The Facebook Rant

The evolution of Facebook is the prime example of corporate greed and overzealous advertising infecting a website and successfully normalising its own implementation to the point where almost its entire userbase doesn’t even notice what’s going on in front of their own eyes. Ask a Facebook user where the ads are on the website and they’re likely to point to the sidebar, and maybe even say with a self assured smirk, “Yeah but I don’t see them because I’ve got adblock.”

Here’s the thing. The Facebook feed used to be where I could hear my friends. You know, those people who I wanted to hear more from personally about their lives and general goings on because I’m actually somewhat fond of them. But scroll down your timeline. All you’re going to see is shares of movie trailers and memes and 7 second videos that autoplay with black bars above the top and bottom telling you to watch them. You’ll find your feed interrupted with regular little advertisements that are almost indistinguishable from the myriad of shared content. You’ll find that, whether you realise it or not, you’re contributing to the litter, as “liked” material will get randomly chosen to be slapped on someone else’s feed. Instead of stopping to look at a friend’s photo as you might otherwise have done, you’ll probably scroll past it in the semi-trance state we all enters as we lazily scroll (or swipe) down our feeds, half absorbing the emojis and the brands and the 240p rehosted videos that don’t attribute credit to the original creators.

And then there’s those pages that gain the system. The ones that tell you to vote by leaving a particular reaction on a post, or by either commenting or sharing it, not because they actually give a fuck about what the result will be but because it will allow their page to fly upwards through Facebook’s algorithms so that when they advertise their merch or their site (where they can score on their own ad revenue), more eyes will see it. They’ll adopt pop-culture and repeated low-effort comedy simply in a long-term effort to sell you shit, and that’s 90% of what clutters the website today.

And the most depressing thing is that 99% of users just go along with it. They’ll continue to like, share, comment, tag a mate who conforms to this hilarious stereotype, share an injustice that the media is blowing up to muffle something more important, scroll aimlessly downwards absorbing endless amounts of non-information. A year or more ago I blocked the three most common pages that polluted my feed: The LAD Bible, I Fucking Love Science, and another one that I’ve thankfully forgotten the existence of and cannot recall. But the amount of asinine shit that still makes its way to my screen, telling me what to think and when to laugh and who to hate, is really dragging me down.

And I should quit, right? That’d solve the problem. But I can’t. Because in-between all of the grey-matter is the stuff that I actually want to see. I want to know that my friends are out there and having fun. And I’m not criticising the people who like posts that make them laugh, or share something that’s exciting or hilarious. I’m frustrated with Facebook, and their algorithms, and the way they manipulate each and every user into becoming just another coin in the faceless piggy bank that is their corporation.

Text as a Medium for Communication

Around the age of eleven or twelve I created an MSN account to talk to my friends. And at the time it was the most wonderful thing, I was able to speak to them outside of school and without the boundaries of the clunkiness and costliness of texting. The IM system simulated conversations in that it truly was instant, something which I really don’t have to explain to anybody reading this as it was then swiftly integrated into Facebook, which subsequently blew up and devoured all of our lives.

The outcome of this has been a society in which many, and in some cases most of the conversations that we hold with friends are within that little chat window. We became such a big fan of instant messaging that we flocked to it (Like sheep? In droves? Take your pick) and adopted it without thinking twice. Emoticons that already existed in text messaging became universally understood, with the traditional smiley faces being automatically replaced by little pictures of what they were meant to represent, and later, of course, emojis. It’s part of our culture now, and without it I’m sure we’d all feel a little less connected.

But there’s a dark side to this. Besides, you know, the glaring one about staying inside and staring at a screen. The downside is that although we’ve become so adept at conveying ourselves through text as effortlessly as we would through speech, it is still not the same. The nuances and pitches that indicate humour or sarcasm or sadness are gone, replaced by a need for particular synonyms or emoticons which we sometimes don’t feel like or think about adding. The recipient of an IM will read it in a subconscious inner voice and if it fails to portray the way in which you meant to say something, it can have lasting effects on that person’s perception of your opinion or intentions. 99% of the time, of course, this does not happen. It seems, however, that in the long run, the worms are starting to come out of the woodwork and miscommunication is showing up more and more.

Now, this doesn’t sound like a big deal when you think about it initially. So, the odd joke gets taken the wrong way, so what? But it’s actually quite a problem. People (like me) who don’t wish to seek confrontations or who are doubtful or nervous in general, or people who with autism or similar conditions may find offense where none was meant, and simply not say anything. No wrong is meant or harboured by either party, but it can lead to a dampening of someone’s mood or a rift in a friendship.

And the damn “Seen” notification is the worst thing Facebook could have ever added to their messenger system. It adds a new level of social awkwardness when one who is busy, or doesn’t know how to answer something, or simply wishes (not unkindly) to end the conversation is trapped in the knowledge that they’ve made virtual eye contact. If left at this, the sender may become paranoid or think that they’ve caused offense. It adds a whole new layer of possible misunderstanding and paranoia.

Basically what I’m saying is this: Instant messaging is a great form of conversation. Use it as much as you want, talk to whoever you like, it’s great for that. But we’ve taken it for granted as a means of solid communication, and if you ever find something uncharacteristic or unexpected, always take it with a pinch of salt. If you really wish to converse with your friends, meet them in person, or at least talk over Skype. Not only is there less danger to be found in miscommunication but there is more humour in tone, more beauty in facial reception, and more social fulfillment in physical being.