People have contacted me since my first post, asking to add more material on this topic.
Though I rather like to tell happy stories with a happy ending, I felt the need to explain myself a little bit deeper.One of the reasons why I came to the point of opening a blog, was to be a non-convential, counter-flowing alternative to facebook. I see the route facebook is taking during the last period of time, and I feel it is quite worrying.
I believe Facebook is like a train tracking out. It has already started but will do so more and more. Some people have started to raise their eyebrows already, or cancelled their accounts. Some rarely access it. But most of my friends still have a heavy use of this social network.
One of the mayor factors to why I feel facebook is not a forum for well-being is that there are no direct indicator to be found how to live a better life, or none of the content seems to be created to improve peoples lives. It rather appears as an easy way to lose time, a distractor which sneaks into your mind and soul in an addictive kind of way.
It seems networking on the internet is a way of people feeling lonely believing they are connected to the world while they are on facebook, while in reality, they are only in a virtual space of immaginary connections. A real connection, in my point of view, is something you can only get in the real world. From people, animals or nature. Feeling connected has to do with your senses, your heart and spirit. Being on facebook looking at peoples posts, chatting with a friend or checking comments, you are mostly only using your brain.
In addition, it also appears to be a fabolous way of exhibiting yourself, to look for egoistic strive and create a immaginary feeling of being popular. People, who no one really cares for, might think they are being watched 24 hours. And this creates an immaginery self-esteem, which in reality has no grounding.
The backside of this kind of self-fulfillment is what happens when topics is talking about a person, and the consequences of the comments shows that that persons becomes a victim of a bully. This is probably not the aim of facebook, but this is one of the ways the train is tracking out.
Another way is the many methods the owners of this social networks can use the data of information they find from their members. This data they sell or eploit in some other way. Marketing and advertising are intrisicly linked with facebook.
If you have pictures on facebook then that is the image of yourself exposed to the rest of the world. Anyone can display a picture of you on their page and than that photo will be a part of your image, whether you like it or not, unless that person will not agree to delete the picture.
In addition to this fear, anxiousness of someone writing news about someone else or having a party
might cause severe problems in some, not being able to control the full outcome of events happening on the platform. Some friends of mine actually had to seeks professional help, and they were told
to quit using facebook for a long period of time.
What is brand new to facebook is the program they developed together with Dutch airline, KLM. Due, or thanks to, this program anyone flying KLM Amsterdam-New York or San Francisco-San Paolo can, through their facebook account, chose which unknown passenger they wish sit next to, just picking this person through a social network.
Yesterday I read that American college students are not partying anymore when on their Spring break on a paradise beach, whether in Mexico or in Florida. The reason why they do not dare to drink, not even a beer, is because they are afraid of getting drunk, lose control and end up on a picture on facebook or youtube. And since they soon are going to graduate and look for a job, they are really
keen to have a "clean" image. This is how sad the world looks like today, due to facebook.
My questions are: where are we going to end up? If the facebook-train is already tracking out, then what miserable consequences are going to come? If we do not let destiny decide for us anymore, then what will the world look like in the future? Shall social networks be ruling our future lives?
I hope the story of facebook will have a happy ending, but I am afraid it is going to be a very winding road before we get there.
Well, what is the real world?
ReplyDeleteWhen I go to a party and dress up and smile even though I feel lousy: is that REAL? As human - beings we are nearly always putting up a mask. While I observed wildlife in Africa I discovered that animals also do. Macho - animals make gestures, have horns, scream: all to pretend that they are bigger and stronger than they really are. There are antilopes that paint their faces with mud so that they scare their enemies.... so: having a mask, creating an image of myself seems to be a part of evolution, deception is a way of survival if we like it or not.
The virtual world is maybe less real than the real world, but who knows? I see everything you say and the dangers, but I also find people who through the anonimity of virtual contact have the courage to just show who they are. The fact that I cannot see them in a real space makes them feel MORE confident to be open and let their mask down.
Maybe not in facebook, though.
I have gone in and out of facebook several times.
Facebook is a way to find people who I have lost contact with. It is a path to invite people to meditations, to show my images, to share wise words that might inspire many and myself for the day.
It is nearly all superficial and the danger to kill time for nothing is huge. Still, the other day I listened to a German socilogist and what sociologists have discovered is that what holds a society or humanity together are NOT the deep intimate contacts we have with a few close friends, even though those are wonderful and necessary. What holds humanity together is - astonishingly - SMALL TALK on stupid parties, chitchat, yes: things like facebook!!!!!
There are 2 sides to everything.Be careful, yes, with what you publish.
Kiki