| >For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. Look, I get it and I think for a while it actually worked. Mostly because the User base was, offhandedly speaking, more responsible with how they used the Communication Tool of Facebook. When the internet was "difficult" and not as instant as turning on a TV, look, there was a threshold of participation that resulted in Selection Bias of sorts. Let's take an extreme example of another type of Tool, that when placed in the "Wrong" hands - so to speak - can wreak a lot of havoc: A Firearm. In the hands of a Responsible Person, a Firearm is a Tool, though it can also be a Weapon if so intended. It has pretty limited scope, but it's useful and can be controlled. Put the Firearm in the hand of an Irresponsible Person and the outcomes will likely be "Unpleasant" to put it lightly. Irresponsibility takes many forms - sometimes it's a case of Emotional Stress (relationship break up), Financial Catastrophe (debt), Desperation (drug addiction). Humans are very much unrefined and uncivilized as much as we'd like to promote a different image. I mean, when I think about BIG PROBLEMS it's stuff that Facebook isn't really the right tool for the job. You know, things like water. I just checked, and the UN posits: >783 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. It might seem like I'm moving the goalposts here, but it's actually kind of a way of twisting your attention around a little. My impression is that Facebook, in the past two years, has been one of the most divisive, family and friendship havoc wreaking wastelands and, like it or not, a behemoth with only a vestigial relationship to Zuck's latest missive. I've seen far too many posts time and time again about people noticing their lives are happier and more positive by either vastly reducing or altogether eliminating participation in Facebook. It's hard to bring the world together when providing the forum for it to tear itself apart. Right? Maybe that essay is still in the works. |