Harrisburg, PA 48°F
I've given up on Facebook. I was an early adopter, long before they opened the site up to the general populace. There was a time when it was only available to college students, lo these many years ago. Back in those days we old geezers had to use MySpace (remember MySpace? Didn't think so).
I enjoyed searching for people I'd not spoken to since, say, we graduated high school. I added them to my friends list, and followed the mundane happenings of their lives, even as I posted my boring progress toward death. We posted pictures and witty sayings and became a community.
But were they friends, really? Oh sure, I enjoyed seeing what they were up to, but honestly, friends? If we had been real, true friends, would we have lost touch for almost thirty years, or would we have written antiquated letters sent via the creaky trappings of the US Postal Service? Wouldn't we have called or at least emailed each other? Wouldn't we have known the names of spouses and children and grandchildren?
Yes, we would have. So, let's think about this. What real purpose does Social Media serve? Mark Zuckerberg doesn't really care about those using his 'free' program. He cares about the money being generated by selling the applications, advertisements, and user information. We're a product, not a customer. A commodity, no different than sheep herded into a pen, too dull to even wonder where we are headed. We are grouped together, with no real privacy. We post everything, the good, the bad AND the ugly, for the whole world to see.
One of the definitions of Socialism, per the Merriam-Webster dictionary is: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property.
Think about THAT for awhile before you make your next post... we are putting our most private property out there for all to see - our lives. We tell everything, let everyone know where we are every minute of the day, discuss our love and relationships - we share it ALL.
As for me, I am pretty much done sharing every detail of my life. My own family doesn't really want to hear about my day - why would people I haven't seen in twenty years?
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