The fraud of Facebook

I love Facebook. I love that it keeps me updated with family and friends and I love that it lets family and friends stay updated with me. It might not replace real-life interactions but I love that it makes small connections possible when lengthy catch-ups aren’t. I can’t easily fly to America or Hong Kong or England but I can easily ‘like’ a picture or comment on a status and let a friend know they’re in my thoughts if not my diary. And vice versa. That might sound anti-social but it’s also life and that’s the reason I’d say Facebook enhances mine; it facilitates friendships when distance or time might otherwise not. While I have no hesitation in saying that I enjoy it I also recognise it as a fraud.

I’ve thought this many times but a few weekends ago it hit me once again. We had just celebrated Miss I’s third birthday. It was the happiest birthday party imaginable. The sun shined and Miss I was beside herself to spend a few hours at the park with a handful of her lovely little friends with unlimited access to chocolate crackles, cupcakes and a Peppa Pig birthday cake. (And, as requested, Balloons, bubbles and ballet shoes.) That night a friend sent through a photo she’d taken of our little family during the cake-cutting. The four of us are smiling away and there is real joy in our eyes. I posted it on Facebook as a memento of the day and then a day or so later, the fraud, hit me.     

The lovely smiley family picture itself isn’t contrived and doesn’t, on its own, tell a lie. It captured a moment of joy as it happened. It wasn’t airbrushed and it wasn’t even posed. The fraud though is that it only tells part of the story; the happiest part. I’ll tell you what it didn’t capture.

It didn’t show that we’d been up all night with Miss L. That we were in the midst of a bitter week-long battle to wean her off her night-time feeds. And, off the back of seven months of broken sleep, a week-long battle, hosted in the wee hours of the night or morning or whatever you call it, is shattering. It is not remotely enjoyable. It is a breeding ground for irrational marital disputes. (Come to think of it any dispute, marital or otherwise, that occurs between the hours of 11pm and 5am is probably not steeped in reason is it?)

It was a hellish week. Friday effectively started at 4.30am which was bad enough without an unpleasant encounter with our otherwise kind neighbour who at 7am expressed her, quite legitimate, disapproval with Miss L and myself. I was so far from loving life in that moment it wasn’t funny. Throw in trying to organise a party, waiting for job news, a hectic week at work for Mr G, a small insurance issue and the rest… So for a variety of, mostly sleep-deprived, reasons we’d had a pretty tense old week.

But if you only saw that smiley happy birthday picture, and had escaped the misfortune of actually talking to me that day, you might not know that. You might look at that photo and think family life looks pretty terrific. Which is fine because, as that photo shows, there are lots of times when family life is pretty terrific. But it’s only part of the picture. The good bit. 

And that is Facebook to a tee: just the good bits of the picture. Which is fine when it’s taken that way; when you realise the happy smiley photos are the happy smiley moments. The fraud begins if you start to think it is the whole picture. That the absence of photos of couples bickering or babies crying through the night or a frustrated mother stuck at home with a temperamental toddler or a person battling with a bullying boss or feeling sick or just going through the motions, is because those things aren’t happening. They’re happening. They’re just not on Facebook.

There is never a time when I think the discrepancy between real life and Facebook is more obvious than when someone has a baby. If you had never met someone with a baby and just peered through albums of new mothers and fathers with their tiny babies on Facebook it’s entirely possible you’d get yours home and think there’d been a huge mistake. Crying??? They don’t cry on Facebook! They just lie there, swaddled, looking completely serene and blissful. Un-showered??? But those mums on Facebook always look completely serene and blissful and showered!!! Bored??? No-one told me that lying on the floor doing tummy time would occasionally make me so bored I’m batty. Fighting??? What on earth would we argue about? We’ve got a beautiful baby!! Isn’t that all we ever need???

The point is not that anyone sets out to be misleading. It’s just that the irritating and tricky parts of life don’t photograph particularly well. The result is Facebook is life airbrushed. It’s the happiest moments captured in the most flattering photos devoid of drudgery. Over at FB I’m as guilty of that as anyone else but here, in words, I can shatter that illusion. Not that you'd be under any such illusion if you read this but the truth is my life is sometimes boring and tricky. How could I take a picture of that??

What are your thoughts on the book of face?