44. What’s one thing you could do online, and still prefer to keep in the physical world? #LifeWideLearning16@bhwilkoff
— Zac Chase (@MrChase) February 13, 2016
I have never understood Facebook. From the friending and the wall posting, I find the whole thing to be more than just a little bit gross. Every time I push the like button, it feels like I am less real than I was a moment before, like I am being sucked into a thing that makes competing for attention into the goal of our existence.
Twitter is different because it feels like there is point to posting there. I have a digital archive of every thought for the last seven years that I can search and create things from.
Youtube is different because I get to decide how my videos are displayed and how they are shared. I also get to be a part of a community of creators that are all building something together.
Google+ is different because the conversations are within a community. All of the people engaged there are focused on a given topic, looking to learn together.
Medium is different because it is all about communicating and creating voice. So many new ideas are being shared openly and honestly in words that seem to flow into one another. The passion is so blisteringly apparent.
But, Facebook, is about friendship and family at the core. It isn’t about the community or the words or the wonderful work that people are engaged in. And because of this, it feels false. It feels like something that I am passively succumbing to. And I don’t want to.
I want real friends. I want to have real conversations. I don’t want to find out about your birthday because of an alert on a social network. I don’t want to find out about your baby’s latest milestone because the number of likes on that post tells the algorithm that I should see it in my feed. So, I prefer to meet in coffee shops and bars. I prefer to catch up after 3 months of not hearing a single thing from you. I prefer to be real-life friends and not Facebook friends.
