Why I chose to delete my facebook

Facebook is dangerous.

It is nothing more than a "jail without bars". While we watch the police gunning people down in the streets, we cry "this is a police state" and quote 1984 by George Orwell.

But who remembers Aldous Huxley?

We are being controlled remotely by the things we love: pictures of cats, memes, sharing our every stupid thought with the world, and selfies.

Look around you. People are told how great Facebook is. "It connects people", they say. But I've found it differently. It keeps people firmly affixed to their computer screens. We've become complacent.

What better way can you think of to keep large groups of people from rising up against a corrupt global government? Give them a shiny new toy to play with that never breaks, never gets old, and always provides new and interesting mental stimulation.

I'm sure there is already a post about this buried deep in the ATS archives, but I wanted to make my views known.

Now I'm not suggesting anyone delete their facebook. If it makes you happy, good. But I will encourage you to think about how it's affecting you.

We are not living in a police state. We are living in a facebook state.

i guess you can say that about any social website, twitter, tumblr or ok cupid, if it's a website where the focus is "me" what you mention is bound to happen.
the comedian Dylan Moran made a great point in one of his standup shows, so i will leave it to him:



for those that can't watch it, the bottom line is "we love being watched and have replaced god with technology."

Our own ego got the best of us.
People keep talking about new world order this and illuminati that.
We did it to ourselves.

It is what you use it for.

I am on Facebook, but i only use it to keep up with my stepdaughters music career and gigs, and the odd couple of friends.

Otherwise in my pinion, it is just a way of people being nosey at what you are doing, then bitching about it.

It has it's uses though. Yesterday a young girl in my local city went missing, she was found withina couple of hours thanks to the fast spread of messages on FB.

I like it for that kind of thing, not much else though.

CX.

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse

Ahhhh so true. Dylan Moran is my misanthropic muse.

But I absolutely agree with you. The focus is the almighty "me". "I" want to share "my" every thought to "my" friends.

Big brother isn't watching. He doesn't have to. We get online and send him updates several times a day.

a reply to: scolai



When Facebook first became a "thing", I guess it was kind of cool to be able to look for and "add" all sorts of random people from your past - high school crushes, associates, distant family members etc. It is a decent way to keep in contact with people and share things you are interested in. At first this might have worked out. But now it has turned into a free-for-all where people just add hundreds, if not thousands, of random people they don't even really know. So now the "feed" for people's Facebook status updates are crammed with all kinds of useless # - like some associate's friend's friend who just had a baby. Or a retarded argument about how the musician Beck is a Scientologist and that makes him somehow unworthy of being a decent artist. Flame wars of all kinds. And generally speaking, very shallow-minded "text" style communication in abbreviations, if any comments at all - since it is almost impossible to keep up with all of it.

In that sense, everybody is trying to seek validation and in many ways are being overlooked, and people's attention spans are chopped up from all the little YouTube bits and blurbs, so that now our attention span shifts every 20 seconds or so. People are sharing their entire life's work sometimes, their books or music, and it is essentially registering as a tiny commercial advertisement in a sea of multimedia. And for those that think it is a good place to share alleged important information, you'll find that the overall memes start to coalesce into whatever conspiracy theories are currently most attractive. And most of that is environmental and political stuff that is essentially all Debbie Downer material that disempowers people and makes them seek answers that seem highly unlikely to happen.

In other words, it is largely a waste of time - just like many other things on the internet LOL. I think it is better to use it just to "follow" certain things you are interested in - like the various science-news groups or updates from different artists, authors etc. But don't have lots of "friends" unless you want to get really irritated...

The biggest issue is when people become addicted to it. Some people literally let it govern their lives. They can't go without facebook or twitter or their cell phones. I find the technology useful to a degree, but I don't let it own me. I have gone on year long breaks from facebook (and even went 2 years without a cell phone). At the time, I just wanted a break from it so that I could focus on family.

Where it becomes dangerous is when people can't live without it. Additionally, people that are too stupid to understand just how powerful it can be, and thus are a danger to themselves. For instance, those who don't use any security settings, yet post through their facebook on public comments sections, or have compromising information or pictures everywhere for the entire world to see.

I do find it helpful for keeping in touch with family members and friends that no longer live anywhere near me, but I'm very aware of just how dangerous it can be. I would eventually like to move all my important photos off of my facebook account, so in the event I ever decide to nuke it, I can do so without any emotional attachments. But occasionally I will deactivate it for extended periods of time and take a break from all social media. I think that's important and healthy to do.

Me and the wife deleted jt after about 3months too nuch drama and BS ever since weve been off its been perfect no fights no nada!!!

originally posted by: ATF1886
Me and the wife deleted jt after about 3months too nuch drama and BS ever since weve been off its been perfect no fights no nada!!!

I remember reading somewhere that married couples with facebook accounts are 50% more likely to get a divorce. I believe it, personally.

O yea i believe that number should be higher it almost did a number on me and the misses i mean family drama, ex drama, and so on and on and on not to get into too much detail we actually communicate now it makes a big diff with F2F communication!!!a reply to: DeadSeraph

This just depends on how you use technology. I have a facebook account but the only people on it are family and a few friends form uni, or places i used to live. I rarely post, but it's nice to update people with big news and to check in on people every now and again.
Do you use technology or allow it to use you?

Everybody should get rid of Facebook and leave the house to see their friends and family in person.

It is a terrible invention as is the whole of the internet.

If the internet was just an online encyclopedia I would not feel this way. But it's not.

You think Facebook controls people - What about ATS? Look at the amount of posts some members have, it's sickening. These people are intelligent and could offer the world a lot but they are spending LOADS of time posting online. THAT is control.

a reply to: and14263

I have friends from all over the world, including ATS members that i can connect with due to FB, wouldn't happen if i just had to walk out my door and see friends.

Unfortunately, i don't want to connect with many of the people in my home town, thats where social media comes in handy....in small doses.

CX.

a reply to: CX

I too was troubled by not being able to see my friends in Australia and Thailand.

What I do though is telephone them and email them. Sometimes I even post a handwritten letter.

This has the added benefit that I am not flaunting my conversations with them for everyone to see. Ergo conversations are more genuine.

I have it because I live in germany now and the two girls I raised for 8 years live in Florida, add in the busy schedule of the young it's the surest way to connect with them at all.

Also both sides of my family are in Florida and Pennsylvania.

More and more, I see society resembling one of my all time favourite albums, Amused to Death, by Roger Waters.

Everything becomes a form of entertainment for the masses, even wars. As such, all critical thinking seems to have stopped and I swear people are too afraid of revolution, as it may end up in the cancellation of the next Big Brother or mind numbing celeb dance-a-thon crap.
They'll quietly mutter dissenting opinions, but decline to do anything about it and will just accept the status quo in the hope that it's others who get the crappy treatment and not them.

Of course, it always helps to assign some designated, media hyped bogeymen for the masses to be afraid of as well, rather than have them look inwardly.

Oh i do that too....nothing like aq personal letter i agree.

CX.

a reply to: and14263

Thats just a preference though, i cant afford to spend money calling people and i dont really access my email that often.
To me be able to log onto facebook and check in with people is ok.
The problem is more with people who become sucked into online life and treat it like it's real, but that tends to be through their own insecurity.

I saw a report on police figures for drivers using mobile phones whilst driving last week. It's thought the majority were not taking or making calls but were instead surfing social media sites whilst driving.

That is one of the things I find so crazy, that people seem to have become so addicted. They seem to need to be on there posting selfies, pictures of that they are about to eat or drink, their latest bowel movement stats and many more pointless events. I fail to see how it is in any way interesting to others, and more to the point, I find it amazing that the people posting it seem to think others will be interested in any way.

In the case of the selfie craze, I find it all a bit creepy and it takes narcissism to whole new levels, but that seems to be the way society has been heading with this "look at me everybody" crap. People have been conned into this hyped and well marketed "connected" BS. We all need to be "online" and "connected" 24x7x365 in order to be part of the "digital revolution" so as not to look like knuckle dragging luddites from some hillbilly shantytown.

I remember happier times, where if people didn't hear from us or we didn't answer the phone for more than 24hours, they'd refrain from calling in a missing persons report. If we didn't respond to a message within a few hours they didn't think we no longer cared about them. The world kept turning, business was booming - without the internet, mobile phones and instant messaging - and people had more interest in more important matters. Oh, happy days!

What is the difference between ats and face book?

a reply to: Leprekon

ATS has slightly less dirty laundry on show.