(Anti) Social Network

Over the fifteen years I have been teaching, one thing I have learned is that parents really don’t want to hear anything bad about their offspring. So I have become skilled at spinning negative comments into positive ones.  For example, “Your son is such an active boy!” really means “your Tasmanian devil is tearing up my classroom.”

 So when I refer to myself as an “enthusiastic Facebooker,” I am glazing over the disturbing fact that my enthusiasm might be better labeled “obsession.”  

It started out innocently enough. About two years ago, I joined Facebook at the urging of a friend who was using it to promote a conference.   At first, I went to the Facebook website every week or so, just to see if any new friends had joined. But as the site added features like status updates and photo tags, my visits were more frequent.  Pretty soon, I was updating my status almost every day, sharing the mundane details of my life (“Lisa Manheim is making chicken soup for dinner”) to bigger news (“Lisa Manheim is going to be eating matzah this Passover…..for two!”)  

While I was pregnant, I would come home exhausted from a day of teaching, often retiring to the couch in our New Jersey apartment only 15 minutes from Manhattan, though it felt a world away from my old life.  Checking Facebook became a matter of routine, as if it were my bank account or stock portfolio.  People from my past were joining at a rapid rate, and I was eager to get a look-see at how their lives had unfurled.  Many evenings, minutes became hours that were siphoned away in what I began to think of as the "Facebook vortex."

When Emmet was born ("Lisa Manheim is…a mommy!") I figured that my obsession would diminish as I cared for my newborn son.  For a few weeks it did, as I learned how to swaddle, change diapers, and rock my sweet little boy to sleep.  But I had taken the school year off to be with Emmet and I found myself feeling somewhat disconnected from the world.  Facebook allowed me to feel as if I was still a part of the human race.

 I had so many plans for what I would do during my year off from teaching: watch the AFI top 100 movies; read the books on the New York Times bestseller list; keep a diary of my first year being a mom.  But I found myself, far too often, glued to my laptop which was beginning to feel more like a lifeline than a machine I’d bought at Circuit City the previous summer.  

 I didn’t realize how bad my preoccupation had become until my family was celebrating Passover this year.   Jeff and I, along with one-year old Emmet, had joined my sister and her family at my parents’ apartment in New York City.  As tradition dictates, we were sitting at the large dining room table discussing the story of how the Jews escaped from slavery in Egypt.  My father posed a question to make us connect the ancient story to our own modern lives:

“Although we are free, in the traditional sense of the word, to what might you consider yourself a slave?” he asked everyone at the table.

 As I settled back in my chair to give the question some thought, my husband blurted out, “Lisa, that’s an easy one for you:  Facebook!”  Everyone at the table laughed, as my faced burned with the uneasy truth of Jeff’s proclamation. 

Although I protested, I know he is right.  I have always been a slave to technologies that connect me to others.  In college, I used to call my answering machine at least 30 times a day to check for messages; since 1997, I’ve never gone longer than 3 hours without a cell phone; and on my honeymoon a few years ago, I racked up a $700 bill reading emails on my Iphone from Italy. Yes, I have always felt the need to connect.

Yet, I understand the irony that a social networking website actually promotes anti-social behavior.  While I am busy connecting with my 800+ "friends" on Facebook,  what other connections am I actually missing out on? As this realization is slowly sinking in, I continue to click my way through profiles, news feeds, and photo albums. Hey, even if I can’t attend the pre-marathon pasta party at Carmine’s with my athletic friends, at least I can see the mobile photos of them diving into piles of linguini.   

On the other hand, I’ve got some great pictures of Emmet and Jeff planting a tree in our front yard.