Can Facebook make you sad?

[charlou]

The internet is like emptying a draw out of a window. Ricky Gervais

[JimC]

Or perhaps drawer?

[charlou]

That would be what he said, yes.

[SteveB]

Is he saying it's pointless?

I don't get them metaphors.

[SteveB]

Wait, that's a simile.

[JimC]

Simile, and the world similes with you...

[Hermit]

Metaphor or simile, it doesn't matter. The comment is from this article, a ramble ranging across creativity, playfulness, reputation, risk taking and twitter. Good read, and I quite like the concluding paragraph.

Everyone is famous on Twitter. Everyone has their platform. There are downsides to this and sometimes the internet seems like everyone is just emptying a drawer out of the window, but that's freedom of speech. You can't censor things based on quality. Nor should you. To each his own. I've been critical of this sort of non-regulation in the past and I think I described forums and chat rooms as graffiti. Well, maybe Twitter is just another big toilet wall, but there's as much clean space and spray paint as you'll ever need. What are you going to do with it? Create something or destroy someone else's picture?

[Rum]

I'm considering going back to letter writing..

[Svartalf]

Good for you if you can, I just can't manage to do it myself.

[Rum]

Well I was being ironic. Can't see it.

The thing about Face book is the extremes. The average church goer in America or Europe is a middle of the road easy going sort of person in all likelihood. If you were to believe the crap on Face book they are all fundamentalist ranters of the crazy Baptist variety. People post all sorts of stuff about the extremes in life and even, it seems to me, try to out hyperbole each other. It all gets tiresome and a bit depressing.

Personally I don't try to 'compete' for numbers of people reading, posting or 'liking' what I put up. That is a waste of energy.

[Hermit]

My facebook circle is devoid of extremes. It consists exclusively of family members and other people I have met in person - all but one of them decades ago. The worst I have to put up with is new-age type crap my daughter shares. My brother, his wife and their daughter are evangelist fundies, but the first two rarely post, and none of them evangelise on facebook. All in all, facebook is a convenient tool to me for keeping in touch with family and friends strewn all over the globe. Not much scope there for making me sad.

[Rum]

Yeah - I have family and friends on, but FB also have groups these days. In the light of this thread I have just dropped a couple that regularly depress me - fundies versus so called 'evolutionists'.

[pErvinalia]

I'm ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. I think I need a few days off from the world.

[Rum]

Join the club mate!

[SteveB]

Girls love Facebook though and Pinterest and probably some other sites.

Just saying...

Plus some young lady who claims to live where I live and who has one picture up on FB keeps PMing me 'Hi' and 'How are you doing?' I think I'm going to give her my credit card number.