Let us accept as a valid opening proposition that Facebook is an artificial social milieu. It is, in fact, a media creation not based on genuine friendships but on virtual acceptances of virtual "friends" who entreat you to "friend" them once you sign up. I took a long time before signing up, for several reasons, including that I suspected it of being a colossal time waster, as well as imposing cumbersome social burdens - i.e. in trying to 'regulate' the differing personalities that posted on your home page.
Former FB user Sara Scribner - who broke her addiction after several years - described it to a tee:
"It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."
Hmmmmm... Southern Baptists, rap-rockers, 90s bohemia, public education, i.e. teachers - sounds like an explosive social mix to me. One that one would hardly confect in any real life social situation. You would be more likely - if having a party - to invite one subset to that - say the rockers and bohemians - and let the Southern Baptists, conservatives arrive at another, This way you avoid likely social confrontations, verbal clashes - not to mention fights!
This is what Scribner meant when she said in life she "entered each space separately" - while on Facebook all the personalities and their assorted postings are tossed together simultaneously like Calaloo - a West Indian concoction with multiple different veggies all in one pot. Sometimes, as in making a soup, they don't all cook to the same degree and the person that consumes it gets a violent reaction. I saw this once while on a Peace Corps training exercise in St. Lucia in 1972.
Because of this dangerously overlapping pseudo- social setting and peculiarity, as Scribner also noted, it became more and more difficult to manage or reconcile upsets between virtual personalities coming from divergent backgrounds. In my case, what wifey and I noted were a spate of sudden attacks - with scurrilous depictions - of Obama (associated with a "Presidential seal" using a Skunk emblem instead of a bald eagle - because he's born from a white mom and black Kenyan dad.)
I posted a response to the offenders (relatives in OK) - under the skunk photo - after my wife responded with "I HATE It!" I said the depiction was clearly racist and also offended many liberal friends sharing the same page, as well as relatives of ours from the Caribbean. I also said that I too had issues and bones of contention with Obama but I have made the case against him without resort to racist images or "jokes". I said one could disagree with Obama and some of his policies without being disagreeable. This brought the terse response to "Lighten up!" that it was basically "a joke", and I was wrong for taking it so seriously. I think not, because none of our family and other friends viewed it as jokey but as an insult also to their own mixed racial backgrounds.
But this sort of failure of perception is typical when people who generally inhabit little red state enclaves suddenly exhibit those predilections in a public home space - as on FB.
After this altercation, the respondents, especially one, decided to launch into a full scale 'war' on liberals with multiple assorted pics of drug users, Jane Fonda in Vietnam, attacks on troops, cursing, protests, begging for money.....whatever......each accompanied by a semi-coherent rant. Finally, I got tired of it and informed the miscreant that the public (home) page of Facebook - shared by many friends - wasn't the place to have this out, but we could do it via email. I especially noted his whines concerning "liberals don't know what they're talking about" and "liberals have a problem with the REAL history of the world and nation", including claims that "liberals were revising history". Referencing all this, I simply asked him to name any four or five specific examples of such liberal revisions or "problems" with the real history of the world. He asserted there'd be no email exchange and if I wanted to learn more I could read Larry Schweikart's book '48 Liberal Lies About American History" as he "didn't have the time or the patience to try to educate the ignorant".
As I didn't want to extend or foul up a FB page which wasn't the place for such contretemps, I did a number of blog postings - after his wise ass Schweikart response, and then another after he extolled the radical conservative media troll, Michael Savage. Eventually other blog ripostes were too much for him and he "unfriended" me on FB . (I did warn him not to set a virtual foot on Brane Space if he didn't like robust liberal takedowns of radical conservo, nutso bilge.)
This, of course, saved me the trouble of doing it myself. Now, the home page is free and clear of the anti-liberal tripe, denigrating Obama images and anti-Obama hate harangues. Now, refreshingly, the remaining FB friend community is more harmonious and homogeneous.
Is it because I am against 'free speech'? Not at all. What I am against is the abuse of it and in the wrong domains to the point it makes many other users, people uncomfortable. Also, the two cases of blog and Facebook are decidedly different - a point I made to him when he barked in an email I should be doing responses on the FB Home page not on my blog.
But one has to actively search out a blog. Hence, if one accesses a blog - especially like mine - s/he knows in advance what he or she will get. I am not hiding my stances on anything, after all. A FB page is different because it allows instant general access to the pool of common 'friends'. Photos, imagery are immediately visible. The recipients are the many different users who you've friended or accepted friend requests from and most don't expect to see unseemly portrayals of black people in disgusting, photo-shopped depictions defiling their Home page when they come on to check info or new messages. It is an insult to them and everyone else.
In terms of this example, I merely present it to show that the unfriending tool of Facebook may well be the best feature of it. Now, although the friend universe is decidedly less diverse, it is at least more peaceful - and I can easily live with that! It is perhaps more difficult to live with a fractured familial relationship but I put the blame squarely on the country's poisoned, polarized politics. The example illustrated here shows what transpires when people allow politics to trump blood relationships and possible amity- including adopting the noble advice "agreeing to disagree' .
Was it actually "white privilege" that blinded my Okie relatives to the fact that what they were putting up was wrong? Good question! See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/23/white_privilege_an_insidious_virus_thats_eating_america_from_within/
Showing posts with label Sara Scribner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sara Scribner. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
A Challenge: Can You Go 99 Days Without Facebook?
The blog post header refers to an experiment, or perhaps more accurately, a mission, proposed by the Dutch group '99 Days of Freedom' - to see if Facebook users can break off from its use for 99 whole days, or just over three months. They warrant the users will be a lot happier, but need to have people carry out the proposed mission to see.
Most of us not living under rocks have already heard or read of the Facebook -conducted experiment in which the social media site conducted an "emotional manipulation" investigation on 689,000 unknowing users. Evidently, at assorted odd times, FB inserted negative news stories on the users' news pages to see if they elicited negative emotional reactions. This was kind of dopey since it's already well known that media can shape our thinking - for good or ill - depending on the stuff we allow into our cranium. Thus, if we watch only FOX and listen to Limbaugh, our brains will likely be distorted and accept nonsense few other literate citizens would, such as that: "Saddam caused 9/11" or "Obama is a terrorist sympathizer" or "Obama lacks a legitimate birth certificate".
As for Facebook, it has its social uses but can also be somewhat of a burden, and the content on most of it is nowhere near the more in -depth material found on most blogs. Basically, people can throw up whatever they want including images of kitties beating doggies, lizards crapping on flowers, or even obnoxious pseudo-political content which I'd prefer not to describe. But those are a few reasons I spend little time on Facebook, other than to make the occasional connections with family -who find FB more convenient to use than email. (It's true that some bloggers too put junk political stuff on their blogs, as well as outrageous images, but they're not likely to be taken seriously and have few followers.)
Facebook has also been maligned on account of breeding into users a "single-minded attachment or obsession which has contributed to an artificial, solipsistic view of the world" (cf. Mark Bauerlein, 'The Dumbest Generation'). Thus, instead of being a channel of information and knowledge consolidation, the monitor screen becomes a mirror of the users’ own limited selves and under-developed psyches. That Facebook would insinuate itself into a life to the extent of excluding so much else in the world is not surprising, and Bauerlein shows how this is done by blocking out all unwanted material on one's FB pages. Author Sara Scribner herself noted (salon.com piece) that while she first joined to share family photos it gradually descended into random, driven 'rummaging' and time wasting. As she put it:
"I had to switch roles often on Facebook. Students at the school where I work would friend me, and then I would have to alter my comments"
This effect emerges because one's "friend" universe is often populated by radically different people and types. So, for example, how do you navigate your FB world if one half is made up of religious or very conservative family members, and the other half made up of very liberal and non-religious (other) family members, and friends? Well, you have to tread carefully because it can be a literal minefield, especially when a hyper-liberal friend happens to see what s/he regards as an offensive comment from a conservative family member. So you're constantly having to steer clear of 'oil mixing with water' situations or whatever.
Sara Scribner herself describes it thusly:
"It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."
But that's another reason I use FB infrequently: first, because the odds are high I'm liable to run into comments or images I don't like - so I won't be compelled to "like" them or be outraged by them enough to respond, and second, there's too little dimension for more complex expression of thought, which a blog post allows. Truth be told, for communication purposes - especially on important issues- I actually find email much superior.
And all that brings us to this new Facebook experiment, or should I say - on Facebook, In this case, a Dutch group ('99 Days of Freedom') is asking users of FB to see if they can go 99 whole days without once bringing it up on one's computer, liking anything, or posting any pictures or comments. The group is interested in finding out if people would be happier without Facebook. (I suspect many people would be happier if they just limited their FB use. I mean 2 hours a day ought to be enough for anyone.)
So far, according to the Washington Post, over 100,000 users have signed on to the freedom pledge.
Meanwhile, Sara Scribner was able to totally go 'cold turkey' after seeing how much time she was wasting. The fact that she could do it shows perhaps anyone else can, if they set their mind to it!
Most of us not living under rocks have already heard or read of the Facebook -conducted experiment in which the social media site conducted an "emotional manipulation" investigation on 689,000 unknowing users. Evidently, at assorted odd times, FB inserted negative news stories on the users' news pages to see if they elicited negative emotional reactions. This was kind of dopey since it's already well known that media can shape our thinking - for good or ill - depending on the stuff we allow into our cranium. Thus, if we watch only FOX and listen to Limbaugh, our brains will likely be distorted and accept nonsense few other literate citizens would, such as that: "Saddam caused 9/11" or "Obama is a terrorist sympathizer" or "Obama lacks a legitimate birth certificate".
As for Facebook, it has its social uses but can also be somewhat of a burden, and the content on most of it is nowhere near the more in -depth material found on most blogs. Basically, people can throw up whatever they want including images of kitties beating doggies, lizards crapping on flowers, or even obnoxious pseudo-political content which I'd prefer not to describe. But those are a few reasons I spend little time on Facebook, other than to make the occasional connections with family -who find FB more convenient to use than email. (It's true that some bloggers too put junk political stuff on their blogs, as well as outrageous images, but they're not likely to be taken seriously and have few followers.)
Facebook has also been maligned on account of breeding into users a "single-minded attachment or obsession which has contributed to an artificial, solipsistic view of the world" (cf. Mark Bauerlein, 'The Dumbest Generation'). Thus, instead of being a channel of information and knowledge consolidation, the monitor screen becomes a mirror of the users’ own limited selves and under-developed psyches. That Facebook would insinuate itself into a life to the extent of excluding so much else in the world is not surprising, and Bauerlein shows how this is done by blocking out all unwanted material on one's FB pages. Author Sara Scribner herself noted (salon.com piece) that while she first joined to share family photos it gradually descended into random, driven 'rummaging' and time wasting. As she put it:
"We know the pattern by now. That initial rush arrives with the first “like,” comment, or share. Then it becomes a habit. Instead of reading a book or the newspaper, I would troll through my friends’ pictures or comments, jumping from one stray, random idea to another. I was feeling fragmented, even a bit wasted, by the end of my daily FB journey."
Adding to the preceding are the encumbering (and often discomfiting) social burdens imposed, a phenomenon of interjected -interlinked differing social milieus and often clashing personas that needed to be reconciled. As she described it:"I had to switch roles often on Facebook. Students at the school where I work would friend me, and then I would have to alter my comments"
This effect emerges because one's "friend" universe is often populated by radically different people and types. So, for example, how do you navigate your FB world if one half is made up of religious or very conservative family members, and the other half made up of very liberal and non-religious (other) family members, and friends? Well, you have to tread carefully because it can be a literal minefield, especially when a hyper-liberal friend happens to see what s/he regards as an offensive comment from a conservative family member. So you're constantly having to steer clear of 'oil mixing with water' situations or whatever.
Sara Scribner herself describes it thusly:
"It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."
But that's another reason I use FB infrequently: first, because the odds are high I'm liable to run into comments or images I don't like - so I won't be compelled to "like" them or be outraged by them enough to respond, and second, there's too little dimension for more complex expression of thought, which a blog post allows. Truth be told, for communication purposes - especially on important issues- I actually find email much superior.
And all that brings us to this new Facebook experiment, or should I say - on Facebook, In this case, a Dutch group ('99 Days of Freedom') is asking users of FB to see if they can go 99 whole days without once bringing it up on one's computer, liking anything, or posting any pictures or comments. The group is interested in finding out if people would be happier without Facebook. (I suspect many people would be happier if they just limited their FB use. I mean 2 hours a day ought to be enough for anyone.)
So far, according to the Washington Post, over 100,000 users have signed on to the freedom pledge.
Meanwhile, Sara Scribner was able to totally go 'cold turkey' after seeing how much time she was wasting. The fact that she could do it shows perhaps anyone else can, if they set their mind to it!
Friday, January 18, 2013
Woman Breaks Her Facebook Addiction: Maybe Everyone Should!
It was interesting reading about Sara Scribner's New Year's resolution to break off (and break out of) Facebook, which appears to have nearly 1 billion around the world enslaved in a never-ending social solipsist's merry-go-round. As Sara noted in her salon.com piece on her recent liberation:
"Two days after I’d made the New Year’s resolution to quit Facebook, I realized how much the site had been messing with my mind. Holding hands with my son, walking down a gritty urban street in downtownLos Angeles
She also recounts how the break elicited a similar dynamic seen in other addictions,
"And not even a week into this experiment, I already felt sunk. The suspicion that Facebook was satisfying a need I didn’t even know I had — training me for a certain kind of behavior — made me wonder if I needed a support group or something."
Possibly not a bad idea. In an earlier blog around 3 years ago I cited author Mark Bauerlein 's book (The Dumbest Generation), in which he depressingly documents how the under-30 crowd in particular were foregoing knowledge-based maturity to wallow in a self-confected, solipsistic, social mirror world of their own egos and selves. Bauerlein observed that 18-20 year olds especially loved digital social media because it “allows them to construct a reflexive surrounding.” While their boring job at Mickey D's maybe tires them and the college classroom with its droning profs irks them, their twittering, facebooking, Myspacing and video gaming “mirrors their own woes and fantasies, a pre-packaged representation of the world, a ‘Daily ME’”
Thus he noted, this single-minded attachment "contributed to an artificial solipsistic world filtered by the egocentric dispositions of the users." Instead of being a channel of information and knowledge consolidation, the monitor screen becomes a mirror of the young users’ own limited selves and under-developed psyches.
The solipsist framework with its unmentioned rules for all who participated, enabled all the things that bothered and bored to be blocked out. The people they don’t know and don’t want to know (e.g. would never "friend") they could exclude at the touch of key. A new bomb may have been developed by Iran, and an earthquake may have killed thousands in China, but in the case of Facebook users it’s the old monkey show: “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” .
A delimited reality is confected which deliberately excludes the harsh outside world, and confines the personalized reality to chirpy “how r ya’s”, or gossip, mainly in deformed English which Bauerlein ranks just above the reading level of pre-school children’s books (determined by the median frequency of rare or difficult words per 1000 – with print newspapers at the top with 68.3 and pre-school books at 16.3)
The entire mental superstructure was revealed in the words of one 16 year old girl quoted (p. 137-38) when asked by a journalist if she wasn’t worried that she was denied a broader picture. Her illuminating retort:
“I’m not trying to get a broader picture, I’m trying to get what I want”.
Out of the mouths of “babes”!
My point in the earlier blog is that we were engendering a generation of über-dumpkopfs. This might not matter so much in the scheme of things for a nation, but when that nation's future depends on a majority knowing critical information, and also developing critical thinking skills, it can be catastrophic. As Bauerlein put it in respect to the popularity factor:
“At number one stood Facebook (78.1%) followed by MySpace (50.7%). Only 5% checked a blog or forum on politics, economics, law or policy”
This is sad bordering on pathetic. As Bauerlein noted, for real insight, education and the potential for critical thinking based on it to occur, "people must encounter worthwhile things outside their personal sphere of interest and brainpower."
That Facebook would insinuate itself into a life to the extent of excluding so much else is not surprising. Scribner herself noted that while she first joined to share family photos it gradually descended into random, driven 'rummaging' and time wasting. As she put it:
"I had to switch roles often on Facebook. Students at the school where I work would friend me, and then I would have to alter my comments. My boss friended me. Soon, I was jumping through a number of mental hoops, double-checking whether the “me” I broadcast was professional, upbeat, proper. It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."
And, of course, Sara notes the social -chasing, hierarchy -seeking downsides that elicit recall of privileged circles in "junior high":
"Some people say that the Web takes everyone who uses it – regardless of age — back to a high-school mentality. But this experience vaulted me back to junior high, when a new girl, a queen bee, entered my group of more-or-less popular friends. She instantly turned them into a vicious pack of exclusionary vipers, seeking opportunities to create lower-caste members of the group and to make them taste the pain of rejection again and again."
The truth is that the Web is a marvelous place to gain richness of insight and educational ballast, if one knows where to go, and follows through. On the other hand, if one merely wraps oneself in a social cocoon of one's own making it can be hard to grow, or escape.
Fortunately, Sara Scribner was able to and the fact that she could do it shows perhaps anyone else can, if they set their mind to it!
"Two days after I’d made the New Year’s resolution to quit Facebook, I realized how much the site had been messing with my mind. Holding hands with my son, walking down a gritty urban street in downtown
She also recounts how the break elicited a similar dynamic seen in other addictions,
"And not even a week into this experiment, I already felt sunk. The suspicion that Facebook was satisfying a need I didn’t even know I had — training me for a certain kind of behavior — made me wonder if I needed a support group or something."
Possibly not a bad idea. In an earlier blog around 3 years ago I cited author Mark Bauerlein 's book (The Dumbest Generation), in which he depressingly documents how the under-30 crowd in particular were foregoing knowledge-based maturity to wallow in a self-confected, solipsistic, social mirror world of their own egos and selves. Bauerlein observed that 18-20 year olds especially loved digital social media because it “allows them to construct a reflexive surrounding.” While their boring job at Mickey D's maybe tires them and the college classroom with its droning profs irks them, their twittering, facebooking, Myspacing and video gaming “mirrors their own woes and fantasies, a pre-packaged representation of the world, a ‘Daily ME’”
Thus he noted, this single-minded attachment "contributed to an artificial solipsistic world filtered by the egocentric dispositions of the users." Instead of being a channel of information and knowledge consolidation, the monitor screen becomes a mirror of the young users’ own limited selves and under-developed psyches.
The solipsist framework with its unmentioned rules for all who participated, enabled all the things that bothered and bored to be blocked out. The people they don’t know and don’t want to know (e.g. would never "friend") they could exclude at the touch of key. A new bomb may have been developed by Iran, and an earthquake may have killed thousands in China, but in the case of Facebook users it’s the old monkey show: “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” .
A delimited reality is confected which deliberately excludes the harsh outside world, and confines the personalized reality to chirpy “how r ya’s”, or gossip, mainly in deformed English which Bauerlein ranks just above the reading level of pre-school children’s books (determined by the median frequency of rare or difficult words per 1000 – with print newspapers at the top with 68.3 and pre-school books at 16.3)
The entire mental superstructure was revealed in the words of one 16 year old girl quoted (p. 137-38) when asked by a journalist if she wasn’t worried that she was denied a broader picture. Her illuminating retort:
“I’m not trying to get a broader picture, I’m trying to get what I want”.
Out of the mouths of “babes”!
My point in the earlier blog is that we were engendering a generation of über-dumpkopfs. This might not matter so much in the scheme of things for a nation, but when that nation's future depends on a majority knowing critical information, and also developing critical thinking skills, it can be catastrophic. As Bauerlein put it in respect to the popularity factor:
“At number one stood Facebook (78.1%) followed by MySpace (50.7%). Only 5% checked a blog or forum on politics, economics, law or policy”
This is sad bordering on pathetic. As Bauerlein noted, for real insight, education and the potential for critical thinking based on it to occur, "people must encounter worthwhile things outside their personal sphere of interest and brainpower."
That Facebook would insinuate itself into a life to the extent of excluding so much else is not surprising. Scribner herself noted that while she first joined to share family photos it gradually descended into random, driven 'rummaging' and time wasting. As she put it:
"We know the pattern by now. That initial rush arrives with the first “like,” comment, or share. Then it becomes a habit. Instead of reading a book or the newspaper, I would troll through my friends’ pictures or comments, jumping from one stray, random idea to another. I was feeling fragmented, even a bit wasted, by the end of my daily FB journey."
Adding to the preceding are the encumbering social burdens, a phenomenon of interjected -interlinked differing social milieus and often clashing personas that needed to be reconciled. As she describes it:"I had to switch roles often on Facebook. Students at the school where I work would friend me, and then I would have to alter my comments. My boss friended me. Soon, I was jumping through a number of mental hoops, double-checking whether the “me” I broadcast was professional, upbeat, proper. It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."
And, of course, Sara notes the social -chasing, hierarchy -seeking downsides that elicit recall of privileged circles in "junior high":
"Some people say that the Web takes everyone who uses it – regardless of age — back to a high-school mentality. But this experience vaulted me back to junior high, when a new girl, a queen bee, entered my group of more-or-less popular friends. She instantly turned them into a vicious pack of exclusionary vipers, seeking opportunities to create lower-caste members of the group and to make them taste the pain of rejection again and again."
The truth is that the Web is a marvelous place to gain richness of insight and educational ballast, if one knows where to go, and follows through. On the other hand, if one merely wraps oneself in a social cocoon of one's own making it can be hard to grow, or escape.
Fortunately, Sara Scribner was able to and the fact that she could do it shows perhaps anyone else can, if they set their mind to it!
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