I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, whether or not to ditch Facebook. Apparently I’m not alone. A recent Guardian article says the young are leaving this social network in droves though I of course can hardly count myself among the young, except in spirit perhaps! Nor would I be horrified at the prospect of my mother wanting to befriend me, which evidently is cause enough for many young folk to abandon FB in favour of more recent fads. Not that mother wouldn’t want to be my friend I’m sure, but at 88 years old she hasn’t ventured on-line. No, I have other concerns.
The fact is, like so many, I find myself spending far too much time scrolling through an ever-growing page. I’m almost over-whelmed by the information fed me and heaven forbid I explore further. And then there’s this mounting concern that FB tracks and stores everything I do, apparently even the things I ‘un-do’. Of course I know the bottom line, anything one does on-line is recorded, a bit like our thoughts I suspect, they go out into the ether we not where exactly and to what precise effect but they can’t be recalled! It makes me stop and think. I am by nature a private person; I prefer to choose to whom I allow access and frankly I don’t trust FB sufficiently to believe in its ‘privacy’ options.
In the end chances are I’ll take a rest from it, the cold turkey approach in hopes I can actually wean myself. Surely it can’t be that hard. I will have to forego all those family photos and up-dates from groups to which I subscribed (they can email me instead). And I will need to resist asking Omar to share his FB news; ironically it was his comments that finally spurred me on to re-think my FB position!
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