The False Gratification Of Facebook
I re-registered my domain after I got a bit excited talking to James Preston about how I have a lot of stuff I feel like I need (want) to say. So I logged on to tumblr with this idea of writing a long winded post about how Facebook provides us all with whole false sense of gratification through the lack of a ‘dislike’ button.
As I wrote those first few sentences you’ve just read, that’s when I realised, twitter has trained me to try and fit my thoughts in to 140 characters. It’s here we can conclude that the art of writing has been lost or perhaps improved.
A Notification? a ‘like’? a friend request? Or more appropriately for myself recently, a view? And suddenly we have this sense of gratification. This sense that people ‘like’ us. We’re all wishing each other happy birthday on Facebook and let’s face it, Most of us had NO idea today was going to be Mark Featherstone’s birthday and if we’re brutally honest? Do we care? Of course not! But he’ll still get a shit ton of happy birthday messages on his wall from people who wouldn’t look sideways at him in the street.
When a chat window pops up at the bottom of your page and you feel you’re maybe a little too ‘good’ to talk to that person, do you ignore it and pretend you’re busy on facebook doing important shit or do you say ‘Sorry man, I’m a little busy right now, maybe we can chat again later?’. It doesn’t take much effort to respond the same way you would in real life and so people come off as much more rude than they probably really are or even realise.
We’re all judging each other based on how many friends we have, how many likes, pictures and comments we get. It’s all bullshit.
Maybe I should join a tribe somewhere and disconnect from western culture.
