I’ve never had a Facebook account, and I don’t plan to get one anytime soon. Twitter?  Not anymore, although I had an account for eight years.  I remember signing up at a professional conference because at the time, it was the preeminent source of professional development for school administrators. Since then, I’ve watched it erode into yet another form of social decay where the masses espouse their egocentric arguments and offer their hypocritical hyperbole.

To me, social media is the place where facts go to die because they are often disguised with propagandistic innuendo.   Many times, it’s also the place where the intolerant go to preach about tolerance, so long as the desired outcome is something they, alone, aim to tolerate.

I hope it doesn’t sound as though I’m a bit jaded in my opinions about social media, because I’m not.

I’m actually completely jaded in my opinions about social media and although I’ve felt that way for quite some time, these feelings were reinforced when I recently watched the movie, The Social Dilemma.  If you haven’t had a chance yet to see it, I wholeheartedly urge you to do so.

While your views about the sinister online world might not completely change, I am willing to bet there will be some revelations that are at least concerning and might cause you to take notice.

Without revealing any spoilers, I do want people to be aware of one message that could not be more clearly articulated by the parade of former social media workers who are interviewed in the movie.  In as simple terms as I can think of to echo their premise, social media exists and was originally constructed with nefarious intentions to be as addictive and manipulative as possible.  And to generate profits without regard for the truth, much less the ideals of America such as those held in the first amendment. 

In not so simple terms, social media creates a parallel universe to our own, but the rules are different because bombastic rhetoric scores points over carefully worded debate.  It’s a world in which compromise is bathed in a negative light, and purity tests replace common sense.  It creates an ill-conceived game where the players are constantly eschewing rationale thought and dialogue, and replacing it instead with their own set of rules that attempt to cancel those who do not bend a knee at their altar of disinformation.

I’ve had the last month to reflect upon what I watched in the movie and I have been able to do a fair amount of research. I have come to the conclusion that today’s big media companies are analogous in character, substance and moral depravity to the big tobacco companies of decades past.  They will say and do anything to control the narrative in an attempt to turn their product into something as addictive as any drug.

With a formula rooted in compulsion and fixation, these companies seek our “clicks” and “likes” with a vengeance and a force of manipulation that is in many ways subtle, yet carries the weighted outcome of creating a dependence that many people can simply not do without on a daily basis.

Please understand, I do not look down upon anyone who participates in social media.  I also experience a great deal of FOMO, as I don’t get to see the many pictures of my friends and am quite often out of the loop when it comes to knowing what is happening in other people’s lives.  In other words, there are a great number of positive aspects and a certain connectedness that comes from connecting with others on social networking sites. For me, however, the negatives are too concerning and too intrusive for me to subscribe.

I have always had a problem with the concept of allowing other people the power over me to filter and subvert the truth with their own obfuscation of the facts.

But again, don’t take my word for it.  Watch the movie yourself.  If you are disturbed, take off the shackles and experience a life without Facebook!

In the meantime, I will continue to count on my wife to fill me in on the important happenings of friends and family.  And if there is someone out there who really needs to get a message to me, please resort to the archaic practices of emails or phone calls.