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Most people don't view Stallman's words as gospel, he's actually kind of a running joke nowadays - a sort of the caricature of the software profession, all neckbeard, tin-foil, and wizard powers. And it is true a lot of Stallman's ideas are sadly unrealistic for a large corporation operating in many highly complex environments. And although nearly every single point on his rant regarding facebook's policies is ridiculous as an argument against using facebook (except the psychology study one), I do absolutely agree with him that folks should, with enough time and introspection, grow out of using facebook personally (professional use is fine). The fact of the matter is facebook gives you the illusion of personal connection and being "always in the know" so you short-circuit that reward-loop in your brain and wind up with an addiction. It's just like drugs, alcohol, video games, or any host of other addictive activities out there for us to waste our lives on. Granted it's fun at first, but after a while, one needs to realize one has become a slave to a rather meaningless habit (checking your feed, updating your status, "liking" shit) that doesn't make you better, richer, or any more intimate with another. Instead, you've sat at your computer for another evening, poor-ifying the circulation in your legs, watching the highlights of other people living their lives, and feeling mildly displeased with yourself yet not enough to ever look away. Instead of facebook, you could've did leg day at the gym and gotten better glutes, hiked to the beach and communed with nature, joined a crossfit class and paid to irreparably hurt yourself, or even got some work done on your hobby project. Facebook is literally wasting you away for the promise of social fulfillment that it can't fulfill. After all when it comes to social connection, facebook is far inferior to actually meeting up for a date, direct call/skype, text/im/email... hell, in a lot of ways Facebook is worse than video games because, when you're playing a video game with friends, at least you're all working together on a common platform (especially if it's one of those Kinect dancing games, nothing brings people closer than watching each other dance awkwardly). Instead, you're on facebook, ruminating over ghosts of people and events that have already passed by you, thinking you're together and connected with all your friends, yet still miserably yourself in front of your computer with nothing to show for it. Also, one can stand to look at only so many pics of receipts from super expensive restaurants by friends who have just recently gone and are gushing over the food like some 12 year old fangirl over a boyish pop idol. |
I have easy access to photos people share with others now, so I can see pictures of their kids and the like (and see that they went to Hawaii or something). I've been able to get back into contact with people I met at an event long ago and chat with them. I hear about my friend's projects, which lets me message them.
My friends and I organise events through facebook. We can keep track of location and post pictures of the event afterwards.
The end result is I am in contact with way more people than I could manage with the friction of calling/keeping tabs on everyone all the time. It also results in a lot of real-world interaction. There are people I meet twice, three times a year and _that's totally fine_ because without a tool like fb I would never meet them. My circle of friends would be way smaller without fb.
Of course I keep contact with very close people through other mechanisms as well. But claiming that facebook results in less social interaction doesn't match up with my experiences too well