It’s a frustrating paradox.
All the criticisms of FB are valid, from the fake information that spreads to the use of personal information to the stupid way it keeps ordering my feeds. Someone just recommended a group to me I had zero interest in joining, but its posts popped up in my feed non-stop (not the first time this has happened). I had to go back and block them to get rid of them.
Reading some of my friends FB feeds has also made me aware that they’re bigots. One of them is posting a “OMG Muslims!” freak out every day lately (Muslims getting elected to political office equates to an invasion in her mind). And these are people I genuinely care about; there’s a lot more I just unfriended when they showed their true selves.
But at the same time, the benefits of keeping in touch with many of my friends are huge. I have friends in Florida and in Mensa that I see maybe once a year; Facebook lets me keep up with them. It lets me update them on what’s going on with me. Even with friends in Durham it helps me stay current. And that counts for a lot, even if someone’s only posting cat memes or fascinating facts.
As others have said, we need something like Facebook, but probably not the Facebook we actually have. But that’s the Facebook we got.
And I do enjoy posting dog photos there.
#SFWApro. Photos are mine.
I used to enjoy it. I feel held hostage by it now, because it’s become the main point of contact for keeping in touch with people far away.
I like the idea of Mastodon because it’s decentralized and open source, but I find Mastodon itself largely confusing.
Mastodon?
It’s a platform that lets groups host their own moderated social networks. I ended up joining mastodon.art a few days ago and it reminds me of the forums I used to visit a decade ago – in a good way – but it’s not the replacement for Facebook and Twitter that it was hyped to be.
I’ve heard of other new platforms that couldn’t really gain traction. In a sense FB is like the typewriter keyboard layout — there are much better designs, but the original is too well-established to displace.
I do your sentiments about FB. I find it very useful despite all its many flaws. I wouldn’t have gotten reconnected with my father’s side of the family if I hadn’t been “found” on FB by a cousin.
How every cool.