Ten days ago, I decided to log out of Facebook. I didn't delete or suspend my account. I simply wrote a post explaining that if my friends wanted to follow the experiment, they could come here for updates on my life; then, I signed out. Originally, I thought I write about how I felt as a virtually friendless person every day. I imagined it would be quite a difficult feat, resisting the urge to start typing "face..." into my web browser. I had an idea in my head that I would track email reminders to sign in, or the number of times I went to the web page before realizing I shouldn't log into my account. Yet, I'm already over a week into this personal challenge, I haven't done any of that, and, truth be told, I don't feel all that different.
Meanwhile, the Internet continues to pump out more and more opinion pieces on the world's recent finding that Facebook conducted an "emotional manipulation" experiment on some 700,000 users. It seemed that all I came across were negative takes on the issue...that is until I found this PC Magazine article. John C. Dvorak brings up a very valid point in the third paragraph in regards to the public being malleable prior to Facebook or their experiment. While his tone borders the line of being a bit too sarcastic, his article did made me chuckle. I believe it's exactly what people need to read in order to get that this concept of being "manipulated" really isn't new.
Perhaps that's why I don't feel any different sans Facebook. I still get my daily dose of one-sided news stories through online newspapers, blogs, and radio. My emotions are still a reflection of what occurs in my immediate surroundings, virtual or physical. To put it bluntly, reading about Syrian women struggling to keep their families alive without a job, the recent admission of Apple using child labor as a means to build its products, or even the continuous coverage on young children crossing the Texan border in hopes of escaping a drug-gang run country makes me feel like a useless piece of shit.
While I may not feel changed emotionally thus far, I do see a slight improvement in how I handle my free time. I've returned to cranking out 300 plus page books like I once did in my undergraduate days. One of the two books I finished over the weekend was so hard to put down. Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House is Valerie Plame Wilson's memoir on the CIA scandal that took over her personal and professional life during President George W. Bush's administration. "Weapons of mass destruction" is a phrase we all ought to remember, for the "alleged" proof of their existence led to Bush's war on Iraq announcement in 2003. While I vaguely remember fighting with certain family members over the legitimacy of these claims, I do not recall the scandal that followed Valerie and her husband years after the original declaration of war. I'm not a huge memoir fan, but I would highly recommend this to anyone who thinks a Facebook experiment is detrimental to our civil rights. As I move onto my third book this week (Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East), I realize how much I've missed reading physical books. Taking those ten minutes I would have spent stalking my Facebook News Feed every few hours to read what actually interests me has been really refreshing. And, while I regrettably admit to missing out on friends' pictures and posts (especially those abroad who I can't see in person), I know a simple phone/Skype call or handwritten card goes a lot farther than pushing the Like button.
Out and over,
La petite pamplemousse
Meanwhile, the Internet continues to pump out more and more opinion pieces on the world's recent finding that Facebook conducted an "emotional manipulation" experiment on some 700,000 users. It seemed that all I came across were negative takes on the issue...that is until I found this PC Magazine article. John C. Dvorak brings up a very valid point in the third paragraph in regards to the public being malleable prior to Facebook or their experiment. While his tone borders the line of being a bit too sarcastic, his article did made me chuckle. I believe it's exactly what people need to read in order to get that this concept of being "manipulated" really isn't new.
Perhaps that's why I don't feel any different sans Facebook. I still get my daily dose of one-sided news stories through online newspapers, blogs, and radio. My emotions are still a reflection of what occurs in my immediate surroundings, virtual or physical. To put it bluntly, reading about Syrian women struggling to keep their families alive without a job, the recent admission of Apple using child labor as a means to build its products, or even the continuous coverage on young children crossing the Texan border in hopes of escaping a drug-gang run country makes me feel like a useless piece of shit.
While I may not feel changed emotionally thus far, I do see a slight improvement in how I handle my free time. I've returned to cranking out 300 plus page books like I once did in my undergraduate days. One of the two books I finished over the weekend was so hard to put down. Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House is Valerie Plame Wilson's memoir on the CIA scandal that took over her personal and professional life during President George W. Bush's administration. "Weapons of mass destruction" is a phrase we all ought to remember, for the "alleged" proof of their existence led to Bush's war on Iraq announcement in 2003. While I vaguely remember fighting with certain family members over the legitimacy of these claims, I do not recall the scandal that followed Valerie and her husband years after the original declaration of war. I'm not a huge memoir fan, but I would highly recommend this to anyone who thinks a Facebook experiment is detrimental to our civil rights. As I move onto my third book this week (Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East), I realize how much I've missed reading physical books. Taking those ten minutes I would have spent stalking my Facebook News Feed every few hours to read what actually interests me has been really refreshing. And, while I regrettably admit to missing out on friends' pictures and posts (especially those abroad who I can't see in person), I know a simple phone/Skype call or handwritten card goes a lot farther than pushing the Like button.
Out and over,
La petite pamplemousse
