This is the beginning. Actually, this is the documented beginning, the real beginning began, probably, when this whole social media morass did. The end began when it started. But, for all intents and purposes, as a practical matter, this is the start of a process in which I extract myself from social media, specifically from Fakebook (yes, I know that is a denigration of our social media lord, but it is a much more accurate name). I am not deleting or deactivating my account (I have deactivated a handful of times in the past, for as long as a few weeks) because I have, unfortunately, a couple of commitments that are inextricably tied to the platform. However, those commitments do not require any involvement from me personally on my personal timeline (page, profile, whatever the fuck they are calling it at the moment). It is not as easy as it appears or (and this bothers me), as easy as it should be.
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| bulentgultek / Getty / The Atlantic |
It’s been a couple of days, a few cups of coffee and at least a couple of cigars. In those days I have not added to my Facebook profile, have not added to my “timeline,” and where I have interacted, it has been mostly in respect to specific groups I am either a member of or the administrator of. I have also “allowed” my Facebook page, “ShirtPocket Productions,” to be cross-posted by posts made from my “ShirtPocket Productions” Instagram account. I realize that that sounds like a fairly intricate level of involvement, but in reality – and especially compared to maintaining a personal presence via my own timeline, it is not – not even close.
Unfortunately, one of the things I actually do like about Facebook – something I’ve written about before – will eventually be bookended. In fact, if I stay committed, it already has. The history feature, “Memories,” will no longer be replenished with new memories for future recall. True, there are 10 or 11 years of solid entries to view, but if I stay the course, that ease of recall via Facebook timeline entries will be lost because there will be no new Facebook timeline entries. Save this. This will be published to my personal blog (michaelalthouse.com) and to The Medium, and I will link one or both to my Facebook timeline. That, however, is simply promotional. I post those to Twitter and LinkedIn as well.
Why? Nothing much new, just new iterations of the same old shit. I have hundreds of examples of how the reality is not what Facebook portrays it and of how reality is absolutely affected by what Facebook portrays. Not reality in how water is made up of two hydrogen and one oxygen atom, but the reality of how people relate to one another – a reality that is no less “real,” but unlike molecular reality, one that Facebook has an inappropriate and disproportionate ability to alter. Even knowing that is often - too often - not enough to combat what Fakebook has constructed.
The age of information has also turned essentially every little nuance of daily life into some kind of data, each minute division of everyone’s daily life is another thing which can then be known as yet another bit of information, as though all of that information is somehow valuable. Its existence, its mere passing though time, does not demand documentation and the fact that some informational bit is documented does not mean that it must be examined, reviewed, studied, saved or even known. Too much of what goes on in people's individual lives that, prior to the “age of information” simply existed and evaporated as it passed through liminal space, now finds its way into permanent storage, often altered – intentionally or not - from what actually transpired. But forgetting about errors in record-keeping and context, there are things that find their way into the public domain that were not necessarily “meant to be private,” but were private by default, prior to the age of “now we know everything.”
I don’t want to know what all my friends think about every little thing that comes to their minds. Sometimes I agree, and we can have a wonderful online slam-fest with a group of like-minded souls, attacking anyone who might enter that arena with an opposing view, like a bunch of sharks at a feeding frenzy. Of course, if I came upon a bunch of friends in said frenzy about a view I opposed – I then become the food. That shit never happens in real life. I also do not need to know if my friends are associating with my not-friends (yes, I have “not-friends”) – it’s none of my business, however, Fakebook not only doesn’t care, it feels it is duty-bound to inform us. And then Facebook serves up, as a main course, the feelings of betrayal that real life would not normally produce.
It’s easy to say that Facebook is morally neutral, that it is a tool, like a hammer, neither “bad" nor “good,” that it is up to whoever wields it. While that is technically true, Facebook is more akin to a wrecking ball than a hammer. It is true that a wrecking ball is also a tool, but it is a tool that is used primarily to destroy whereas a hammer can be, but it is equally useful in building. I don’t know where this ends, but it has to end here and now for me. I don’t want to know the things I know, I don’t need to know the things I know, and, despite the fact that the vast majority of it is “public information,” it is none of my business knowing these things. Information is power, and power is intoxication and intoxication of any kind, in my experience, is bad. I see the Fakebook zombies, they don’t even know they've crossed over. If I walk on the edge long enough, I’ll fall in, too.
#peace
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