Sayonara Facebook: exactly 12 years

I have finally ended my connection to Facebook. The last post I made was a link to Greta Thurnberg’s and George Monbiot’s three-minute and thirty-nine second YouTube video on solving the climate change riddle.

In preparation for shutting down my account, I first downloaded the Facebook file of my entire 12 year residency there. Quite fortuitously, or maybe not so much, I signed up to be part of that world on January 13, 2008. As I was downloading my file, I saw that it was the evening of January 13, 2020. Exactly twelve years on Facebook. Far out.

Most anyone who uses social media understands why someone would decide they’re done playing the Facebook game. Yes, the benefits are profound. I managed to contact and “friend” several dozen friends from my college and grad school days, along with over a hundred people I grew up with in Columbia, Missouri. I imagine I would not be in touch with the vast majority of any of these people without Facebook. But the annoyance factor of social media is — as everyone knows — well … extremely annoying. Everyone’s got their special pet peeves.

If you’ve been paying attention this past few years, you know that social media is set up to make you addicted to the apps in question. That’s creepy and kind of sick. The weird thing is that while everyone with half a brain understands what the digital universe is doing to them, it doesn’t really seem to matter yet to most users.

As a result, the ideas of independent and critical thinking (the profound most important aspects of living in a democratic free world) truly seem to be fading away offstage near the back exit of everyone’s life.

Mostly though, I am amazed by the amount of money the online media and networking industry is amassing. Facebook Q3 revenues for 2019 were $17.65 billion, up 29% over the same period in 2018. It’s all based on the theory that when offered something that is virtually free, the majority of us will essentially act like sheep. You get to use Facebook however you want in exchange for letting them track your clicks, words, images, and eyeballs — behavior they convert into targeted advertising (and huge profits). All without really working hard for anything. Amazing!

So, yes: social media can provide astoundingly utilitarian communications and networking tools. Besides making photos and videos available to the world (especially Grandparents) and making the organization of events a snap, Facebook (and Twitter) have made planning and managing protests, demonstrations, and even revolutions happen using nothing but screens and keyboards and microchips.

Of course, we’ve also seen politics and economics manipulated and obfuscated because of the misuse of social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have directly put people’s lives in danger. And, obviously, democracy itself has been compromised because of people’s sheep-like tendencies using these communication systems.

Donald Trump is essentially a function of social media. I am reminded of Norman Mailer’s strange narcissistic collection of essays from back in 1959, Advertisements for Myself. Trump was thirteen when that book came out. We know he never read it, but isn’t the title essentially the true definition of what comes out of his mouth all the time? Indeed, Mailer’s book was all about his desire to become President.

Because Trump has never been about honesty, truth, and/or accountability, his nonstop advertising of himself makes him, basically, nothing more than a 97% virtual human being devoid of real world meaning or connection whatsoever. You almost need to feel sorry for him. But I’m not sure what it says about any of us (liberal or conservative) that we pay attention to that dude in any kind of serious way. He isn’t even a joke anymore. Maybe he’s the outcome of this great society reduced to sheepisms. How much of Facebook these days is not about advertising ourselves? Can you feel the suction from all your “friends”? Can you smell the vacuum of your own digital reality?

It’s creepy to think about, but what if we’re all lobsters together? What if we all put ourselves in the pot twenty-five years ago when the internet got rolling and we don’t really feel the fact that we’re cooking together? And what exactly does it mean that we’re all cooking together?

More than anything, the way it feels to me is that the depth people have gone with social media, along with the love affair with their phones, may well be changing human consciousness.

It seems like it’s been way too easy for a lot of people to give up their independence and their intelligence. The tip of the spear in all of this may be Donald J. Trump, but the reality is that the symbiotic relationship between social media and mainstream media has created a dangerous and bovine-like hypnosis in all sorts of spheres. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you’re on. Our culture’s willingness to stampede each other by playing judge, jury, and executioner is as dangerous as some people’s misguided stereotypes and hatred. In fact, it can be argued that the two are part of the same thing. Prejudice and bias seem to drip off of everything digital if you spend much time with your eyeballs locked into social media.

So, yeah, I’m done with Facebook. I remember when my oldest son first signed up back in about 2006. He signed off a couple of years ago, too. So I recognize that I’m not doing anything new here. Plenty of people are cutting their ties with Team Zuckerberg. Perhaps this is just another version of being a sheep. I have to say, though, clicking that final blue button seemed to lighten my load a good deal. 2020 is going to be a very intense year. A little less weight may well come in handy.

All that said, after twelve years of active posting on all things baseball, personal, political, and environmental, I’d be lying to say I don’t feel a sense of loss. I have family and friends all over the world I was connected to through Uncle Facie. It was so easy to keep everyone abreast all at once of what seemed to matter to me.

About two and a half years in to my tenure on Facebook, one of my “friends” posted a link to a Flash Mob dance in London’s Heathrow airport. I loved that video so much. I bet I watched it five or six times before I realized there would be more online. It’s likely I spent half a day tracking and watching Flash Mob events from all over the world. We humans are so damned amazing!

I’ve been a flash mob fan on all levels ever since. That wouldn’t have happened without Facebook. And yet, I recall reading a racist comment at the video site. And then another. And another. The beauty, of course, of true flash mob scenes is that the performers are regular people you see every day — every age, gender, hair and eye color, clothing preference, and skin tone. All that beauty, grace, and happiness attacked by small-minds and frightened joy-killers. We humans are so damned amazing!

To close, let me say that I am not trying to be a purist with all of this. I still have a Twitter account and I also have an Instagram account. I use the Twitter mostly to follow baseball news and to occasionally check for updates on a major event (like last week’s Iranian debacle). And I use Instagram to follow my favorite personalities (from Hallie Jackson and Trevor Noah to Emily Wickersham and Wilmer Valderamma ) as well as to stay caught up with my sons, nieces, nephews, and even a few of my cousins and good buddies (most are not on Instagram).

Some say of those who would bale on Facebook that we’re stepping back in time, becoming anachronisms, Luddites, that the world will pass us by because what’s happening now is as much online as it is out on the street. I think that’s missing the point. I think those of us getting off the ride are walking off into the future. Facebook’s a mess and it’s become increasingly weird and dangerous when it doesn’t need to be. I’m going to predict that it will fade away before the end of this new decade. Something else will take its place, for sure, but let’s hope the folks who boot that new thing up have learned what is needed to create a meaningful communications tool that empowers people to truly be great again.