Facebook: When is Enough Really Enough?

You don’t have to look very far to find articles talking about why Facebook is bad. The lopsided terms of service, the lack of privacy, private data sharing, any number of ethical issues – personal or professional –  you might want to talk about. Add to that list the disturbing and, because of the abundance of ads and game/friend suggestions, nearly useless interface, the fact that just about everything on the site is irrelevant* and the overall time suck and these all reasons, at least for me, to seriously question belonging to the popular site. But it wasn’t until just last week when I read a story from last year about Facebook’s experiment with member’s emotions that I started seriously thinking about what I’m doing on Facebook and, more importantly, why I’m still there.

During the week-long experiment, Facebook manipulated the feeds of nearly three-quarters of a million members (an admittedly small number in comparison to Facebook’s billion plus members) by changing the number of positive and negative messages these members saw on their news feeds. The site then tracked what those users posted after seeing those altered news feeds and whether or not their emotional states (happy or sad) spread to others on the site. Would angry people spread angry messages/content to their friends making those users in turn angry? Would happy people make their friends feel happy? In other words, an experiment testing the spread of an emotional contagion. If that sounds like an outrageous personal violation, one article I read said that Facebook says users consent to this sort of thing when they agree to the site’s terms of service. That makes me wonder what else we’re agreeing to.

I’m not sure that I want to know, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be a part of the next experiment.

According to my Facebook page I have more friends now than I’ve ever had in my life but the reality is I don’t ‘know’ more than just a few of them. Maybe I’m an anachronism, maybe as we reach a certain age we’re all anachronisms, I don’t know, but I’ve been thinking these past few days that maybe it would be nice to talk to someone using my mouth and to do it while they’re sitting across from me and we’re having an actual conversation instead of just giving each other a thumbs-up. To that end I’ve been thinking that deleting my Facebook account might not be the worst thing in the world for me. I’m not sure what I’ll do once I have the freedom to look at old pictures every day of the week rather than just on Thursday, and I realize that I might have to actually go to the Humane Society in order to see cute dogs and cats, or go outside for a walk in a park to see cute squirrels and birds and other animals, but that might not be such a bad thing.

Giving up on the Facebook groups I’m a member of, especially the writing groups, will be unfortunate because I like those places and people, but no success without sacrifice, right? Or as Charles Bukowski says in Factotum: “If you are going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start.” Or, if you prefer something more philosophical, “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” maybe said by Buddha.

So now the big question that remains is: should I push the button?

If you have any thoughts on Facebook I’d love to hear them.

* If you’re one of my Facebook friends reading this I’m not saying that you’re irrelevant. I’m saying that as far as an informational internet source, the Facebook site is irrelevant in comparison to other sites.