I Hate Facebook

If the United States government ever collapses, it won't be because of a Chinese takeover, our imploding debt burden or because of internal moral decay. It will be--and I feel strongly about this--entirely because of facebook.

Facebook continues to become more intrusive, powerful and annoying with each passing day. 

I used to like facebook.  It didn't require all the customization or creativity that Myspace did.  Most of my friends were on there, many of whom I hadn't spoken to in awhile.  It gave me a way to talk to people without picking up the phone, which is every introvert's dream.  Signing up seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now, however, facebook is ruining my life. And pretty much running it too.

Facebook has entirely too much control over my existence.  It tells me how many friends I have.  It tells me when someone I thought was my friend no longer is.  It dredges up unflattering photos from 20 years ago that I am powerless to delete.  It provides an unerasable diary of all the intimate thoughts of my daily life. 

Facebooks decides for me which of my friends update I get to see, even though I manually change the default setting from facebook's self-determined "top stories" to "most recent" every single time I sign on.  But facebook insists on being the gatekeeper of my social life, nonetheless.

And if, God forbid, I ever want to run a facebook application (which I most assuredly don't), then to do so, I have to sign away the rights to all my personal information, as well as the rights to my first, third and fifth-born children, second-born cat, and probably, from what I can tell from the fine print, my immortal soul. 

At this point, facebook probably has a claim on the inheritance of half of the population. 

But not only has facebook become overly intrusive, it's also become really hard to figure out.

Every time I think I've learned the various contours of how to navigate facebook, the powers-that-be change something.  Facebook has made roughly 237 changes to its operational system in the last four years, and every single one of them made the site just a little bit harder to navigate.

It used to be that all my information was displayed on the same page.  If I wanted to see my friend list, or search for other friends, I could just click on a button that allowed me to do so. I used to have a virtual pet and a virtual billboard, but they've both been abducted into cyberspace. I ended up with something called a "timeline" despite my fervent opposition. 

It used to be that if I wanted to change my profile picture, I could just click on my old one.  I used to be able to edit my facebook status without deleting it entirely. 

Those were the good old days. 

Facebook won the social networking battle over Myspace because it was simpler to use, and once it did, it immediately decided to make itself as complicated as possible.

Brilliant.

The way things stand now, I have no idea how to do anything on facebook. 

It takes me half an hour, and lots of frustrating failed attempts, to change my profile picture.  If I try to search for new friends, I get five results at a time, many of which are my friends already.  I can block people from tagging me in their posts, but I can't block pictures of me from 15 years ago that could still get me fired today, nor can I block people from posting I was with them at some remote location during a time when I was actually at work.  Or at least was supposed to be.

I just can't win. 

I know I shouldn't complain.  Facebook provides me with a method to publicize my writing that wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. It's been good for the blog.  So I wouldn't say anything, except that I'm not the only one in this situation.  Most of my friends are far deeper into the facebook realm than I am, and it seems clear that they are never going to make it out.

Pretty soon, facebook will have so much personal information about all of us that we'll be powerless to ever leave it, or do anything but submit to its arbitrary and unreasonable demands. 

For example, facebook has the rights to all your photos. If you ever want to see them again, or don't want them sold to the sex trade industry, you'd better agree to those new terms of service.  Even if they include something scandalous involving a chicken. 

Your friends no longer email you because facebook is so convenient.  So if you ever want to hear from them again, you'd better agreed to give facebook a sample of your DNA, and sign the waiver allowing any clone created therefrom to take over your life.  And, of course, your facebook account.

Because, after all, the distinction between the two grows smaller and smaller every day.