Founding president Sean Parker made news recently by confessing that he and fellow programmers designed Facebook more like an addictive drug than a networking tool. I duly commented in “Zuckerberg Designed Facebook ‘Like’ an Addictive Opioid,” November 13, 2017. But Parker only confirmed what I had been contending for years in commentaries like “Facebook ‘Like’ an Infectious Disease,” January 24, 2014.
Now ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya is echoing Parker’s confession, lamenting how users blithely confuse popularity with truth:
The tools that we have created today are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works. …
Social media exploit our own natural tendencies in human beings to get and want feedback [which], chemically speaking, is the release of dopamine in your brain. … I think if you get to desensitized and you need it over and over and over again, then you become actually detached from the world in which you live.
(CNBC, December 12, 2017)
Frankly, these confessionals about social media smack of the way deprogrammed members speak about cults. But one hopes they inspire Facebook’s billion-plus junkies to kick their habit.
Incidentally, most Facebook users I know think stupid Trump supporters are the greatest threat to Western civilization. How interesting then that Facebook programmers seem to think those stupid Trump supporters have nothing on brain-dead Facebook users in this respect.
Facebook users would do well to stop taking selfies and simply take a look in the mirror.
In the meantime, it speaks volumes that this executive takes pride in saying that he does not allow his own children to use Facebook. And why would he; after all, he knows it’s tantamount to getting kids hooked on opioids.
Apropos of which, the following might help Facebook users rediscover the Merry in Christmas:
Too much Facebook browsing at Christmas – and seeing all those ‘perfect’ families and holiday photos – is more likely to make you miserable than festive, research suggests.
A University of Copenhagen study suggests excessive use of social media can create feelings of envy.
It particularly warns about the negative impact of ‘lurking’ on social media without connecting with anyone.
(BBC, December 22, 2016)
Of course, this lurking into depressive envy is particularly pathetic given that most online photos of perfect families (and Christmas holidays) are … FAKE!
That said, I hasten to acknowledge the redeeming value inherent in all social media. Foremost is the way these platforms enable people living under tyrannies to bypass state-controlled media to share stories of their oppression.
It’s just too bad that social media also enable this famous Churchillian lament like never before:
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Not to mention the way social media enable shysters of all stripes to peddle their wares, playing millions for suckers – as trout-pout “Kylie” and the Kardashians demonstrate all too well.
Related commentaries:
Zuckerberg…
Infectious disease…