OK, this might be a little harsh, but:
What good has social media, Facebook, done for anyone?
“Oh, I keep in touch with my family on there.”
No you don’t. Keeping in touch with family is having reunions and get-togethers. It’s talking on the phone — actually talking, having long-form conversation. If it’s electronic, fine, then maybe it’s sending some pictures via text or email.
What are you doing on social media? Even if you’re enjoying images of your grandkids or nieces and nephews, cousins, whatever, be honest and admit you’re also posting non-family things. Maybe you say, “I’m not political,” but I guarantee you’ve posted something controversial in the last year. Maybe even in the last month. Or week.
And what has that brought?
What sense does it make to have a family argument in a public space? Arguing about Trump on Facebook is like having a shouting match in a mall. Why are you subjecting all these other people to it? Awkward…
Is it maybe because part of you… some part of you, no matter how small, no matter how much you believe yourself to be NOT an exhibitionist, NOT narcissistic, kind of likes the attention?
And, at whose expense?
Certainly not Facebook’s expense. They’re making billions off of you. Advertising to you. Learning about your habits, what you like and don’t like. All for profit. Theirs and other companies’.
So you’re on there, either freely sharing your biometric data, your opinions on all things big and small, your preferences for all manner of entertainment — you’re on there arguing with people, or at least having the occasional disagreement, and for what?
You’re a product. You’ve become a cog in the machine of the infotainment complex.
Look, let’s step back and get the broadest perspective we can. Each of us, right now, are under the influence of the political news media. Even if we say we avoid “mainstream news,” we’ve been influenced to choose alternative outlets of information, and some of those are even more misleading and misinforming.
We’re being trained — we’ve been being trained for more than ten years — to consume “news” as an entertainment product, as a truth product. Cable news networks sell us moral panic and we eat it up. Then we go on social media and spit it back out. I’ve sat there and watched arguments unfold on Facebook and known exactly what one person was going to say to the other before they even typed it out. It’s been scripted for us!
And why? Why are we arguing? Why debate? Why even passively “share” information? What good does it do? Studies show over and over again that what we see online, if it doesn’t already affirm our preexisting views, holds no sway over us. No one comes away from a Facebook debate with a fresh perspective. (Unless, maybe, it’s “I need to get off Facebook…”)
No change is happening on Facebook. No deepening of wisdom or betterment of humanity. We’re coming to social media with the talking points provided to us by the nationalized political news media, the cable news editorialists (I’m looking at you, Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow) and we’re weaponizing these talking points against our fellow citizens.
Why?
We think there’s some big culture war happening, some ultra important battle we need to be a part of (we have to save the country!!) and it’s nonsense — it’s this very phenomenon that’s most damaging to the country!! The “culture war” is an effective business model for the media. It’s us-versus-them, and we’re sucking it right up. Sure, there are issues, but they’re almost never, and I mean almost never as binary, as cut-and-dried as depicted by the media. Further, there are myriad issues, arguably far more important, that effect us all, and we don’t hear about them because they’re too bipartisan in nature, too complex or nuanced, because there’s not one side ready to blame.
The media profit from our division. Then we go on social media, and companies like Facebook profit while we argue the talking points the media scripted for us. While we (fools!) wear the brands of the politicians now taking their cues from that selfsame political news media. It’s a vicious circle, with media writing the cultural script, politicians taking direction so as not to lose their constituents. A feedback circle with us stuck in the middle, like children, thinking we know what we’re doing.
Want to keep it going? By all means, continue to scroll through the nonsense on Facebook everyday. Tell yourself you’re there to keep in touch with family and friends. The attention merchants love it. The politicians love it — and milk it for all its worth. The news media make their living from it!
I gotta tell you, I’ve been off of Facebook for six months now, and I feel great. I don’t lay awake at night thinking about some debate I had, or some article I saw about something I can do nothing about. My path is toward what I can do in my own backyard, or within my own community, at the very most, my state. That the media choose to focus on the big sensational national issues where I have almost no power or influence, I’m not going to just follow along.
Speaking of following along… Have you ever noticed a refrain that’s common to both sides of the false binary machine? You’ve heard it time and again. It’s, “Wake up!” And it’s calling the other side “sheep.”
Sheep, huh?
I wonder — who is leading those sheep?