Personally, I hope it comes crashing down, and Twitter and Google along with it. They are too big, too insidious, too rich, and too controlling. Not to mention leftist/commie. And crony capitalists. And too young, too.

Why Facebook makes us angry and depressed

quote:

Since the earliest days of Facebook, social scientists have sent up warnings saying that the ability to maintain separate "contexts" (where you reveal different aspects of yourself to different people) was key to creating and maintaining meaningful relationships, but Mark Zuckerberg ignored this advice, insisting that everyone be identified only by their real names and present a single identity to everyone in their lives, because anything else was "two-faced."

Zuck was following in the footsteps of other social network entrepreneurs who attempted to impose their own theories of social interaction on mass audiences -- danah boyd has written and presented extensively on the user rebellions of Friendster from people who wanted to form interest-based affinity groups and use pseudonymous identities for different activities, which Friendster rejected out of a mix of commercial concerns (it wanted users to arrange their social affairs to make it easier to monetize them) and fringe theories of social interaction.

But while all the other social networks collapsed, Facebook thrived, and imposed the Zuckerberg model of "one identity, one context" on billions of users, who, research consistently finds, are made unhappy and angry by their use of the service, but are nevertheless psychologically compelled to continue using it, creating a vicious feedback loop that even Zuck has acknowledged as a risk to his business.

In 2008, I found myself speaking with the big boss himself, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I was in the second year of my Ph.D. research on Facebook at Curtin University. And I had questions.

Why did Facebook make everyone be the same for all of their contacts? Was Facebook going to add features that would make managing this easier?

To my surprise, Zuckerberg told me that he had designed the site to be that way on purpose. And, he added, it was "lying" to behave differently in different social situations.

Up until this point, I had assumed Facebook's socially awkward design was unintentional. It was simply the result of computer nerds designing for the rest of humanity, without realising it was not how people actually want to interact.

The realisation that Facebook's context collapse was intentional not only changed the whole direction of my research but provides the key to understanding why Facebook may not be so great for your mental health.

The secret history of Facebook depression [Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie/Particle]

Link to original article

Facebook doesn't make me angry or depressed. I'm not on it much though. Just to keep up with a few close relatives.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Personally, I hope it comes crashing down, and Twitter and Google along with it. They are too big, too insidious, too rich, and too controlling. Not to mention leftist/commie.

The last point is most important of all.

It used to make me angry and/or depressed. Or at least annoyed .

I suspended my account for four months. When I reactivated it I pruned nearly every "friend" I did not know IRL. And, of the three I did not: Two of them are un-followed, because they post mostly political stuff. At least three people I do know IRL are also un-followed, for the same reason.

I immediately "hide" any remaining political commentary I see and post no political or social commentary, myself.

Facebook is a good deal less interesting than it was, but also a good deal less annoying.

My Facebook feed has been customized to be mostly motorcycles, guns and guitars. I mainly use it to keep up with new products, race teams and funny memes.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
But while all the other social networks collapsed, Facebook thrived, and imposed the Zuckerberg model of "one identity, one context" on billions of users, who, research consistently finds, are made unhappy and angry by their use of the service, but are nevertheless psychologically compelled to continue using it, creating a vicious feedback loop that even Zuck has acknowledged as a risk to his business.

There’s a huge, blame shifting assumption built into this argument: that Facebook has “imposed” its business model on billions of people who are “compelled” to use it. Nonsense. I don’t like Facebook and therefore don’t use it, but it’s their platform and they get to operate it however they want. Shifting the blame to the company and away from the people who choose to use it is so common now that it almost always goes unnoticed, especially by all the “helpless victims” that horribly flawed reasoning creates.

It doesn’t bother me anymore but that is the reason I left it 1 1/2 yrs ago. Facebook is dead to me.

Huh ?
I have multiple Facebook accounts under phoney personnae.
How am I getting away with that ?

I didn't have to provide any sort of ID to sign up.

Never had farcebook, never will. It is heavily monitored, controlled, and therefore, toxic.

I have no issue with FB, it's what you make it. I scroll through 99% of what's posted on my feed. Some of my leftie friends put a smile on my face,
stupid people don't make me angry.

I have hobbies where FB is a great asset.

I think it's a valid point. It used to be that you could be friends with someone that you didn't necessarily agree on all the big things with because you didn't have to talk about everything. You could have a friendship that was built off a common interest, and the friendship could be mostly just about that.

But with social media, you start to be delivered, to your own personal devices, all the opinions they wouldn't feel free to share in person, but blast out on social media. I've written off all kinds of people who probably would be good to know or keep up with as they grow and change, but after seeing people I respected post stuff about gun owners having little dicks and trying to compensate for that, or pretty much everything since the first Republican debate a few years ago, I've not only lost respect for people I used to like, I've completely written them off.

Society hasn't evolved to work this way. I feel that it evolved the way the author of the article is arguing that it did, and it makes the most sense. We're multitudes of people throughout the day. When I get up, my wife is already gone for work, and so I'm Dad - I get my son up, I bring him to school. When I walk out of the school and get in the car to head to work, I'm another person who says things I wouldn't want my son to hear (yet), and think things I couldn't imagine trying to explain to him (yet). When I get out of the car and walk into work, I'm another person - I'm quiet, I'm filtered, I'm professional. When I leave work to go to one of a number of different lunch spots, I'm a different person again - relaxed, enjoying my time away from the shop and ready to decompress for a little bit. The day continues and I head home, and with the three of us together, I am husband and father and I am different than I am at work. When I talk to my brother, I'm different. When I talk to different friends, I feel differently and we talk and interact in different ways. That variety is refreshing.

When I post on Facebook, I get my highschool friend, my mother, and my supervisor at work all arguing with each other about politics. I get my old bandmate giving me a solitary creepy like on something that shouldn't be liked. I get to read old customers go on tirades about gun owners ruining the country.

Arguably, if Facebook didn't exist, I wouldn't be in contact with most of those people anymore and so the friendship would have been lost to time. That process has been replaced by either continued forging or definitive breaking of friendships. Instead of letting things happen in a somewhat natural manner, we now have to try to process life in the terms of one identity that we show everyone and not get to have facets to our lives, else risk being called "two face," as Zuckerberg states.

After my manager got drunk and proceeded to troll me on Facebook because I wasn't virtue signalling hard enough in favor of the muslim terrorist that shot up the gay nightclub in Orland, I decided there was no winning. I simply haven't been on Facebook at all in the last year, and a whole lot less before that. I was actually thinking about completely deactivating my account this morning and probably will.

Bottom line, they sell all your information so the sucker is you. It is a heavy leftist organization all the way up to Zuckernuts. Want to support the Left and Democratic Party then use Fakebook. Don’t? Then get the fuck off it and cancel your account.

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
Huh ?
I have multiple Facebook accounts under phoney personnae.
How am I getting away with that ?

I didn't have to provide any sort of ID to sign up.

Yeah, I don't get that either. I only signed up under a fake name years ago and haven't used it at all since.

It isn't of any use to me, so Zuck can suck.

i don't get angry and depressed. I'm a giver. I make liberals angry and depressed in a couple of closed groups I'm in.

:-)

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
i don't get angry and depressed. I'm a giver . I make liberals angry and depressed in a couple of closed groups I'm in.

:-)

I'm on FB a bit. I've never found it do be frustrating or toxic to me, personally. I am able to resist the urge to have 627 "friends", and just keep it to actual friends and family that I really like. To me it seems like one of those things that is whatever you let it be. Yes, it will try to be all the bad things that people seem to fear, but you have the ability to keep your circle as tight as you want.
Also, however, I could do without it just fine...

I’ve pruned away every semblance of politics and cats from Facebook it is so much more better now.

I threaten to remove my dad as all he posts are political statements about Trump being the debil social security, Medicare etc have corrupted his values I think, a one time Reagan Democrat. He raised me I think I know what he taught me and it’s not the crazy shit he spreads...

Watched Facebook ruin a decades long marriage, I certainly don’t trust the place.

If you're allowing Facebook to make you angry and depressed I submit that you are giving Facebook way too much power in your life. Even those of you who don't use Facebook yet allow it to get you so worked up... it's kind of comical really.

quote:

Originally posted by reflex/deflex 64:
I’ve pruned away every semblance of politics and cats from Facebook it is so much more better now.

I threaten to remove my dad as all he posts are political statements about Trump being the debil social security, Medicare etc have corrupted his values I think, a one time Reagan Democrat. He raised me I think I know what he taught me and it’s not the crazy shit he spreads...

Watched Facebook ruin a decades long marriage, I certainly don’t trust the place.

I'm scratching my head over this statement. I obviously don't know them or any details, but Facebook - as itself - is not responsible for their marriage dissolving.

Maybe communication or trust issues that Facebook brought to the surface. Or one's misuse of Facebook caused the split doesn't mean Facebook is bad and needs to be gone.

I once had a serious relationship with a woman who turned full tilt born-again Christian.
I couldn't go down that road so we split up. I don't blame Christianity for that. It was a decision she made for herself.

I've never gotten angry or depressed over Facebook. But I don't see any politics there, and I don't care to. I can't comprehend how people would allow themselves to get into that position. If it has a negative effect in my life, I'd get rid of it.

If you only use social media to keep up with close friends and family, you’ll never get angry or depressed. Block all the wingnuts and don’t engage in needless back and forth with people who are incapable of understanding what you are even saying.