debate with this Congress” over whether the debt ceiling will be raised.  He has said he is willing to discuss budget cuts, but also that he believes that further tax increases on rich folks should be part of a deficit reduction plan.

If the Republican Party was ever going to act as united force and show some backbone, this would be the time.  They need to hold the line on more tax increases.  And they should refuse to discuss the debt ceiling issue until there is a budget plan that includes dramatic cuts in federal spending, and by the way they need to come up with their own spending plan to cut spending that includes specifics.

The president cannot “refuse to negotiate” on something that requires congressional action to occur.  The GOP needs to forget about opinion polls, the next election cycle, and all the things that idiots like me in the press say (with the exception of this column) and do what they know to be right.

Draw a line in the sand.  Call the president’s bluff.  Get our spending under control or let the debt ceiling situation unravel and live with the consequences.  The president and really the whole country are in dire need of a wakeup call.  As Apollo Creed once said to Rocky Balboa, “there is no tomorrow.”