Social media platforms are like virtual house parties.
The best ones are the biggest and there are over a billion people at Facebook's with no cover charge.
Just like normal parties, there are personalities who have amazing stories about their amazing lives, shy ones who only speak when spoken too and just wanna hang out with the group, and sleazy men who are there to hit up girls which cheesy or crude pickup lines.
However, virtual house parties are 24/7, you've got millions of mindless debates about gender wage gaps and another Trump conundrum or crowds around TV's playing the latest doggo memes yelling out their best friends names to come watch it with them.
Then you got comfy couches, small ones for private conversations and bigger ones for group chats.
There is even virtual booze, but instead of drinking alcohol it's dopamine.
Each 'Like' gained from a clever status or attractive photo posted on your holiday, each controversial headline and latest meme all awards you more hits.
It becomes hard to not go, all your friends, colleagues and all the famous people are there! Who knows what crazy shit happened while you slept overnight? What's on TV and who's waiting for them the couch?
This party is so fun and addictive people go there daily for 2 hours a day.
People are too busy partying and getting their hits of dopamine it's easy to forget what the consequences are.
While there's plenty of them, here's my top 4 for deleting Facebook.
- Millions of citizens getting used to the idea of having your unencrypted personal messages which directly paint a picture of your personal life stored on some servers protected by a company is stupidly embarrassing and dangerous.
- My personal data is valuable and worth more than trading it for memes or a Facebook status.
- Using Facebook is subscribing to it, and it's far too tempting to get caught up in some menial crap or seduced by some click bait on the Trending section, not to mention the millions they spend to keep it addictive.
- I want a better grip on my smoking.
I think the hardest thing to lose is Facebook's network, engaging someone via Facebook has never failed me and dragging my friends over to Signal isn't always easy.
But decentralised technologies are near, and with it brings revolution.