For
the last few years I’ve been strongly fighting peer pressure to join Facebook.
From
its introduction to the mainstream about 5 years ago I’ve had my suspicions
about this website but I hadn’t really got a good enough argument, except that
I had a feeling that there was something wrong about it.
But
eventually, 4 months ago, I gave in, with the reason that my assumptions about
it all were based on theory not experience, just like those who criticise books
they’ve never read. So I swallowed my
pride and took the plunge and set up a Facebook account, albeit in disguise as
a bag of rice with a false name.
Privacy
is an issue for me so I ignored all the sections available to input my
interests and hobbies and ignored the random requests for friendships from
friends of friends. Then I had to write
my first status update.
What
would I write? It had to be something
‘cool’. Something witty that would
ingratiate me to my new public.
Unfortunately
I did not record this audacious moment, but I do remember getting enthusiastic
enough to post about 4 or 5 things in succession, unaware of the unsaid
etiquette of not posting more than one or two things within a few hours of each
other. Eventually realising this rule I
rationed my posts, saving interesting videos for the next day if I’d already
just posted something.
One
of the things I came to notice about Facebook is the amount of information that
is presented for ingesting. I ended my
Facebook life with a modest 14 friends, which meant I wasn’t inundated with too
much information – in fact I was left a little hungry at times – however, I can
imagine for someone who has 200 friends, or for one of my ‘friends’ who had
2000 friends, the amount of information one is presented with, each day, must
be astounding. The question is what
happens when we are confronted with such an information glut?
What
I found was that information lost its depth.
Something was posted, watched, maybe commented on then it was quickly
lost as the next mouthful of information was thrust in my direction. I quickly concluded that Facebook is not the
best place to inform anyone of anything meaningful. It’s a good place to share cute kittens and
weird fat men dancing to techno.
Anything deeper is often taken equally as superficially as the kittens
and fat men because it all merges into one constant stream.
Another
affect I found that Facebook had on me was changing the way I thought.
I
found myself thinking a lot about Facebook, even when I wasn’t on it. What was I going to write next? How would I write it? Who would be impressed
and how could I impress the most people?
From this I’ve discovered that I do not have the personality for using
Facebook in a casual way.
Some
people can use Facebook in a casual, light way, but I currently possess an
extremely fragile ego that needs tons and tons of recognition and acceptance
from my fellow man for me to feel good about myself. And I crave attention. This of course is an unhealthy way to exist
and the task that is at hand for me is to break this habit and feel happy
enough in myself to not need this esteem.
Facebook, however, is like nicotine.
But it’s not like a strong B&H, it’s more like a silk cut ultra,
and I found myself going back and back for more to get the hit I wanted and
knew I could get if I just said or did the right thing. In fact I did get a good hit at one point by
posting an animation I made. And just to
get every last ounce of juice I could from the praise I received I went back
several times to look over the comments that people had left.
Facebook
is bad news if you need the esteem of other people to feel good about yourself
– which, it seems, could be nearly everyone in western civilisation.
Facebook
is also a con. It is not a social
networking site, not anymore anyway.
Facebook wants to know what’s on your mind so that they can advertise
that very thing back to you.
It’s
a ‘focus group’ on a phenomenal scale.
Like vampires, the marketers feed off our updates and shares so they can
better understand what it will take to manipulate us into buying things we
don’t need. There is a way you can turn
the adverts off but sometimes the pages won’t work properly.
In
fact unless you do everything Facebook says they will make it very difficult
for you to use it. One of my friends had
the experience of his interface changing to Timeline without his
permission. There was nothing he could
do, it seems, except submit to this new way of using the network. In another anecdotal incident a change in
group settings ‘dictated’ (their word) that the user perform a labour intensive
task that didn’t have to be done before.
This is internet dictatorship.
Even
in my own experience as I deactivated my account they wouldn’t let me go
without telling them why I wanted to leave.
And when you do want to leave Facebook uses guilt to try and keep you
hooked, showing picture of friends that will ‘miss you’. How absurd and creepy! The fact that my account is never deleted,
and I can always reactivate it just by logging back in, should send huge alarm
bells off to us all about a more sinister intent of Facebook.
I’ll
be strong enough to resist reactivation I hope because I believe that Facebook
is an unwholesome way to communicate and is detrimental to the way we interpret
reality and connect with each other. It
encourages superficiality, narcissism, self-obsession, snooping, judging, takes
up huge amounts of time and dramatically increases time spent on the internet,
and it give the impression that you are staying in contact with friends, but
because of this illusion I found that I actually communicated with them less,
opting instead for sharing status updates that revolved around me.
Of
course, just like any drug, it has its upsides and there are useful functions,
but we survived for millions of years without it and its overall effect, in my
opinion is a detrimental one.
We
need to deeply consider the effects of this new way of communicating. It certainly makes things easier but is that
always a good thing? And what will the
consequences for our relationships be if we continue to use this very
superficial way of connecting with others?
Thank
you for reading.
P.S. Pass this on the old fashioned way if you
found it interesting.
Category:
iRebel
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Comments (1)
I read your post with a lot of interest. I also resisted getting a Facebook account for a very long time until I caved in 5 years ago. Since then, my Facebook 'life' has been a bumpy ride with several de- and reactivations fuelled by rejected friend requests and unanswered messages.
I'm on the cusp of another deactivation as I find myself more and more disillusioned with its facelessness and fakeness. It gives the illusion of connecting people but it's just one massive promotion and advertising machine. I even had a dream some months ago that said as much.
I can't let go of the likes that some of my comments have got from people that I like and/or admire. But the question needs to be asked, what sort of relationship, if it can be called that, is one that's made up of one person commenting and others (some of whom I don't actually know in real life) clicking a like button? It's kind of hollow and sad.
After typing all of this, I think I'm closer to letting go of my attachment to the likes and deactivating my account, hopefully for good. Yes it is very creepy (and desperate) the way Facebook tries to make you feel guilty about 'leaving'.
Oh well, at least one good thing has come out of using Facebook, I'm no longer so fussed if people don't accept my friend requests or reply to my messages. Another thing I've learnt is that Facebook friends aren't necessarily your friends on Facebook even if you know them/are friends with them in real life. Thankfully, I learnt this lesson from observation rather than first hand...through a work colleague revealing something very personal she'd seen on another colleague's timeline to people at work.