A Facebook Fix?

Even before all of the confirmation started to emerge as to just how manipulative social media has become in influencing thought and dialogue and dividing people tribally, I was starting to get fed up with my facebook feed.

It is supposed to be a place for keeping up with family and friends, but has instead become a sharing point of things that pretend to be news that people flood their walls with without ever reading more than the headline. You can scroll miles and miles without ever finding any real news from people’s lives, or hearing what they actually think.

I used to have three rules for facebook:

1. Never share a picture of food or feet.

2. It is ok to share pictures of interesting things I see, or of myself, but best not of the selfie variety if it can be helped.

3. Avoid “eat your heart out” posts.

To that I now add:

4. Never share an article or think piece unless I have read it completely.

5. Even then, only share about one out of every ten articles I am tempted to share.

6. Never share a meme picture, or the internet equivalent of those inspirational posters. That is the facebook equivalent of junk mail.