Thursday Rant - The Evolution of Facebook

I don't usually use social media.  Ironic since I'm a blogger these days, but I don't ever post on facebook, I never really used myspace, I'm instagram illiterate, and overall I really don't understand the gravitation to these sites.  I can conceptually understand that it is nice to know what people are doing with their lives and stay in touch, but I thought that's what a phone and now text is for.  However, being that it's the preferred medium for communication with a number of my friends, I've pretty much resigned myself to knowing that I need to at least have an account and check it on occasion.  This brings me to really needing to rant about what Facebook has become.

In the beginning Facebook was cool, hip, and trendy.  It was a closed community where only certain schools had access to it.  I remember being in college and hearing about this cool new system to keep in touch and know what friends were up to.  This was back in the days of AOL IM and it sounded like a really cool idea.  Fast forward a bit and it was made available to everyone.  I joined, played around a bit, and found that it was kind of neat to see where my friends were and what they were doing.  Then EVERYONE joined and things started to spiral out of control.

Don't get me wrong I think Facebook is a cool way to stay in contact and when I first got on that's what everyone did.  Then the start of menial tasks came about.  Status updates like "I'm in bed" or "I'm in the bathroom" started to pop up.  What originally was a fun way to see what people were up to turned quickly into a toilet bowl of complete and utter crap.  I'm sorry but if you're dropping the kids off in the pool I DON'T want to know.  EVER!  We all use the bathroom, we just don't need to glorify and commemorate it for the world to see.  

Next came the influx of pictures of what people were going to eat.  Hit a restaurant, take a picture of the well cooked meal and post it on Facebook.  My reaction every time I saw these posts...Neat you eat food.  Why do I care what food you are eating.  How does this connect me to you as a person?  This type of stuff drove me crazy and was part of the reason I started to use the site less and less.   Facebook was slowly transforming into a commemoration of blandness.  We didn't talk about the amazing experience we had in Costa Rica as much as the salad we had at Denny's.

Fast forward to now and my utter disgust and frustration with social media in general.  There are things you just don't talk about with other people on a global scale.  Things like money, religion, or politics are taboo for a reason.  Facebook has become the mother of all dumping grounds for our political and religious views and we lurch from one politically correct crisis to another with people chiming in on both sides of the viewpoints.  What happened to the days where we were not guilty until proven innocent?  When we didn't castrate a person for a particular viewpoint, but rather worked out our differences and came to a mutually acceptable plan of action?  This gets into politics which I don't want to touch on, but Facebook has become the mainstream way of expressing out views into these subjects.  I respect everyone's opinions on subjects.  Your for gay marriage?  Great!  You think that being atheist is the best for people? Good for you!  You want to marry your toaster?  Fantastic!  

The point is we're forcing viewpoints and political arguments on our friends, many who have opposing viewpoints, and then we shame each other for the world to see.  Facebook was supposed to be about connecting each other positively and it seems like we're moving away from that and into more of a world where we are dividing ourselves even more.  I have friends who don't have spirited debates, but rather falling outs because of their Facebook activities.  I long for the day when Facebook and all social media was about connecting to those around the world in its purest form and not a representation of all the opinions of people that spark insanity.

What about you, how do you feel about Facebook and is it an integral part of your life?