I have long thought that that Facebook is like that mirror in the first Harry Potter book that Harry Potter finds while the other students in his dormitory are on Christmas break. I had to look it up to find out that it is called The Mirror or Erised (desire spelled backwards).
As I remember the scene in Harry Potter and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (the first Harry Potter book), Harry, the orphan, finds a mirror at Hogwarts during Christmas break, while the other students are home with their families. He stares into and sees his long dead parents staring back at him and waving at him. He sits in front of the mirror for a long time. Dumbledore, the Headmaster at Harry’s school and the most powerful wizard that ever existed, finds Harry and tell him that he is looking through a special mirror that shows people their greatest desires. Dumbledore then puts a cover over the mirror and tells Harry that he needs to be extra careful around the mirror because some people become so entranced by the mirror that they waste their lives staring at it. It can be a fun amusement but ultimately it is very dangerous to look for very long.
You will have to excuse my forgetfulness, because while I read all the Harry Potter books, I don’t have much of a mind for remembering details in books. I do not remember if the mirror figured into the Harry Potter saga any farther than that scene. I found that part with Harry and the mirror memorable when I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone way back in 2002. In fact, besides the beginning of the book when Harry finds out he is a wizard and arrives at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the mirror of Erised is about all that I remember about that book.
Sometimes when I think about Facebook, it feels like the Mirror of Erised to me. Sometimes I like to look at it and see the people that I know and love. I can catch up on their lives. I can learn about what interests them. I can see pictures of situations that they are in. I can show my support for my people and their children and their pets by “liking” people’s pictures. I can show support for the causes and feeling that they have by “liking” their statuses.
I can post pictures of myself and of my family. I can show people the situations that we are in. I can show my children and family off. I can post links to trivia night on Tuesdays. I can post links to my blog. I can show people what I am into by blogging about it and posting the links.
I can check back and see if people “liked” my children. I can check back to see if people “liked” my blog. I can check back to see if people “liked” my statuses.
And unlike the Harry Potter mirror, these “likes” are real. I really do “like” seeing pictures of people’s children and pets and I often really “like” their statuses. But also some of this isn’t real. Sometimes I “like” something because I want to support someone. Sometimes I “like” someone’s pictures because I know that they have “liked” mine. Sometimes I am “just waiting for my turn to talk” so to speak.
Yet like the Mirror of Erised, sometimes, I get caught up in Facebook and just want to stare at it for a while
I get caught up in the fact that often pictures of my children get way more “likes” than a link to a meticulously edited blog post does. Sometimes I get caught up in the habit of re-checking Facebook several times a day to see if people “liked” what I had to say or “liked” something that I posted.
That being said, most of the time I consider myself a casual Facebook user, not a super user. There are stretches of time where I only check it once or twice a week.
The pandemic has challenged by life balance with Facebook though. Out of necessity, I use Facebook several times a day on Tuesdays to promote and publish the results of my library’s trivia night.
I now find it unavoidable to take long breaks from Facebook. The pandemic has challenged by life balance with Facebook in that I feel the need for connection more strongly since many of my community school connections have not existed since the pandemic really got going last March.
My dependence on Facebook has grown stronger since I have decided that I would like to write more, as I am much more motivated to write for an audience with immediate “liking” power than I am to write purely for my own audience.
Ultimately, I guess that means that Facebook and I have an uneasy peace with each other. Uneasy on my part at least. I need Facebook and I will respect Facebook but need to hold Facebook at a distance as if I do not, I might be caught checking it constantly and I might miss out on life. I might become too dependent on the “liking” ability of others and their approval.
It’s hard man.
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Katie
I have not read any Harry Potter books! I wonder why? However, your association of the books with facebook is interesting just the same . Like you, I like people on facebook, but I only go into it about every three months. I feel like it takes up too much time, even though I like to see how others are doing and I do enjoy all the pictures and your pictures are always extra special! Am I discerning or just clicking to let you know I am looking! I am discerning!
This is interesting, because I have always viewed Facebook as something like the lever in a Skinner box. I as the rat in this example never am quite sure if when I log into FB I am going to get the pleasure or the pain response. I mostly stay off of it these days, primarily because I do not want to know what my friends and relatives think about religion or politics. I don’t think it can be stated strongly enough how insidious FB (and the like) have been to our culture.
Along the lines of this wonderfully insightful blog post is a piece published in The Atlantic that compares Facebook to a Doomsday Machine. Check it out, unless you want to keep your Facebook account open. (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/)