Facebook: Virtualizing the Soul

As we watch the death throes of Western Civilization, certain symptoms manifest prominently. As the electronic mesh expands and thickens, with fatter pipes and richer content, so does the shallowness of each connection within the mesh. We can surely speed up our ability to process incoming data, but it comes at the necessary expense of meaning. We know more, yet understand less.

The human faculties are not unlimited. Our current approach to things will not fulfill the dreams of opening the floodgates of untapped potential. Growing integration between us and our electronic devices is the path of nightmare, making us less human. We are not designed for that. Our highest potential lies in another direction.

The optimal connection between humans is not wiring transmitting bits and bytes, even if that produces voice and video on each end. If there is no strong human bond underlying that wired connection, it will all be noise and distraction. Sadly, even in meatspace our connections are often little more. Were we honest, most of us cannot claim our social connections as much more than mere acquaintance, regardless whether we call them “friends.” Can you really trust that person? Will they really stand with you and share the costs of suffering when things go bad for you? In this, the electronic linkage is merely the newest layer of insulation which has been building for several decades between people.

But it’s all so enticing and entertaining! It tickles our receptors and keeps us loaded with stimulation, all while it cripples our ability to produce anything but more of the same. Rather than tapping untapped potential, it is shriveling the neural pathways to what we once had, and are surely losing. The online world is loaded with such opportunities to fritter away time and our humanity. Today I’m going to pick on Facebook, but it’s easy to generalize to other services, and the broader Internet as popularly experienced.

Similar to just about every other corporate giant touching us every day via the Internet, Facebook is primarily a marketing tool. It seems half the entire Internet population has at least one account, easily the largest single advertising audience in existence. At Facebook, the product is you and all the other users, delivered to the advertisers, who are the real clients. Were it not for that marketing income, it would still be a college boy’s hobby.

It’s so easy to forget all that in the rush to join our online friends. We can’t wait for the next item of inane chatter, the next candid photo, funny video and all those silly games. It cheapens friendship, as this is what passes for friendship in the current generation. It’s not to say previous generations did not have their own pervasive inanities, shallow connections and empty lives, but Facebook requires it. I’ve had an account there, and found it nearly impossible to make it serve a higher purpose. I made new acquaintances, and stumbled across some old ones, but by no means did it enhance the depth of communication I prefer with my real friends.

This is not entirely the fault of the Internet itself, since some of my closest and strongest friendships were formed over the wires with people I’ve never met. But those friendships were formed in the same fashion as if we had met face to face, with the same sort of depth and devotion to spending time together. The difference was we didn’t often have to invest that time simultaneously. Yet those without such inclinations in the first place will seldom gain them if the Internet is where they start. Facebook aggravates this problem dramatically.

Facebook is suited only to maintaining mere acquaintance. The design militates against genuine depth because that would detract from the advertising. Most people tune it out. With tricks and technology improving our abilities to that end, the developers behind Facebook will up the ante. At the same time they find new subtle ways to draw your eyes to the advertising, they are also eroding your privacy. Your market profile is the most valuable commodity produced by Facebook. So far, they’ve been cautious about the ads, but practice profligate promiscuity with your personal data. They cooperate eagerly with ever more sinister ways to reduce each member to statistics and habits marketers love. It is critical to their profits to prevent you actually spending time with people, making you more materialistic, shallow and easily distracted.

It should surprise no one when policy changes reflect a heartless and inhumane disregard for actual user needs. Not just cavalier, though plenty of that, but intentionally excluding those least likely to be suckered into buying more useless junk. Recently Facebook instituted the requirement to verify a new account by sending a text message from your cell phone. People who have such equipment and services are more likely to waste time and money, more likely to divulge private details they should not. People who don’t have text messaging, or lack a cell phone completely, are too poor, too tight, not silly enough to fit the favored user profile at Facebook. So if you are elderly and sensible, or simply too poor, you aren’t welcome at Facebook.

Any attempt to complain falls on deaf ears. This is by design. It takes a tsunami of public shaming before the management notices. If people should start closing their accounts, all that lovely extravagant compensation goes away. Oh, the horror!

There is little I can do to help those with virtualized souls to change their ways, but for those with a taste for real friendships, let me encourage you to close your account and find some better way to reach those who actually care about you. In just a few days, we’ll see the launching of Diaspora, which claims to be a much saner version of Facebook. I plan to give it a try, myself.