WARNING :The following blog contains scenes of moderate ranting….!!!

Now obviously I DO have friends!
But I don’t have any friends on Facebook, I do not possess a ‘wall’ or write on anyone else’s. I do not have a Myspace page or tweet anyone. I do not ‘follow’ anyone on Twitter or allow myself to ‘be followed.’ Social networking sites are not my thing. In fact, I’ll be honest with you, I kind of hate them.

People are always asking why, so I thought I might as well tell you – so its on paper, so to speak.

Reasons I’m not a facebook girl:
1. I have a spiritual mistrust and underlying heart concern with social networking sites of every kind. I have chosen to listen to that ‘inner voice,’ unpopular, misunderstood and laughed at though this is. People often tell me I am ‘odd’, naive, old school and unlike other people. GOOD. Job done.

2. Other ‘artists’ in the Christian world have told me how useful such sites are in promoting who they are and what they do. I have absolutely NO interest in self- promotion. I have promised myself and my Father that I will not tout my own work, advertise my own albums, resources or big myself up. If others believe my stuff is helpful, they will spread the word. I don’t need to. That is not who I am or who I am called to be. I am called to be the absolute opposite of the world. So help me God.

3. I do not feel God has ever asked me to be part of twitflick or similar. A simple fact – but one that is really important to me. I have asked Him a number of times if I am wrong. Each time I have been given assurance that I have heard Him correctly for me. I have asked a number of my friends if God likes ‘who they are’ on facebook, or twitter and whether He gave them permission to be part of it in the first place. Most don’t have an answer to either question. But awkward silence sometimes follows.

4. I feel that many of these sites fuel people’s insecurities and basest instincts. (“I have 57 friends, but she has 89… what am I doing wrong? Or ’90 people follow me now… I must be really interesting…’) Give me a break! When God finds you interesting, then who cares what others think?

5. I don’t believe these sites make people more Godly. I know that many people who are wonderful Christians use them, quoting that they are useful for God’s purposes. So why do I feel suspicious of that in my spirit? I have no issue with any means being employed for the gospel, but I do have a problem with people thinking everyone NEEDS to be part of such things. I do not NEED anything of the sort. Nor do I really believe much of what goes on on some so-called Christian sites makes Jesus all that happy. He doesn’t give a monkeys what someone writes their ‘status’ as. He cares what goes on in our hearts. Our consumer society seeps into the way we communicate so readily. I think it can cheapen and superficialise (you heard that ‘non- word’ here first) relationships.

6. If you are my friend, you know it. I won’t forget you or lose touch with you. If I DO lose touch with people, and forgive me for sounding harsh here, it is entirely deliberate. I don’t have time in my life for keeping up with people I once smiled at in the dinner queue at school. Believe me, I have a great many people in my life that I am called to love and I do so tenaciously. I will text them, pray for them, email them and call them. But over the years I have had people ask to be my friend on facebook who have never been anything of the sort, or, in some cases, people I’ve never actually even heard of…. ex-girlfriends of my brothers, past work acquaintances, old pupils, children of friends, people I nearly bumped into once at a conference…seriously.

7. I’m sure you know the statistics too… citing facebook in divorce cases? Personally I think that is one of the weakest arguments for not using it. People will cite anything if it will get them what they want. But it is still worthy of note.

Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online said: “I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was. I was really surprised to see 20 per cent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook. The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to.”

Flirty emails and messages found on Facebook pages are increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behaviour in divorce cases. I have prayed with a number of people who have this issue right now. Somehow, they reinvent themselves online and find themselves caught up in a psuedo-world that attracts them away from reality.

8. Computer firms have cashed in by developing software allowing suspicious spouses to electronically spy on someone’s online activities. What a world we live in!

One 35-year-old woman, who I would like to hug and then hug some more, even discovered her husband was divorcing her via Facebook.
Conference organiser Emma Brady was distraught to read that her marriage was over when her partner updated his status on the site to read: “Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady.”

I’d like to meet Mr Brady.

Around 14 million Britons are believed to regularly use social networking sites to communicate with old friends or make new ones. I am not one of them.

And I don’t plan on changing my status anytime soon.

Here endeth my rant.