Facepalms and faceplants on Facebook

Retro Blog

Facebook is a nice little online tool with both apparent upsides and not-so-visible downsides.

A reason to join

The only reason I ever got on Facebook was to find a friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years.

I checked the phonebook.

I perused old addresses and phone numbers I had from years before.

I called other friends.

I Googled the guy.

Finally I took the plunge and got on Facebook...

…and found him immediately.

We made plans to meet up with some other friends since I was planning to be in Houston anyway.

We had a great time.

We met at a sports bar/restaurant had some food and a few drinks, talked about “the Good Old Days,” harassed the waitress (a willing participant who got a huge tip out of the deal), sang some off-tune songs then went our separate ways.

When I returned home I found I had a “Facebook notification.” When I clicked on the link I found a photo of the gang posing with the waitress (or vice-versa).

It made me smile.

Since that time though I have had no real use for Facebook.

I don’t have the time.

If I am not writing, editing, building ads, managing employees or performing some other task for the Saratoga Sun then I am most likely designing, carving or painting on one or more signs. When I am through with that I try to get some housework done.

If you have seen my house recently, you know I’m not getting that far.

So Facebook is just not on my list of things to do.

Occasionally I do get on and do a batch friending of the accumulated people who have submitted “friend requests.”

This all makes me a great “friend” though. I am not going to bother you with what I ate last night or what shade of poop it turned into the next day.

Besides, I don’t like just giving the details of my life out for just anyone to look at (just you, dear reader).

Some downsides

Aside from going to a place where people are supposed to socialize only to find everyone there is focused only on their phone, there are some other pitfalls to Facebook use.

Did you know Facebook has been sued for reading private messages?1

Yup.

There was a class action suit filed in California in 2014.

And apparently that wasn’t the first time.

There’s more though.

Your public photos comments can ruin your life too.

There are several people who have even been arrested for their Facebook posts.

Mostly that was just for really stupid criminals though– like the woman in Rock Springs, Wyo., who posted a photo of herself wearing a stolen dress.2

Others have gotten themselves arrested for insensitive and “sarcastic” remarks usually of a really deranged nature.3

You can also get fired for posting your dislike of your boss (watch it underlings!) or complaining about customers.4

The one screen shot that killed me was:

Taylor: I HATE MY BOSS

Then a few replies later;

Jeremy (the boss): You do realize we’re friends on fbook right?

Then there was the lady who tried to play hooky by claiming her migraines were too bad to work on a computer–then got caught posting from home.

Upside and exodus

There was the mom who prevented her son from being shot by notifying police she had seen shooting threats (along with gun photos held by hands with gang-related signs) posted to her son’s Facebook page. The police arrested the two threateners outside the boy’s high school with guns, drugs and “lots of money.”5

Of course parents spying on their children or even just getting on Facebook has probably made the site terminally uncool.

This parental invasion may also have accounted for 3 million teens fleeing Facebook in 2014.6

Other weirdness

I think it’s strange when Facebook sends me an email notification that reads “Keith McLendon is waiting for you to see his post on your timeline.”

What?

I don’t think I remember wanting me to look at my post on my timeline but maybe …

Slacktivism

harms charities

The University of British Columbia did a study that basically says “liking” a cause lets people feel like they have done something for that cause without actually putting any money or time into it.7

Charities squander precious resources trying to build support for a cause but often come up with only “likes” for their troubles.

Check yourself too

Two University of Houston studies linked Facebook use to depressive symptoms.8

The point was that Facebook users compare their lives to “friends” who tend to post only the good things going on in their lives. This comparison often leads to depressive symptoms.

A twenty-page article in The Atlantic poses the question “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”9

I am not going to even try to summarize the entire article. Suffice to say that at least one of their points is that people who use Facebook often only have digital “friends” and not real physical ones.

Western Illinois University professor Christopher Carpenter points to Facebook as a tool to promote anti-social behavior among narcissists.10

Carpenter says Facebook “offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally-detached communication,” and later concluded that self-promoting exhibitionism tended to correspond with anti-social behavior on Facebook.

Facebook seems to me to be a fertile ground for mental health research. I have noted several articles that say things like “Facebook Profile May Expose Mental Illness,”11 “What Insecure People Post on Facebook, Plus More Secret Meanings in Your Status”12 and more.

So you never know who is mulling through your profile, crawling all over your wall or measuring your timeline.

Avoiding the Funny Farm

While I have found Facebook demonstrably useful, I am still a bit leery of putting too much information about myself out there.

If you have the time to chat with friends online and can keep a sense of proportion and a modicum of happiness about your life, more power to you.

But if “they”13 can detect mental illness from Facebook posts, I think I’ll try to avoid the guys with white jackets coming to get me.

 

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