On Why I'm Not on Facebook
or Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing
If it must be said then I must say it: Do not take the following words personally, for about Facebook I tend to wax inflammatory. Most everyone I love is on Facebook. This has nothing to do with persons in particular but is directed at the inflatable phenomenon in general. With that said, let’s go on.
I’m not on Facebook. Oddly, whenever I toss that out into a conversation hovering on the topic, the next thing I hear are defenses: a defending counterpart. I have supposed that defense should be shot counteractively, for I am a dwindling minority in most crowds. “I’m on it,” they say, “to keep in touch with friends.” Or, “I’ve got back in touch with so many old friends this way.” I smile, “That’s great.” And it is.
Why I’m not on Facebook in ascending order:
5) I am decidedly behind the times. Simplicity! I don’t like mobile telephones, I fail with chat, I hate Twitter, I can’t stand Facebook, I write on an old fashioned type-writer. I live in a town with mediaeval walls. I revel in books from the 19th century. I cannot condense words or thoughts or emotions into a tiny line. I am behind the times.
4) Facebook is a vast waste of time. Ennui wins by dull and vacuous suction. I imagine you there, sitting at work, sitting at home, just sitting with the vibrations of the glowing computer screen always on, always like the prophet before you. I imagine you with a job as boring as the insides of a cardboard box and with as little passion at home. Honestly, what else are you going to do? You are bored and you are unhappy. And instead of engaging your mind or your body in good old real stimulation you persist (because it’s safer) in your waking-day sleep.
Because, if you were working hard and passionately at something each and every day, awake and stimulated by life, fecund and tangible before you, you most likely wouldn’t care that the person who sat next to you in science class 5, 10, 20 years ago had his/her tooth removed today. You wouldn’t have time to care. You would be so engaged with the living that the static on the screen would equal nil. And anyway, if you still liked your science neighbor you would have called him/her, spoke and asked how the extraction went. But oh, I’m sorry, such a personal inquiry is obviously going too far… you’re right, it’s best to type a quick comment under their status: I hope UR OK :) That’s much more meaningful… and safer.
I think there are people who spend a lot of time on Facebook. Minutes and hours mourned, potential flushed down the mass grave of a new day. (Facebook estimates 6 billion minutes a day, that’s about 4 166 666 days, that’s about 11 415 years, that’s about 114 Centuries wasted every 24 hours, on Facebook. Mama mia! The idea is staggering.)
3) I am an introverted solitaire with fluctuating anti-social inclinations climaxing during the writing of this book. Yet I cannot think of anything better than human company; I love sitting around a table, at home, at a restaurant, at a bar, eating and drinking and talking and laughing and smoking and sharing in being. I love being taken by the flux of a Roman Saturday night, people alive in the piazzas and street. Profile pictures and stagnant status just doesn’t do it for me.
2) I am stubborn. Once I have decided on No, No it will remain.
1) Strong spasms of repugnance I suffer from most anything adopted like a pet rock by the masses. It has always seemed to me that unanimously strong social opinion is faultily grounded. Any movement that gathers blind consent is usually rotted somewhere along the core, History teaches. To become a raw foodist, for instance, one must stop believing in cooked food, that doesn’t mean cooked food will cease to exist but it will cease to exist for you. Raw foodism will never reach as epidemic proportions as Facebook, we may be sure. How has it attracted so many followers?
Because from the outside, Facebook certainly looks like a cult or at best, a new religion. No one listens to the pope anymore, so why not call young Mr. Zuckerberg off his billions and crown him with the second coming? They’re making a movie, that’s just as good. It’s the words Facebook uses, words we love like Friends and Connection, it’s the insane amount of pressure lodged down upon one: “You better keep in touch. You can’t see my photographs if you don’t.” It’s the natural human desire to be remembered, to be known, to be someone—instead of creating, it’s done for you, just log on.
So again, it comes down to this: you accept the majority, the mod and its decisions, or you don’t. You bow down before the Vox populi, vox Dei or you plug your ears not to hear its obscene how. You perform your antics to please the vast public, Deus ex machina, or you refuse to perform for the public at all, unless now and then to pull its elephantine and ignominious leg. — DH Lawrence, Pornography and Obscenity
Because if I logged onto Facebook, writing and thinking about what others wrote and thought, I would instantly be as sunk as Atlantis. If I was surrounded by the perpetual babble of the rabble—even if by the off-shot, a friend adds something of meaning—(and this is very important here): How would I know what I think? How do you know what you think, buried as you are, bombarded and plied for as you are, with your attention and friendship become commodity? Self-knowing is hard enough in silence.
Sometimes I have trouble believing that us humans can exist outside of our willingness to be led. We would follow a voice in the dark if the voice is sweet and speaks our language; what matter if it takes us over the abyss? What matter if it speaks promises it cannot fulfill? What matter?.. If the voice is sweet… Individuals do not exist as such. Even if you believe yourself to be an individual, you are not. I am not. And this is the false illusion Facebook fortifies: you are unique, you are remembered and you are someone. But you will always only be one among 300 million active users, one among six billion living people; I think dust mote is more appropriate.
Connection runs much stronger than any monstrous website can sell. Connections exist without Facebook and pop up everywhere. Friends are not necessarily those who sat next to you in science class ten years ago but may be stronger in people you have not spoken to yet. Conversations, connections, friends come and then are gone: everything is passing.
Addendum (4/11): A note on individuals that you may take as you want to. Though I must mention it is about people who change things. This takes heaps of determination and no distractions. It is a call to action.
She told us to remember that it is the efforts of individuals that move the world, and that nobody must think themselves small and unimportant. —Doris Lessing, Time Bites
Commentary for On Why I'm Not on Facebook
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1 On Tuesday 20 October 2009 carolyn manney wrote:
yep, right on. although i find that i get a sick twisted pleasure inside me when i see all these woggers i grew up with who right status updates about how “our god is an awesome god, he reigns on heaven & on earth!” or “i’m in need of a new bible, anyone know a good translation?” or “happy fourth of july, i have found freedom in the united states AND in JESUS!!” (what the fuck does that one mean anyway?) i’m not making these up, they’re real. i know, i’m sick. i can’t help it. :-) sometimes i like to be reminded that i grew up in a cult and everyone is still totally fucked up but somehow i made it out. ah, facebook.
anyway my dear, i’m glad that bowl is mine now. but now i have no ransom for you to visit… how about i cook you the best meal ever, we drink microbrews & wine, walk around the city & sit and talk face to face…. i miss you lady! kiss kiss..