Facebook Dead At 12, A Victim Of 2016
Feb 1, 2017 09:05:00 #
Since the end of the 2016 e******n, and especially since it resulted in the victory of Donald J. Trump as president, Facebook has become utterly intolerable.
If I were to write an obituary for Facebook, it might look something like this:
Facebook, The, 12, of Boston died in the early months of 2017, after a long illness stemming from the 2016 e******n cycle. Born of Mark Zuckerberg, survived by Instagram. In lieu of flowers, please click on an ad on the Facebook sidebar while you check messenger every now and then.
The Facebook, known as Facebook or FB for short, was invented as a tool to connect users with friends, family, and occasionally brands. The social network became a death knell for high school reunions, as we no longer had to schlep back to our hometown to see how fat the star football player had gotten, or how successful the school nerd had become. We use the service to connect with old classmates, coworkers, and neighborhood friends.
Millennials like myself can see on Facebook how our entire adult lives have evolved. I joined as a college student, and through the years I’ve announced a new boyfriend, then fiancé, then husband, then all three of our pregnancies on the social network. Every job change, every move, every everything got its own Facebook post. Most of my photos of the last ten years have disappeared from computers and hard drives, but still live on Facebook’s servers.
That’s what makes my slow breakup with Facebook that much more surprising to everyone, myself included.
The Negativity Has Gone V***l
Since the end of the 2016 e******n, and especially since it resulted in the victory of Donald J. Trump as president, Facebook has become utterly intolerable. I took the application off my phone when I realized, a few days after the e******n, that I felt angry every time I scrolled through my newsfeed, and that this sour mood was affecting how I spoke with my co-workers, who happen to be my children (I’m a stay-at-home mother by profession). Deleting the application made me feel more disconnected from these online friends from all walks of my life, but also happier and more calm.
One of my many friends also feeling this way, Sarah Barak, wrote on Facebook recently: “I feel hectored. I’ll be happier if I unfollow the worst offenders. It’s just too much and the constant negative coverage is affecting my happiness.” It’s not just in our imaginations; there’s plenty of social science research that indicates surrounding oneself with Negative Nancies has a way of turning you into a Negative Nancy also. It’s impossible to know for sure, but it seems many who were once politically ambivalent at best are now caught in a negative feedback loop, perpetually hysterical because all of their friends are as well.
The problem with Facebook political rants is this: It is not Twitter. I do not “follow” my high school best friends because of their insightful political commentary; I want to see updates on their lives and pictures of their adorable children. Unlike Twitter, I don’t want to unfollow or unfriend them because of their rants, because if I do so, I’ll miss out on the all-important baby announcements and updates.
When Everybody Owns It, Nobody Cares for It
If all you’re using Facebook for is to yell into the digital void about politics, you will find your audience for such rants is getting smaller by the minute. Sorry, random friends from all walks of life: I just don’t care what you think about Donald Trump today.
I hoped the tone would improve post-e******n, but with the inauguration and every statement or story out of the Trump administration, the hysteria remains at a fevered pitch. And I’m s**k of it.
My solution, and that of many friends, has been significant or total disengagement from the social network, shifting usage to Instagram instead to catch most of those important baby and kid pictures.
With different interface and policy updates over the course of the last decade, many have written premature obituaries for The Facebook. The year 2016 saw many deaths, but one of the most notable may in the end be Facebook, destroyed by the obnoxious tendencies of those who built it: its own users.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/01/facebook-dead-12-victim-2016/
If I were to write an obituary for Facebook, it might look something like this:
Facebook, The, 12, of Boston died in the early months of 2017, after a long illness stemming from the 2016 e******n cycle. Born of Mark Zuckerberg, survived by Instagram. In lieu of flowers, please click on an ad on the Facebook sidebar while you check messenger every now and then.
The Facebook, known as Facebook or FB for short, was invented as a tool to connect users with friends, family, and occasionally brands. The social network became a death knell for high school reunions, as we no longer had to schlep back to our hometown to see how fat the star football player had gotten, or how successful the school nerd had become. We use the service to connect with old classmates, coworkers, and neighborhood friends.
Millennials like myself can see on Facebook how our entire adult lives have evolved. I joined as a college student, and through the years I’ve announced a new boyfriend, then fiancé, then husband, then all three of our pregnancies on the social network. Every job change, every move, every everything got its own Facebook post. Most of my photos of the last ten years have disappeared from computers and hard drives, but still live on Facebook’s servers.
That’s what makes my slow breakup with Facebook that much more surprising to everyone, myself included.
The Negativity Has Gone V***l
Since the end of the 2016 e******n, and especially since it resulted in the victory of Donald J. Trump as president, Facebook has become utterly intolerable. I took the application off my phone when I realized, a few days after the e******n, that I felt angry every time I scrolled through my newsfeed, and that this sour mood was affecting how I spoke with my co-workers, who happen to be my children (I’m a stay-at-home mother by profession). Deleting the application made me feel more disconnected from these online friends from all walks of my life, but also happier and more calm.
One of my many friends also feeling this way, Sarah Barak, wrote on Facebook recently: “I feel hectored. I’ll be happier if I unfollow the worst offenders. It’s just too much and the constant negative coverage is affecting my happiness.” It’s not just in our imaginations; there’s plenty of social science research that indicates surrounding oneself with Negative Nancies has a way of turning you into a Negative Nancy also. It’s impossible to know for sure, but it seems many who were once politically ambivalent at best are now caught in a negative feedback loop, perpetually hysterical because all of their friends are as well.
The problem with Facebook political rants is this: It is not Twitter. I do not “follow” my high school best friends because of their insightful political commentary; I want to see updates on their lives and pictures of their adorable children. Unlike Twitter, I don’t want to unfollow or unfriend them because of their rants, because if I do so, I’ll miss out on the all-important baby announcements and updates.
When Everybody Owns It, Nobody Cares for It
If all you’re using Facebook for is to yell into the digital void about politics, you will find your audience for such rants is getting smaller by the minute. Sorry, random friends from all walks of life: I just don’t care what you think about Donald Trump today.
I hoped the tone would improve post-e******n, but with the inauguration and every statement or story out of the Trump administration, the hysteria remains at a fevered pitch. And I’m s**k of it.
My solution, and that of many friends, has been significant or total disengagement from the social network, shifting usage to Instagram instead to catch most of those important baby and kid pictures.
With different interface and policy updates over the course of the last decade, many have written premature obituaries for The Facebook. The year 2016 saw many deaths, but one of the most notable may in the end be Facebook, destroyed by the obnoxious tendencies of those who built it: its own users.
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/01/facebook-dead-12-victim-2016/
Feb 1, 2017 10:15:50 #
Feb 1, 2017 10:44:23 #
Feb 1, 2017 10:48:14 #
I haven't the same problem with FB as this article describes, but I have one no the less, which I believe to be even more important than that described in this article. You see, I am a fan and supporter of President Donald Trump, because I am a conservative Christian. But as I write my opinions, with that conservative Christian slant, FB does not allow me to post them, for they have censured me because apparently my opionions and agenda does not meet with their approval, because they do not match that of the FB management personnel or what they are propagandizing to their customers, and actually most of the time is quite the opposite.
I h**e liars, hence my disatisfaction with Obama (not because of the color of his skin) and the Democrats, but equally dislike those who censor people because they don't agree or like what is politically expressed, or the opinion being given. For censoring is very similar to lying, not letting the thruth of others out, just so you can protect what you want people to believe is the t***h, which in most incidents when this is done, the censoring people's opinion it is not the t***h, but what is censored is.
I have not been able to put anything on FB for nearly a year now, but don't mind, because most who would be reading it are closed minded 'Useful I***ts' for the socialistic and c*******tic cause, as Stalin onced explained were those who supported him and Lenin, in order to do the horrible things they did to their own country men that were lovers and desirers of freedom. This is what is being taken away from Americans today, by those same types of 'Useful I***ts' that support the liberals, progressives, and Democrats, synonymous with socialists, c*******ts, and f*****ts. 'Political Correctness' is a form of f*****m, that is the views and opinions of those in political power, being forced on all others, through unlegislated laws that the aforementioned simply decree because of their political position.
So rest in peace FB, your sins have been exposed, and you have been found extremely lacking in t***h and respect for those whom you were supposedly serving.
I h**e liars, hence my disatisfaction with Obama (not because of the color of his skin) and the Democrats, but equally dislike those who censor people because they don't agree or like what is politically expressed, or the opinion being given. For censoring is very similar to lying, not letting the thruth of others out, just so you can protect what you want people to believe is the t***h, which in most incidents when this is done, the censoring people's opinion it is not the t***h, but what is censored is.
I have not been able to put anything on FB for nearly a year now, but don't mind, because most who would be reading it are closed minded 'Useful I***ts' for the socialistic and c*******tic cause, as Stalin onced explained were those who supported him and Lenin, in order to do the horrible things they did to their own country men that were lovers and desirers of freedom. This is what is being taken away from Americans today, by those same types of 'Useful I***ts' that support the liberals, progressives, and Democrats, synonymous with socialists, c*******ts, and f*****ts. 'Political Correctness' is a form of f*****m, that is the views and opinions of those in political power, being forced on all others, through unlegislated laws that the aforementioned simply decree because of their political position.
So rest in peace FB, your sins have been exposed, and you have been found extremely lacking in t***h and respect for those whom you were supposedly serving.
Rivers wrote:
b Since the end of the 2016 e******n, and especia... (show quote)
Feb 1, 2017 11:52:48 #
That happened to me also some time ago but not since because I guess I became less controversial or something.😏
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