A friend of mine posted this challenge and I thought, Yeah, I can do that, too. So, I announced on FB that I was going to stop liking things for 2 weeks and instead of liking things, I made more comments. But this didn’t last long. In fact, I think I only lasted a few days.
In the beginning, I scrolled past posts and pictures and left comments only. I realized quickly this challenge was going to be a pain in the ‘ol rumpus. Often we like things and have nothing more to add to the conversation. I mean, do I need to add to the noise? Liking something is a show of support, don’t you think?
But because of this experiment, I would instead comment a 🙂 or something like that. I had a nice conversation or two, as a result, but what I realized was taking the like function out of FB was like removing a few keys out of the keyboard. How do you get it done? What’s the point? By not liking, you don’t participate, really.
And that’s okay. I once asked my friend Pat if even used FB and he said that he did. But he never likes or says anything. He just logs on to see what everyone is doing. Hmmm. Okay. He stalks. Fine. I have friends who refuse to even use FB – yeah, that’s my generation.
The moment I stopped this challenge was when a friend from high school posted a very emotional account that some of us (who were tagged) had shared with her. She has been fighting a chronic disease and friends were commenting and I wanted to like what folks were saying, not just comment. There were good things being said and shared.
I think I understand what the blogger was trying to do with this challenge, and that’s great for her. She obviously felt like she needed to do this. I’m willing to wager her circumstances are different than mine.
First of all, I’m not a heavy user. I don’t have a smart phone (OMG! What?!) so I’m not constantly scrolling and checking-in whenever I have 2 minutes to spare. In fact, I kind of hate teaching teenagers because they are constantly checking FB or chatting on Line. I cannot relate to this need, this pull, this addiction. Amusingly, whenever I haven’t logged in for a day or two, I find that I haven’t missed anything. It’s almost disappointing.
I also live outside of my passport country. I’m an expat, so facebooking is my way of keeping in touch and sharing my little world. I use it like an email account. Advertisers hate me because I use adblock (the only reason why I started to use Chrome was because they finally got this app).
And I’m not part of Generation Like. (This PBS special gave me nightmares.)
The blogger says her feed is more human now. Interesting. When I look on my feed I see: what my former Waldorf, Ecuadorian and Thai students are up to; friends posting pics of their babies and families; silly photos and cartoons; travel albums; news; and stuff like that. Seemingly innocent, right?
What I did notice and the habit has kind of stuck, from doing this challenge is, I stopped participating. I’d check-in and then check-out rather quickly. Since I couldn’t like, it took away a big part of the engagement of FB. Occasionally, I think this is a good thing to do, a media cleanse.
How do you use FB? Have you tried this challenge or a similar one? What do you think?
Life, the Universe, and Lani 
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