Facebook: is frequent use making you stupid?

It has come to my attention lately that I’ve been blogging less and less and I had to ask myself, “why?” Homeschooling takes a lot of my time and cooking and planning school and taking care of a newborn are all things that consume my time as well. I love writing but lately it has taken a back seat to all these important things.

Lately, during “down time,” I find myself sitting in front of the computer screen riffling through page after page on Facebook trying to find out what all my friends are saying to each other while I sit and nurse the baby. After all,you can mouse one handed but it takes forever to type that way. It becomes a challenge to find everything as FB keeps changing things around just about the time you get used to them. Immediately after the change the comments on my status updates dropped and I stopped commenting as well wondering where everyone had gone but I digress. (I love that word – digress)

I’m really trying to get to my point here but it is difficult for me to arrange my thoughts in paragraph order. It seems I’m losing the ability to write, not only on the paper but the thoughts aren’t even flowing in my mind they way they used to. This is THE problem with Facebook for writers and the educated.

1. It creates short term focus.
2. It handicaps your thinking because of number 1.
3. No one likes it if you leave overly long comments.
4. If you post long statuses inevitably your “friends” hide you because they don’t have the “time.”
5. Very few actually appreciate educated comments.
6. Those who appreciate educated comments fear to post their thoughts because they don’t want to be torched.
7. After much time spent on Facebook it seems the ability to form intelligent writing begins to wane as you become stuck after the first sentence or two.
8. You begin to wonder if anyone can post anything intelligent and then realize that you really don’t either. “Jonine is staring blankly at the computer screen. Jonine is going to get another cup of coffee. Jonine wonders where her mind has gone.”
9. The more challenging things I post the less response from people I get.
10. People write before they think and hit the post button – me included.
11. Time wasted on FB instead of on your favorite hobbies such as herbs, crocheting, sewing, and gardening limits your experience and hampers continuing your education with new research and information.
12. FB makes you lazy in regards to spelling and grammar. I would love to see one well punctuated sentence. FB doesn’t make a way to edit typos.

I could go on but to be truthful I’ve been hard pressed to get this far. I know what I mean and what is bouncing around back there but I haven’t worked on it in my mind for a day before I typed this like I normally do.

So here is my advice….

1. Ignore what everyone else is saying unless it is longer than a sentence.
2. Type something educational into your status and force people to learn something new.
3. Don’t forget how to write! Use your “leave a note” page.
4. Abstain from putting your bodily aches and pains in your status box. Unless, of course, you really need the prayers. (I’m guilty here) And please, if you do put your aches and pains don’t be angry at me if Ican’t resist giving some herbal advice. After all, I’ve been reading about it for 10 years and I’m just telling you what I’ve learned.
5. Everyone needs a happy thought – don’t spoil their day. (Jonine Blackshear is grumpy today.)

Okay, I’m going to go follow my own rules now. Happy Facebooking and don’t let it make you stupid!!

~ by Jonine on November 5, 2009.