One Lucky Soul: OLS Reflections 46 — Facebook Edition Deux

OLS Reflections 46 — Facebook Edition Deux by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

After OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition, here is the sequel. As mentioned in Part 1, since Facebook has become the main social media outlet for most of us — 1.94 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2017. Seriously — it certainly invaded our everyday lives and relationships.

Amusingly, while looking for a featured photo for this article I came across a bizarre warning. First I thought it must originate from a humour site. But when I clicked I found an article titled: One in five American divorces now involve Facebook, which is linked to another article by the Daily Mail. The number is according to a recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. This simply reinforces the notion of invasion and is a direct reflection of how things have become nowadays.

The following are more Facebook-related statuses from the past six or seven years.

1- We all have that friend who’s too cool to have a F.B account.

2- Nothing has brought me more joy than a few old friends connecting me on F.B with their children because “my posts are useful for them”.

3- No one really cares who you worked for in 2004 for you to plaster it on your F.B profile. Stop labelling yourself, emancipate from your attachments to the past, and move on.

4- When you send a private message to a F.B friend and it shows that it has been ‘seen’, how much time does it have to pass before you consider it gone from maybe they’re driving or teaching or mid-having sex to I’m being ignored.

5- Some people don’t befriend their parents on Facebook because they think it’s too much privacy invasion. I can only understand this logic in case you’re a stripper.

6- Back in April 2007 when I didn’t know how things worked, a couple of the posts on my wall were simply: “Is dominating”. Assuming that my name is right there so no need to write it again. But others did that too. In fact, a guy I know still does it today.Also, when friends wrote on my wall, I would also reply on my wall; after some time, I’d reply on their walls, before finally understanding that this was what comments are for.

7- I find it a little weird that some people who are in their 20s add ‘CEO’ to their Facebook profile. Unless you really work for a major corporation or organization, CEO doesn’t really suit you if you own a flower shop or a design store. Does it maybe give them satisfaction to be identified as such? And what happens when they reach 45.

8- By observing people “checking-in” places on Facebook those last few years I came to the following conclusion. There are 3 types of those who do that.

One, they are happy they arrived at a place and want to let friends or acquaintances know they are there so they can possibly meet, as a way of letting them know they are there.

Two, and those are a minority, are the people who check-in to get a free drink or as a way to get into a party.

Three, are those who do it to brag and attract attention. Usually, this type checks-in at airports, nightclubs, hotels, or even places in other countries where they don’t really know anyone and there is no one to meet.

This last group needs to self-combust.

9- I can usually tell that couples have separated or gotten a divorce when all F.B pictures of one partner are of them alone with their children and some of the pics are cropped.

10- Do you know what’s really missing from Facebook? The option for me to ‘like’ that you ‘liked’ something I had originally liked. Pff.

11- It is funny how those last three years Facebook has almost become the only connection with my previous life. All my friends and family back in Egypt and the ones scattered around the globe. Even with e-mails, we wouldn’t really know each others’ news like the case with Facebook. Through it I also met a lot of interesting like-minded people. And although I disagree with how it's managed and how it's trying to monetise the whole thing, but one has to say that until now the idea itself is quite the success, especially in the case of those who travel. I’m sure it’s also a success in the eyes of the CIA and all the surveillance entities. Glad we’re connected fellow Earthlings. Peace and Love. (Nov 7th, 2013 )

12- Sometimes people argue with me online and then edit their comments multiple times, significantly changing what they are saying or their tone. I assume they do not know that the “Edit History” is shown to everyone — Though the ‘edited’ button which use to show back then has been relocated, but the option is still there.

13- When I comment on someone’s Facebook posts it means I like them. When I comment with sarcasm it means I really like them.

14- It’s been a sad couple of days for some of my Facebook friends. All of sudden they just lost over 35% of their sight and now they have to use an extra big font to communicate with us.

15- Be Careful of Who You Add on Facebook. Five days ago I received a friend request from a girl I don’t personally know but with 50+ friends in common I foolishly accepted. Almost automatically, she sends me a private message:

“Hi, what’s your e-mail?” Again, not suspecting anything, I gave it to her. After a full day without receiving anything on my mail I asked a common friend about that girl. We assumed that she might need me for a work opportunity and waited another day but still nothing. So I wrote the girl asking: “Anything specific?” My message was ‘seen’ but no answer for another 2 days. I got suspicious and told my friend again, and this is when she remembered that her friend’s account got hacked a long time ago and that it might be the hacker. She also warned her friend and told her what happened. Apparently the account was indeed hacked a few years ago but for some odd reason she never reported it!

16- What if I told you that God doesn’t have a Facebook account? If you believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful God, then you should also believe that He can listen to the prayers you whisper to yourself. Of course if the purpose of publicising the prayers is to gain attention and/or sympathy, then that’s a whole different story.

17- Facebook Psychology 101 - Facebook Philosophy 101

I’ve noticed a repeated pattern regarding some of the people who have 3500-5000 Facebook ‘friends’: As the number of friends increase with time, they choose the option of not showing the number on their profile. I think it’s because it comes apparent by then that those are not real-life friends and that they probably befriend just about anyone. This, of course, is not the case with ‘celebrities’ with large number of followers or pages affiliated with them, but regular folks.

Another related observation is that in some cases you find that the list of ‘friends’ largely consists of members of the opposite sex — that’s in case it is still visible. So for instance a female with 4000 virtual friends, males would make up something like 3600.

On the other hand, there is a minority of people who for some reason happen to have actual 3500-5000 friends whom they more or less know. Those, however, usually do not feel the need to hide the large number.

Bearing in mind that more than one billion people are currently active on Facebook, I think new fields of study like Facebook Psychology and Facebook Philosophy should become a thing. These additions would certainly help Earthlings in better communicating and in better understanding each other. And in truth, I would be more than willing and able to be among the pioneers.

18- Whenever I check someone’s Facebook profile to find that they had recently friended 47 new people I often wonder how they managed to “meet” all these new “friends” in a matter of a day or two.

19- We’ve got to give it up for Facebook for always striving to make their users more friendly with each other while remaining connected. Adding the “snooze for 30 days” option after years of only ‘unfollow’ is quite the smart move. Whether you unfollow people/groups/pages for excessive postings — about politics, religion, New-Age mumbo jumbo, sports, commerciality, babies, whining, selfies — or due to ignorance, bigotry, superficiality, it’s sort of a permanent action. That is, if you don’t feel like the more dramatic ‘unfriend’ or ‘unlike’. ‘Snooze’ on the other hand is a temporary break.

See, before this somewhat novel option sometimes you would manually refollow an account only to find that their first post to plague your newsfeed is an uncanny reminder of why you had unfollowed them in the first place; so you are compelled to re-unfollow them one more time — probably for good. Snoozing, however, is gentler: It gives you the chance to reevaluate the posts in your feeds once every single month. Maybe they’ve changed, maybe you have. Not bad, Facebook, not bad at all. (2023)

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