My Newsfeed Isn't For "Making Out"
In the matter of a few short years, Facebook has become intertwined with virtually all my relationships. My friends, family, co-workers, pretty much everyone is blogging about their lives.
I love seeing the kids, dogs, trips, personal triumphs and changes. But what I can't figure out are the ones that choose to display the PDA between themselves. You know the ones, it goes past a "happy anniversary, I love you," and instead turns into something like "you are the moon, the stars and being with you every single day is pure joy." The basically talk to each other like Khaleesi and her Tribal Leader husband off "Game of Thrones." Now, I'll even make exceptions for big events; marriage, 10, 20 year milestones. If you're apart like in Iraq or your partner has a deadly disease. You can elaborate a little more, but I'm talking about the couples who live together and see each other nearly everyday. And then every week or month announcing to the world how much they love their partner, what they mean to you and in some cases they toss in a little pseudo sexual tone to them. What's even more intriguing is that I know some of these couples personally and they don't talk like that when they are together or act like they like each other much. So, why is it, on Facebook, they pull out the PDA like two teenagers in a movie theater who need to get it on there because they can't do it at their parent's house.
Best Intentions
Human Behavior Expert, Patrick Wanis Ph.D. explained it to me:
"We manipulate our behavior based on context. When we can be anonymous on the internet, we will often reveal the way we really feel and we don’t hold back – anger, bitterness, bias, etc. However, Facebook creates an opportunity to manipulate our behavior to portray ourselves the way we want our social media friends to see us (most of whom we have never met) and to do so in a way we might be afraid to do in public.
For more on proper Facebook PDA etiquette, read the rest at our partner HeadDrama.com
