How Facebook Can Be Good for You

Supposedly, social media is making us all into self-absorbed depressed dirt bags. 

While trying to paint the most beautiful possible picture of our lives we simultaneously are depressed because everyone else seems to have this picture perfect life.

This may be the case for young people but for me it's rather the opposite. Facebook has been a great influence in getting me to chill.

Can you believe we've been married 20 years?

Unlike some of my friends, who seem to live there, I drop into Facebook maybe a few minutes a day, if that. As a consequence, I don't have a huge number of Facebook friends, and about every week I get a friend request from someone I haven't seen in 10, 20 or 30 years.

So, I see that kid who cried his heart out over losing a match at the junior nationals is now graduated from college, working as an engineer and about to be a father for the first time.

That kid in college who didn't seem to have any direction and struggled to study enough to graduate now has a good job, a mortgage and a wife.

People who I did not know were gay have now been married to someone of the same sex for years.

People change jobs, change spouses, change countries, change genders.

All of my friends, competitors and teammates from when I was young and one of the top athletes in the world are now like me, older, slower, greyer. No matter how much everyone drooled over him or her as a teenager, they are all old enough to be to be the grandparent of teenagers.

My point is that, good or bad, things don't stay the same, and you can't always predict who is on their way up and who is going down. Most of the "cool kids" seemed to turn out pretty middle of the road.

Overall, almost everyone I know has had it pretty good, whether they realize it or not. We all live in developed countries, safe from war, hunger. We all have friends, almost all have family, hobbies.

So, for me, anyway, Facebook is a good reminder to chill. It gives a condensed time line of people's lives and reminds me that whatever I am stressing about today I probably won't even remember 10 years from now.

P.S. Our Kickstarter campaign was successful and if you backed us, thank you very, very much.


 When I'm not ranting about life, I make awesome video games that teach math and history and are fun to play. You should check them out. Some of them are even free. Whether you have a Mac, Windows, iPad or android, we've got you covered.