Facebook is bad for me

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My energy is very drained at the moment many times in life as it is... facebook is a site I use but it just feels like an Earthquake waiting to happen... my mind gets competitive about other's who get lots of likes and comments, friends online aren't really friends any more even though I'm friend starved, and would like for them to talk to me... I can't help but have a few quirky vents from time to time too, which might make people prejudiced or annoyed about the way I communicate or express myself.

The whole system makes me feel like I'm back in school - not in a good way.

I have a few reasons to check facebook from time to time, and that's annoying because it slowly grows back on me again... I don't like it - makes me feel like an isolated man, an omega in a wolf pack or something... or outcast by this so called pack my mind is creating as some kind of mental illusion.

I must avoid facebook at all costs.

Can anyone relate to what I am saying?

Oh yes i try to avoid it but sometimes the only way i can contact people is on there.

That is hard, because I know I have few social outlets... I think facebook is difficult for a lot of people... I know it's hard for me. The lack of privacy thing just makes me even more of a vulnerable person... I don't need that... I should only be venting to people I can trust or who are similar to me in some way.
I know I should try not to vent to the general public on facebook, but it's hard... most people just don't seem to understand the weight of pain I'm feeling half the time or the isolation... and it just makes me feel worse. Venting shouldn't make me feel more vulnerable, it should be therapeutic.

Start an anonymous online blog and vent there.

Or keep a journal and write your vents there...

Or start a chat board with your favorite venting subjects as the topic, or wait, there probably already is a chat board somewhere like that already...

Facebook is a social medium, the only things you should post there is stuff you would not mind seeing yourself quoted as saying on a billboard in Times Square...You want to be heard, I get that, but Facebook is not the place for venting, you will be sorry in about ten minutes after you posted it.

Half joking but don't do it! Resist the urge to vent on Facebook, put a note on computer screen, whatever,

Though frankly if my brother posts one more photo of his cats, I am going to /wrists, joking, posting cats is not the same as venting, a different annoying category of bad Facebooking habits.

Recent article on Facebook, Atlantic magazine, good read and hits the nail on the head. Title, "Is Facebook making us lonely?" and they quote my culture critic hero, Jaron Lanier too.

theatlantic.com

Don't use Facebook. Works for me.

I looked at the OP's profile, he is a musician.

Dude, start a real live jam band, or garage band. Don't be lonely, you know how to make music. Just post on a board somewhere that you are looking for musicians to jam with once a week or twice a week.

Keep it light, just say no dues, no stress, show up if you can and go from there. Or post a note at your local music store, or bookstore.

And please, please, please, do not come back with a hundred reasons why you can't do that. If you need a space to play, then find a store or a coffee shop that will sponsor your group once a week.

And if you are very, very shy, then keep your group very small, baby steps and all that, or volunteer to play at schools or libraries.

I dunno I am just riffing here but if you know how to make music.

Run with that. It might take your mind off venting.

No. Each time you're venting you relive the corresponding emotion -- anger, frustration, whatsoever. This way it becomes more intense. The idea of therapeutic venting is completely outmoded. You might do some research on neuroplasticity with respect to this topic.

The social networking sites, there are some which allow you to remain completely anonymous like here on WP, and i consider this option for very advantageous. However, i manage to get in trouble there as well, simply by speaking/writing my mind.

I like your signature, PTSmorrow; that is like the opposite positive statement as oppose to what facebook seems to represent for me.

The music thing well - I try to go it alone... do I really need more reasons in life to go things alone though? Perhaps you're right, PaintingDiva.

Sounds good Tequila... when I do ignore it it helps; then it becomes a case of not allowing my mindset to glue back into addiction after I don't use facebook for a while and think I can handle it again... but I don't think I can handle it, that's the thing... my emotions at one point will not stay in one place.

I stopped using it about a week and a half ago. I feel a lot better.

Awesome quote as a signature...but I disagree with what you mean. Complete privacy brigns out the worst in people (see 4chan) and complete openness is awful as well (see Wikileaks.) I find it ironic those two are opposite in idealogy but support on another haha....

As for Facebook being bad I use it for band updates and the occasional amusing picture and such. Easy to just not be competitive and post something of aprticular interest, be it a thought or a song or a video, etc. Since you're a musician it'd likely be songs.

I feel Facebook is bad for me too. I go on it because I keep in contact with some of my friends and it does come in handy, especially when a few of my friends are on job-seekers and so they can book a computer in their local library and chat online to people and it doesn't cost them a penny, whereas texting or catching the bus will. And I do like to see what's going on with people too, but that's not always a good thing with me because I have such a jealous attitude towards people and when they post pictures of themselves at clubs and bars, or boast that they have a really pretty girlfriend or a really cute boyfriend, I start getting all jealous, and have to stop myself from writing sarcastic messages to them. I do know the consequences if I do that, so that is why I don't, and I'm proud of myself for stopping myself from doing it.

There is a huge difference between privacy for the individual and privacy for companies and governments. They are not opposite ideologies at all.

I feel awkward sometimes on facebook but every once and a while I have a good interaction that make's it worth it. Every once and a while I have an interaction that makes me want to delete it.

The main reason I have it is because my mom posts a lot of pictures of my much younger sisters (so cute!). But yeah facebook can have its issues. One time I got on facebook and the top thing on the news feed was that a girl I used to like had put up some pictures. Dunno why but it just made me feel awful

Alexander, me too. When I see a beautiful girl that I never really hit it off with post new pictures it hurts.

Facebook is the only place I can contact family, and friends all together, and some people I wouldn't be able to otherwise.
But it's scary writing people. I always feel like I am bothering them. I learned to read emotion through voice, faces, and body movement, but when it's text I always go feel the text as the last person who said it in person said it. So it could be meant as nice, but come off sarcastic. Plus I've had bad luck looking up old friends, or having people leave/delete me over misunderstandings.
I've lost many-A friend on facebook just writing statuses.