{"id":137,"date":"2017-10-23T13:29:12","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T20:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/?p=137"},"modified":"2017-11-28T11:21:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T19:21:13","slug":"why-i-dont-use-facebook-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/why-i-dont-use-facebook-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Use Facebook: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a follow up to my first post<\/a>, which details why I think you can be an effective social media advisor, even if you are not personally on Facebook yourself. In this post, I’m going to briefly discuss some of the larger political and economic reasons why I do not engage on Facebook, and why I’m thinking about withdrawing my participation from social media completely, on a personal level that is.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Facebook Video by Esther Vargas. Retrieved from Flickr: https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/dC3AV4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ahhhhh Facebook! The ubiquitous social network that allows us to freely cyber stalk each other, and live our FOMO best lives in the public eye! A platform that allows us to specify our likes and dislikes, to be collected for all to see! An online bazaar where marketers take all the information we have freely given and use it to sell us more stuff! Facebook how did we ever live without you?<\/p>\n

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It’s hard to believe that just 10 years ago, Facebook was not a way of life for most people. We managed to make plans, host events, and connect with friends without help from an online platform (I guess there was MySpace?) and somehow we still had meaningful social and consumer lives.<\/p>\n

Now of course it is clear that Facebook has proven its usefulness and psychological necessity insofar as it is difficult to make and keep social connections alive without it. But nevertheless, I persist in staying away from the social network ever since I left it in 2014. There are both personal and political reasons for this, in this post I’m discussing the political and economic reasons why I’m glad that I left Facebook. I’m thus going to discuss my opinions on three interrelated issues: Facebook and Democracy, Facebook and Surveillance,\u00a0 and Facebook and Toxic Individualism. Of course, Facebook is not solely responsible for these trends, but as the biggest fish in the online sea, right now, it carries an outsized responsibility.<\/p>\n

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  1. Facebook and Democratic Communication:<\/strong> There has been much in the news of late<\/a> about this topic, so I won’t belabor the point here. However, it’s enough to note that there is very strong evidence to suggest the following which should worry anyone who is concerned with how our communication tools impact public reason and democratic deliberation:\n
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    1. Filter bubbles do exist<\/a> – at least on Facebook, we’re far more likely, due both to personal preferences and the algorithmic gaming of those preferences, to see mostly more of things we already agree with.<\/li>\n
    2. Facebook can be manipulated by those who seek to serve others with specific propaganda<\/a>, by using both the “organic” algorithmic tendencies of the medium, and the “boosted” or advertising algorithms.<\/li>\n
    3. Discourse on Facebook, by providing a buffer between people, seems to devolve quickly from discussion to more anti-social behavior<\/a>, such as flaming and trolling. This type of exchange is antithetical to deliberation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. Facebook and Surveillance:<\/strong> In addition to the above, We have given strangers at Facebook, and the companies who pay for access, unprecedented access to information that was once reserved for a small number of people in our communities. By updating statuses, liking or indicating other emotional reactions to posts, sharing posts, even lingering on a video for a certain amount of time while it is playing, we’re giving Facebook, and it’s proxies, information about where we are, what we’re doing, and our preferences at a never before seen scale<\/a>. This information is used to make money, when it is sold, in various forms to marketers. I’ll say this again. This information is used to make Facebook money. And what do we get in return? Use of Facebook. What does use of Facebook do for us? It allows us the opportunity to give even finer grained and very valuable information back to Facebook. Some people may feel that use of Facebook is a fair trade for this data. I do not hold that opinion, so I’d rather not give Facebook my information. Furthermore, this surveillance could have an even darker side<\/a>, if it were misused by Facebook. I’m not convinced that there are enough protections in place for the individuals who use the site, and I’m not willing to put faith in the company to always use my information in my best interest.<\/li>\n
    5. Facebook and Toxic Individualism:<\/strong> Like any responsible publicly traded company, Facebook has a responsibility to make money for shareholders. As a result it has a responsibility to deliver us messages that encourage people to consume. Studies have shown that creating an individualist mentality tends to make people more likely to buy products. So it makes sense for Facebook to put the individual at the center of everything they do. Individualism is probably much bigger than Facebook, in fact some would say that individualism is a defining feature of the networked society<\/a>. However, when taken to an extreme,<\/a> individualism takes us away from our communities, and creates a world in which we are bowling alone<\/a>, and do not need to establish empathy for others, or a connection with our communities. As a result, I think that too much Facebook use is one part of a growing problem in which we are encouraged to spend more time on our own and less with each other. This problem can be linked to psychological distress,<\/a> the breakdown of community, and a host of other issues.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      As I mentioned above, I don’t hold Facebook solely responsible for any of these issues – but these issues are all certainly exacerbated by our overwhelming use of this platform and similar ones to maintain our social bonds. And for me, the benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks. In fact, I can list, even on the personal side, drawbacks that keep me away from the network. I’ll discuss those in my next post in this three part series.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This is a follow up to my first post, which details why I think you can be an effective social media advisor, even if you are not personally on Facebook yourself. In this post, I’m going to briefly discuss some of the larger political and economic reasons why I do not engage on Facebook, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15,10],"tags":[46,12,25,14,11,19,31],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake-news","category-public-sphere","category-social-media","tag-democracy","tag-facebook","tag-information-flows","tag-public-sphere","tag-social-media","tag-social-media-and-society","tag-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/jhodson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}