Facebook is ruining me. It's abbreviating me. It's lulling me to sleep with single sentences attached to someone's else's thoughts. You read something and you say to yourself, Yeah, I generally agree with that, and so you click on share and type your intellectual contribution at the top - I agree, too true, worth reading, and so on. Whatever this writer said - that's me. Only it's not.
And then you wait for a response. Do other people - your friends - agree as well? Will they click on like or flash a smiley face? Or maybe they will comment. Great! Now you have someone else who agrees with someone else's idea thanks to your free advertisement.
My God, I'm lazy. I could be blogging here on Jim Dandy - I could be thinking, making some effort, examining myself, seeing what I think, going out on a limb - but I'm busy looking at the next and the next post on Facebook, losing focus, flying from politics to religion to Bob's summer vacation to what Mary had for dinner.
Worse yet, you may begin to answer comments written by total strangers who do not agree with the ideas that are not really yours in the article that you did not write. This is where you get to practice the fine art of the effective insult, negative rejoinder, which may inspire a like effort in reply. Now you're arguing with a total stranger from Des Moines. Or not arguing, really. Not even communicating. Basically, what you're doing is name calling. You find that you despise Jake from Des Moines. You cannot believe that such stupid peopke exist. You cheer when sone other stranger who also despises Jake pitches in - so there, Jake, now we see who is right - but then you notice that Jake's comment has 15 likes while yours has two.
And all this time, I could have been blogging. I could have had a V8.
And then you wait for a response. Do other people - your friends - agree as well? Will they click on like or flash a smiley face? Or maybe they will comment. Great! Now you have someone else who agrees with someone else's idea thanks to your free advertisement.
My God, I'm lazy. I could be blogging here on Jim Dandy - I could be thinking, making some effort, examining myself, seeing what I think, going out on a limb - but I'm busy looking at the next and the next post on Facebook, losing focus, flying from politics to religion to Bob's summer vacation to what Mary had for dinner.
Worse yet, you may begin to answer comments written by total strangers who do not agree with the ideas that are not really yours in the article that you did not write. This is where you get to practice the fine art of the effective insult, negative rejoinder, which may inspire a like effort in reply. Now you're arguing with a total stranger from Des Moines. Or not arguing, really. Not even communicating. Basically, what you're doing is name calling. You find that you despise Jake from Des Moines. You cannot believe that such stupid peopke exist. You cheer when sone other stranger who also despises Jake pitches in - so there, Jake, now we see who is right - but then you notice that Jake's comment has 15 likes while yours has two.
And all this time, I could have been blogging. I could have had a V8.
No comments:
Post a Comment