“Well maybe it is you, a little bit.”
After everything that’s been unraveling about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (which I ironically found out about on Facebook) a few of my friends were soon using the hashtag #deletefacebook in protest as they said their goodbyes online. It made me think about my own relationship with Facebook and social media in general, wondering where the evolution in social media will take us next.
Our history...
I reluctantly joined Facebook in 2007 after being pestered by family and friends, all saying that it was the most amazing way to keep in touch. I was away filming for several months at the time, and was using group emails, yahoo messenger, and Skype as my main methods of contact with loved ones at home. I still had a MySpace account and used Photobucket when my email couldn’t handle the large photo attachments. I finally caved and joined Facebook, and well, over ten years later here I am writing about my on/off relationship with it.
“It’s complicated…”
Now, over the years I’ve had a complicated relationship with Facebook; I love it and hate it simultaneously, and I’m pretty certain that others can relate to this too. I’ve had several “breaks” from it, never quite being able to permanently delete my account (which those cheeky chaps have made very difficult to even do!), often posting a pretentious status update to inform my friends that, “I’m having a Facebook detox, please email or call me if you want to get in touch.” But when I go through these detoxes I tend to swing from enjoying the peace and quiet, to suffering moments of severe FoMO. Then the inevitable happens, and I reactivate my account with a big, “Hi guys, guess who’s back?!” puke - and I like, I comment, I LOL, I share, I cry, and repeat. It doesn’t take long for me to be reminded about why we needed to go on a break in the first place; I’m friends with certain people whose posts I choose to hide instead of just unfriending them because it’s less complicated. I have different privacy settings for different groups of friends because some of them are more like work colleagues who I don’t actually know that well, and don’t really keep in touch with once the job’s over. I feel pressured to “like” certain posts because I know that they’ll see my other activity in my timeline and will feel offended that I chose to ignore their video of their child being super cute. Never has social networking been so complicated!
“Where do we stand?”
This latest data breach is a biggie, there’s no denying that, and part of me would like to see masses of Facebook users jump ship, waving their middle fingers in the air and shouting, “F*** YOOOoouuuuu!” But I just can’t see this ever happening, and the people that do follow through with deleting Facebook will hardly make a dent in the whole big scheme of things. Facebook is a unique monster, and for the time being at least, I see no other viable alternative. Other existing social media sites, whilst also providing a unique experience in their own right, just don’t offer the same type of interaction. I also have accounts with Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, but Facebook is my “private” form of contact with only family and friends being privy to my posts. Some of the older members of my family (uncles, aunts, and even my own mother), aren’t on any of the other networks, and have also admitted to finding them confusing. So until a viable alternative presents itself to the mainstream, I don’t think this Frankenstein is going anywhere.
“Maybe we could try an open relationship, y’know, see other people.”
I recently signed up to be an Alpha tester for Howdoo, one of the latest blockchain powered social media sites offering an alternative to Facebook, ”combining all the best features of your existing social media apps.” And I am also exploring the Mithril platform (Lit), which so far looks like a slick alternative to Instagram, ”a Stories platform that rewards users’ content value.” I can't say much else about these apps yet as I’m still in the process of creating my accounts, but I definitely will be sharing my feedback once I’ve dived in and taken a proper gander! One thing's for sure - the race is awwwn for the next (decentralised) social media giant to rise. Many will come, many will try, some will fall by the waste sides, and few will be truly victorious. It’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out.
“So what is our relationship status?”
I’m still teetering on the edge of jumping ship, knowing full well that if I do, I’ll lose touch with some family and friends, and will then have to deal with the FoMO. Although the more I think about it, the more I believe that breaking up (like, for real this time) would feel so liberating.
Facebook is going to survive this storm; I think a lot of people are truly outraged by it, but the rest either don’t really care or feel like they need to pretend to be outraged. If and when I decide to end this relationship, it’ll honestly be because of our long history of love and hate, not because of the data misuse. I look back on the good old days of yore, and wish that we could all return to sending and receiving long emails, with maybe a photo (or two) attached. Life was a lot less complicated back then.
Thanks for stopping by,
@dramamama x
Because my first photo sucked, see it on my introduction post, lol!
I really only use it to keep in touch with my long distance friends and messenger. In fact I shut it down and had to change my password due to a friends account being hacked and their message opened when it came through :(
I hadn't even been on since the mentioned the breach. I log in, low and behold ...We're sorry to inform you that one of your friends used xx program which FB discontinued in 2015 and was part of the data that had been taken by Cambridge Analytica.
Of course they wouldn't tell me who the 1 friend, but the letter did tell me ALL of the information, usage and so forth had been included in the data. BLEH
I do agree I liked my MySpace better since I could customize it. I just had so many loading issues.
Going to be interesting to see how this all goes
Oh my.... I’ve not heard of anyone going through that kind of experience. But I guess it’s the price we end up paying for a “free” site.
Always a pleasure to read your comments! Thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it!
X
I enjoy your writing and and personality :) It's been crazy. I do everything on my end to keep me safe. It really does take one bad apple LOL.
Wow. Interesting relationship. I was on Xanga & MySpace. Then Facebook around 2006 back when I was in college because everybody was doing it. I was in a contest to have the most friends which was easy as a lot of people knew me in college. But I was still using MySpace a lot until maybe 2010 or something. I liked MySpace as it was more customizable and stuff. http://myspace.com/l4oj
I am still on Facebook telling people I make money on Steemit and people tend not to really get what I am talking about. I think have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook and have been censored or much worse on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, over the years, over a lot of things. A lot of people are. Not just me. Diamond & Silk. The Health Ranger. Milo. Others. Many others. Not only me hehe. Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. I'm Oatmeal.
http://DrudgeReport.com #InformationWar #DeleteFacebook
Hey! Thanks for stopping by again. I used to like MySpace too, except for the long loading times sometimes! Why were you being censored?!
I get censored for saying there are only binary genders. I get censored for promoting free speech. I get censored for talking about the freedom to make our own choices in life in what we want to do, think, say, feel, believe, know, remember, follow, and be.
Awesome read. I also have a love hate relationship with Facey. My account is currently deactivated and has been for a few weeks. I definitely miss the photography groups I was apart of but not much else. I'll have to summon the courage one day to fully delete it
Thanks hun. Hopefully we’ll both have the courage to do it soon!
I hope my Facebook friends and followers don't see this, but I've been on a somewhat Facebook detox for almost two years now.
How? I simply unfollowed EVERYONE! Except for a few of my favourite pages, my feed is free of people's status updates. Who needs it when I have (similarly annoying) WhatsApp groups of "family and friends" to drain and crash my phone?
I still have to use FB since many of my events rely on that platform for visibility.
Don’t even get me started on the WhatsApp group chats! Sometimes that’s even worse because they can see if you’ve read their post. I like your detox style though! Thanks for stopping by!
I stopped using Facebook a while back but the only reason I'm still logged in is to use Facebook Messenger to communicate with friends and family who all live all over the world.
I stopped using it because no matter how hard I tried to clean up my own news feed, it kept getting filled with content I simply had no interest in. This abuse of data coming from Cambridge Analytica comes to no surprise to me though. Of course Facebook is collecting this personal data about everyone and it was simply a matter of time before someone abused it.
Despite this, it'll be hard for me to cut the cord completely because of its ability to communicate easily with any of my friends because of course, everyone's on Facebook.
Great article btw. Was a good read!
Same. I have a lot of family abroad and it’s the easiest way to keep in touch. I’m hopeful about the new one I’ve signed up to, but can see with the Alpha that it’s going to take a while before it becomes a real contender.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
I enjoyed this because I can relate to so much of it. Even hiding people's posts instead of unfriending them, to avoid the drama! I can't quite cut the cord because I have so much history on there now plus my business page. I've just faded away from posting on my personal page vs deleting it.