I'm feeling a bit left out. I think that I'm losing touch with people, even people who don't live that far away, because of facebook. Or more accurately my decision not to join the website and share all my information online.
My friend chastised me yesterday for not being on facebook. He was partly joking but partly serious. He lives not too far away but I hadn't been able to reach him by phone for weeks. Finally we met up yesterday. But I had missed
And then there's a good friend who I haven't heard from in probably more than a year. I write emails to him probably every month or two but get no reply. I hear second hand about his life from friends. The funny thing is that we have a lot in common and are theoretically following parallel paths in life, albeit on the other sides of the world to each other. I assume of course that he is upset with me but won't communicate anything to me. So I'm in a void. And I fear that it's all because of facebook.
There's this subtle push to join facebook, spread by each and every user. Even those people who hate facebook but still remain members. The funny thing is that I don't think I've ever been congratulated for holding out. But if I was online, think of all the news I would be privy too. But how hard is it to write an email, or letter for that matter, or to pick up the phone?
Pretty hard obviously.
As I write this I'm reminded of an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. Bear with me. I used to watch this show as an impressionable teenager. In the episode in question, an officer returns from a vacation to the ship and proceeds to spread a game that he was introduced to. The game it turns out gives extreme pleasure and brainwashes the crew to the whims of an alien species. It was totally Invasion of the Body Snatchers in space. At the time, and obviously I'm still thinking of it, it really left an impression on me. So naturally I'm not going to give in.
I have this feeling that I wrote a similar blog entry once upon a time. Well it remains a feature of all our lives.
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I'm holding out too, Thom; hang in there! I will not succumb to the convenience of crackbook!
ReplyDeleteI use facebook every day, I think that you have fairly good controls over your information, I can choose to say. I live on this street or not.
ReplyDeleteMy email and my photos can be hid.
I must be converted because I'm sure all of these things that could be hidden are being freely shared to advertisers, or governments. oh well
I suppose its hard. I know the feeling of alienation. I had it before I understood the true use of facebook.
For me its about social organization. A kind of blackboard that everyone writes on. It helps to keep things coherent.
The reality is that email might be phased out. When people don't get emails but facebook messages, they might stop using "sally@hotmail.com"
I tend to feel like, using facebook its like having a apple product such as an ipod. Its useful, meaningful but also implicates your life into a certain set of undestandings of how to live.
Ie.
-You need electricity
- you need people to suffer for you make the products
- You need a kind of reliance of technology that has never existed before
and so on...
I feel like facebook is like that but for me its a sacrifice i make to keep in touch. i'm kind of shy so it helps.
I likely will avoid apple, mp3 players, cell phones because I think that letter, paper and landline telephones work just fine.
By the way, i do enjoy getting emails from you Thom, Everyone has their "sacrifice". You probably don't need another reason to spend your life staring at a computer.