528. Nine Reasons Why I Hate Facebook

 

          Nine Reasons Why I Hate Facebook

He created a monster.

Photo credit: Elaine Chan and Priscilla Chan

Why do I hate thee, Facebook, let me tell thee why.  

1. When I go to my Facebook page, I am assaulted by posts from people who may be followers of mine, but whom I don’t know and probably — with a few exceptions — don’t want to know.  And their photos appear alongside mine.  

2. Off to the right there may be ads that I have no control over, and a list of CONTACTS, some of whom I recognize, and many of whom are total strangers.

3. Among the long string of posts are photos of cats: adorable, but how many photos of adorable cats am I obliged to look at and proclaim love of?  Photos of the adorable young children of total strangers evoke the same response.

4. These posts from strangers elicit responses from other total strangers — “Adorable!”  “Beautiful!”  “So cute!” — making me feel that there are conversations going on that I am not a part of, even though all this is on my page.

5. And if the subject is not adorable pets but something political, the responses are a chorus of exclamations —  “I totally agree!”  “You are so right!”  “Well said!” — showing that the blogger is preaching to the choir.  

6. And any disagreement, even if expressed civilly, risks provoking a swarm of nasty outcries and accusations of bigotry, racism, homophobia, cynicism, and misogyny.

7. On the left of the page is a long menu of options, most of which utterly baffle me: Groups, Watch, Memories, Saved, News, plus  the ominous threat of  STILL MORE.

8. Yes, somewhere over to the right is access to my other page, the “public” one, Browderbooksbiz, as if this, my “private” page, weren’t overrun with an uninvited public.  And if I go to Browdebooksbiz, I’m immediately confronted with invitations that will cost me time and money: Create Ad, Create Post, Create New Ad, Boost a Post, Automatic Ads.  “Biz,” indeed, but whose “biz” is it?  Certainly not mine.

9. In short, Facebook is jumbled, chaotic, time- and money-sucking, irrelevant, and intrusive.  Mark Zuckerberg, its co-founder and CEO, has produced a sprawling, hungry monster that devours, or tries to devour, whatever lies in its path.  And that means us.

And this doesn’t even address such problems as FB’s failure to block Russian interference in our 2016 election, fake news, hate speech, and its syphoning off of personal data without our knowledge or consent.  Why then do we still keep our accounts?  Several reasons:

• Habit, which usually is another word for laziness, for lack of initiative, for blind and timorous conformity.
• FB reminds us of birthdays, anniversaries, and other events we might otherwise forget.
• It lets us keep in touch with distant family and friends without the trouble of making phone calls or writing letters — so twentieth-century, so “quaint.”
• It’s often needed for work or school.

If anyone wants to agree or disagree, proclaim undying love for, or unremitting hate of, Facebook, or some wishy-washy position in between, the author welcomes such interventions and would love to hear from you.  The monster is in our midst, clutching at our throats.  How can we ignore it?

©  2021  Clifford Browder