Losing It!….On Facebook
Friday, July 31st, 2009by Mery Diaz
With the era of Friendster, Myspace and Facebook we were introduced to a whole new and exiting way of interacting with one another. We regained the long lost friend from Ms. Lee’s 4th grade class whom we would otherwise have never seen again for the rest of our lives. We were able to keep up with all 500 hundred of our “friends” without ever so much as calling them once in 2 years. Their pictures and updates tell us all we need to know about their 5th baby, their new plant, and checking out their new relationship that will last for all of 2 weeks. All good and fun we could say. However, with the convenience of social networking comes great responsibility and it quickly became apparent that people love to abuse this power of instant gratification. And these same people just seem to love to “lose it! ” on facebook!
Mental meltdowns, “anger” issues, and axis 2 diagnosis of the personality disorder variety just seem to shine brightly on the newsfeeds. Next time you are on facebook, and G-d help us following some tweeter action, notice how the updates range from the painfully mundane and entirely uninteresting comments “ I just ate cheerios and breathed” to the wise and deep thoughts by Jack Handy type “ seek and you shall find, be kind rewind my friend” to the more colorfully dysfunctional type and my personal love-to-hate favorite “ my life is an abyss of nothingness, no one loves me and I will start breaking things if no one leaves a comment on my status”. For serious?!
If you are a culprit of “losing it” (because it may just happen to the best of us) you may reconsider status updates as the venue for said ”moments” in your life. If there are more than three of these ”moments” at any given time, Houston you have a problem. However, If your newsfeed is the victim of numerous “losing it” friends, I suggest constantly updating your settings to reduce the amount of comments from the people who are repeat offenders of ” Losing it”. Because if there ever was a greater invention set to feed into our narcissistic traits, it is definitely social networking (note: not a substitute for therapy). It is a virtual playground for the attention seeking and not to mention those who love to peep, but that’s whole other story.
In times of economic crisis and belts being tightened to match, some of us have opted for going out a bit less, hanging out at home and enjoying some good old TV nights ( because its not un-cool to do so when everybody is doing it). But here is the issue,cable and Fios and dish networks and direct tv and all that good stuff can be expensive. These bills can run the average joe up to $70 a month and that is without “special” channels. They can shoot up even more when accompanied by (cue the reggeaton music ) internet and telephone services..four! four! Four! eight!. Ehem… If you are like me, you wont let the “Man” get away with taking your money anymore ! Use your “frugal” ways to find alternative modes of getting your TV fix! Some ways a recessionista like you and I can get some television without exorbitant monthly bills, if any, are the following: Get an HD Antenna! That’s right an Antenna and not the rabbit ear type your grandmother had. And yes,they do work even after everything changed from analogue to digital, but you will need an updated television, at least circa 90s to the present. These can run anywhere from $14:99- $80 bucks if you care to spend that much. I purchased an antenna for about $30 online and can see up to 40 channels. By going to antennaweb.org, you can find the antenna that is right for your geographic region. Sure some of these channels are Korean, since I live in Fort lee, NJ, and sure some of these channels are the second and third and even fourth sister channel of the NBC network, but for the most part I can and do watch with incredible and uninterrupted HD definition all the network shows I am interested in. I hide the sleek looking antenna behind the flat screen and no one is the wiser. Monthly cost: 0 bucks!