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Old 07-07-2012, 09:35 AM   #1400 (permalink)
Trollheart
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When did words such as “like” and “follow” and even “comment” gain capitalisation, so that they became more than the simple words they were? Nowadays you can't open a magazine or visit a website without being annoyed by those tiny little symbols and logos, and these single words prompting, almost demanding, you to Like, Follow or Comment on whatever the subject is. Yes, I'm talking about Facebook, I'm talking about Twitter and I'm talking in general about social media.



Personally, I have little or no use for Facebook, and less for Twitter. I can see how many people do, and how for some people life with FB as they prefer to call it would be hard, and in some cases perhaps even impossible. But I don't need it, and I certainly don't want it. It's of little interest to me to learn what people I have not heard from or talked to in months or years are doing today: where they're taking their holidays, who their new friends are, what they're reading, the movies they've seen recently. I have even less interest in allowing people I have never met, and don't know from Adam, to “become my friends”. And that's another thing: friend has suddenly become a verb. You can now “Friend” someone. You make them your friend, and it's called “Friending”. Oh, and you can UN-Friend them too. Well, there are people I know for whom that sort of thing, did it actually work in the real world, would be very handy.

But there's the rub: it doesn't work in the real world. Just because you disallow someone to contact you on Facebook doesn't mean that they disappear off the face of the Earth (though wouldn't that be cool?); it's just your way of not having to deal with them anymore, in cyberspace at least. Of course, the line between the real and the digital world is blurring more every day, to the extent that people, especially the younger ones, are spending so much time online that they're beginning to confuse reality with fantasy. But none of that goes to the heart of why I hate social media personally.

It's the invasiveness and the intrusion that gets to me. Although I setup a Facebook page --- almost against my better judgement --- to try to keep in touch with my co-workers when I took redundancy, I found that nothing I wrote got commented on or even acknowledged, and any comments I made on anyone else's page --- no matter how well I had known them in “real life” --- tended to get ignored in nine out of ten cases. Proving that in order to be a “proper Friend” (let's give it the capitalisation, almost the anthropomorphication it demands) on Facebook you have to be constantly commenting, posting, keeping, as it were in the loop; this is hard to do when you're separated from people physically and don't know what's going on in their day-to-day life. Your finger, basically, is no longer on the pulse.

Facebook is essentially for the younger generation, those who have many friends and need to constantly update them on where they're meeting, how they got on last night, what's new in music and so on. It's basically mostly inane babble and chatter, much like Instant Messaging can be. It's verbal diarrhoea, transposed to the internet. And what annoys me is that despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that I visit Facebook very very rarely and post even less, I'm forever getting reminders that there are “updates I may have missed”, or that “Facebook misses you”, or some other inane attempt to get me to log back on again. Facebook, if I've been away it's because I want to be away, because I have little to no interest in what Jim from Dundalk or Rosie from Coolock has to say about this “fab new place to have dinner”, or that Harry from Malahide “Likes this”. I couldn't care less. If I want to visit Facebook, I will: I don't need gentle prodding reminders telling me I haven't been there for a while. I KNOW! I'm a person, not some software program that's defective and needs to be reinitialised!

And that brings us to the other bane of the internet, at least as far as I'm concerned: Twitter. Now, I can see how this would be a good idea with someone famous, or interesting: people can hear about what he or she is up to, what they're working on, where they're going etc. But for the normal Joe Soap, like me? Who the hell cares what I had for breakfast, what I'm reading, where I'm taking my holidays or what I saw in a shop window? But people (as opposed to, let's say, People, to distinguish the ordinary folk from the stars and celebs) are obssessed with recording and uploading every tiny detail of their day, in almost pathological fervour, as if anyone cares! It's the ultimate in narcissism. These people actually think that people care what they think. What they do. How they feel. Well, unless they're your friends (as opposed to Friends) they don't. They're either laughing at how conceited you are, or preparing to upload a picture of the last dump they took, while at the same time shaking their head about how silly you are.

And we're being asked to Follow (again, big F) these people! Sure, some may have interesting things to say, but most are just vain and full of themselves, and people who Follow them are just feeding that fire, that hunger for recognition and attention. Do we really need to hear every little thing Dana from Milwaukee does in her day, or delve deeply into the troubled psyche of Aaron from Brisbane? And whose life is so lacking, who needs attention and self-vindication so badly that they'll upload a picture of what they're about to eat, or will take a picture of themselves outside a cinema (“Me outside the Odeon, about to go see “The Dark Knight returns”. OMG I'm looking forward to this film!”)

Look, social media has of course its uses. I'd be completely remiss to omit to point out that it has been very instrumental in effecting change across the world, with heavily beleagured populations in open revolt or being repressed by a totalitarian government being able to get their messages out through Facebook and Twitter. It has also helped raise awareness and start campaigns, finding missing children and only this week here, a missing dog. It can help bring people together, but just as easily it can be used for “evil”, allowing predators to stalk kids on the internet by perusing their FB page. The idea that your popularity depends on how many Friends (Facebook) or Followers (Twitter) you have makes it easy for someone you don't know to be accepted as a Friend, and once there they're basically in. You can Un-Friend them, sure (not sure if you can make them stop Following you, as I'm not at all familiar with Twitter) but by then the damage has probably been done.

Naturally, you can use this argument for any part of the net, but Facebook actively promotes adding more and more and more and more Friends, constantly harrassing and bombarding you with Requests from people who want to be your Friend. You don't know anything about them, how they found you, who they know, nothing. They're just a picture (and it may not even be theirs) and you Accept or Reject, or maybe Ignore, I'm not sure. In my brief dalliances with Facebook I was hit with a steady stream of people who wanted to be my Friend, none of whom I knew or who were connected to me or my friends in any way.

That's all an argument for another day, of course, but it does worry me how Facebook has got into every area of life now. Companies and Corporations all have a Facebook page, new games have one, TV shows have one. Seems everyone does. Soon it'll be as crazy a question to ask “Have you a Facebook page?” as it used to be to ask “Have you a phone?” It's just accepted that you do: surely everyone has? Well, not me. I don't want Facebook. I don't trust them. I don't want you as my Friend unless you really are my friend, and I know you in real life. I don't want your ads, Facebook, and I don't want your games. I certainly do not want your recommendations and you can keep your suggestions about “people I might like to add” to yourself.

And as for Twitter: if I want to Follow a Twitter, there are birds in my garden.

So, this is my message, and please, all social media of all shapes and forms, take it to heart!
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