So, I’ve decided to leave Facebook for a while. Initially it was a good tool for keeping in touch with people I otherwise wouldn’t hear from, but lately going to the Book of Face has been a toxic experience for me.
More and more I’ve been thinking about the double edged sword that is social media. Sure, it connects us in ways we’ve never been connected before, but the cost of that has been to give up a great deal of privacy. Case in point, when my girlfriend and I broke up, we had to do it in front of all of our friends. Not cool.
Yes, the decision to post that much personal information online initially was mine, so I except responsibility for the privacy I knowingly gave up, but when I started on Facebook many years ago, I didn’t have a full understanding of what the impact of giving up that much privacy would be.
I think for many of us, we go online and we create a Facebook profile, and we adjudicate the best parts of our lives to showcase the version of ourselves we want to be, but not necessarily who we really are. We state opinions like we are experts not understanding that opinions don’t equal real, solid, facts.
The ability social media gives us to express an opinion in the void has, in my opinion, stripped us of a lot of the decorum and civility we used to have when we would discuss things face-to-face, and created a culture of trolling that I just can no longer abide.
I feel that Facebook has not done nearly enough to protect our information. Too many faceless organizations have access to my personal information which they can use for God knows what. Too many people trust the information that shows up in their feeds without properly checking the sources of said information. That inundation of misinformation and half truths and downright lies has contributed to perhaps the worst political disaster in our country‘s history.
The reality of Facebook is that their primary purpose isn’t to connect us, it’s to gather Intel on our likes and needs and to sell us stuff. When I think of the time I’ve wasted online that I will never get back I am truly saddened.
Now, with all that being said, this isn’t a full break up quite yet. It’s more of a trial separation. I still believe that social media can have a positive place in our lives, and can connect us in some very powerful ways, but I desperately need to step back from it, and to take a breath, and reevaluate some things in my life, and carefully consider what should be private and what should be public knowledge.
I’ll leave this post up for a couple of days before I go dark. I’m going to stay away for at least a month and see if that feels good or if I experience any kind of withdrawal. I’ll probably keep my Instagram account, as I don’t find that nearly as time-consuming or as toxic as Facebook has been lately. I think I’ll dump Twitter though. Honestly I still don’t completely understand Twitter or the cultural impact it apparently has.
Those of you who are my close friends know how to get ahold of me if you need me. Until then, this is Johnny D signing off...
Copyright 2018 John Michael Decker. No reprints without written permission.
