Facebook
has gone from a fantastic and mature social networking site to a steaming pile
of baboon’s excrement that has yet to be cleaned from the floor. What was once a site that you could go to in
order to flee the annoying layouts and instant-playing music on Mysace is now
just turning into more of the same. With
the addition of apps, games, and the dreaded instagram, Facebook is now a site
that people barely use for its
intended purpose: to keep in touch with each other.
I
have all but given up on updating most aspects of my Facebook page. My phone number and e-mail are on there, and
when I need to contact others I expect to see the same. Nowadays I have to trudge through miles of
pictures, invitations, and rants just in order to get anything done. Facebook was once about communication, but now
it has evolved into social climbing, like Myspace. What I find the most irritating is “statuses”. The idea of announcing what I am currently
doing to the world on a daily basis is absolutely juvenile. In reflection, I don’t even care what people
are doing every waking moment of every day.
Why is there so much emphasis on this?
If it were important life events (“Just
got a new job! Come visit me at Burger on a Stick in the mall!”) it would
be one thing, but how many pictures of food with a high contrast filter applied
to it have you seen? My answer would be
about two or three on a daily basis.
Food! Why food?! Why do we care what each other are eating
daily? And you cooked it yourself? Hooray.
You successfully cooked your first grilled cheese with tomato. iCarly must be so proud of you.
It’s
the fact that Facebook is being watered down to the same popularity contest
that Myspace used to be. I went to
Facebook to get away from this, yet it still catches on. People cannot interact socially without
needing a hierarchy of “whom is doing better than whom” in their lives. Statuses and information that people display
are far from their actual thoughts, and we tend to skew what we say in order
for it to be well received by our peers.
This falsity is what infuriates me – we simply cannot have a social
networking site where people will literally “be themselves”. Because everyone is so caught up on
popularity or what people think of them, sites like Facebook are doomed to
social conformity that stems from everyone constantly aiming to please others
instead of themselves.
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