Former Facebook Employee Questions the Social Media Life 171
stevegee58 writes "The Washington Post published an interesting article about Facebook's employee #51, Katherine Losse. As an English major from Johns Hopkins, Losse wasn't the typical Facebook employee. But after starting in customer service, she later became Mark Zuckerberg's personal ghostwriter, penning blog posts in his name. The article traces Losse's growing disillusionment with social networking in general and Facebook in particular. After cashing out some FB stock, Losse resigned and moved to a rural West Texas town to get away from technology and focus on writing."
It's not really social (Score:5, Interesting)
So most interactions on facebook aren't really socialising. That patting each other on the back (or blowing each other depending on how far you take it) and to be honest I think the days of geocities were more social. People made websites with interesting content that would spark conversation even if were just between you and the author via email. I'd genuoinely say the vast majority of content I see people posting on FB is no interesting, it's not remotely deep or thoughtful. it's shit like announcements that someone likes amazon. Well good for you, you're like 99% of the population.
I don't really like having an account which is reflected in the fact I don't use my own name or talk about myself. It's there basically to keep in touch with some people which unfortuantely think there is no other way to keep in contact on the internet and since they're family it's a bit more awkward to tell them to suck it up and use email like a normal person. Though I feel that day coming up pretty soon.
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh, people will adjust. They're in the honeymoon phase now like I was back in the early 80's with BBS's. I remember back in those days spending entire days doing nothing but dialing BBS after BBS just to converse with people and check out what's new. After a few years I realized how much time I was wasting doing nothing productive.
I mean it wasn't all wasted time. I met many friends that became friends in real life. I even met several girlfriends this way (there actually were quite a few normal girls on BBS's even in the 80's, especially the younger/teen set like I was).
When the Internet got popular I noticed new geeks going through the same phases. Now it's being repeated with everyone else (ie. mainstream "normal" people). I think most people will figure it out eventually. They may even temporarily reject technology like this woman is doing. I firmly believe they will eventually reintegrate technology into their lives except with a more controlled attitude. Technology is too beneficial to completely reject.
blood money (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the title of the article made it seem like she walked away from social media in general, it seems to me that she merely walked away from fakebook (oops) because she didn't drink enough the Zuck's koolaid (claims that zuck said "I don't know if I trust you" to his supposed ghost writer)...
I was once asked to ghost write (in a quasi-technical context), and I politely refused. Didn't cost me too many points with the CEO as there was plenty of other jobs to do in the company. I understand her position was not necessarily the same, but she took that new job and then apparently didn't like it and probably considered it blood money and needed to clean her soul of it.
I submit that the most common outcome of selling your soul for blood money is usually the same for most people. It destroys you from inside until you walk. You usually never really have to take blood money, but the opportuntiy often comes up in a seductive way and challenges you in your weakest moment. The best thing to do is say no, but not everyone does. I'll wager that she didn't have to move in the the position that left her the most disillusioned, but it was likley a most seductive opportunity (to ghost write for the Zuck)...
Hopefully the lesson about blood money doesn't get diluted by polluting it with the equally intriguing, but overdone story about the dangers in the vitualization of real social interaction and trusting your privacy to a bunch of 20-some frat boy wannabes...
Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
Fake users? Hah! They have Facebook in heaven... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lot worse than you think! FTFA:
"Celebrities had found Marfa too. The town's beloved food truck, the Food Shark, has nearly 1,700 'Likes' on its Facebook page -- including ones from luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Tammy Wynette, and Willie Nelson."
According to Wikipedia Tammy Wynette died in 1998. Facebook was launched in February 2004.
Re:Dark Profiles (Score:5, Interesting)
Try to do it without Facebook getting and tracking it. No membership required.
People who think that Apple, Google or Microsoft are evil ought to check out how FB is tracking everyone. It's not just Yahoo, they are just folks I am familiar with.
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are taking a truly long view of this - essentially an impossibility. Are you suggesting that it is possible for the entire population except you to care about the things you care about?
I was going to leave it there and let you reply, but I rarely return to read replies, leaving my comments in the hands of moderators these days.
It would be nice to be able to guide others to watch less television, or at least certain types of television. It would be nice to be able to encourage better communication skills in the people you meet. But it is impossible on an individual level (as in you being the lone person trying). If you concern yourself with the fate of the world, you are doomed to disappointment.
It is far better to encourage these things in each person you meet. Someone is sure to have a similar mindset, and the conversations you get will be far more interesting than railing against the lowest common denominator.
In the past 10 years, I have met a single person with whom I can have a truly great conversation about anything and anything. I have met two handfuls of people with whom I can discuss a subset of topics. Everyone else will remain ignorant and uninteresting regardless of whether facebook, SMS, television, or any other fad comes or goes.
That's at least 10 people with whom you will be able to have a conversation, to answer your question in a roundabout way. And there are more I haven't met - 6 billion people don't use Facebook. Twitter's retention rate is around 40% - one use and they are gone, with an estimated half billion. Even if they don't overlap, there are 5.5 billion potentially interesting people, and a goodly percentage of the last 1.5 billion who might be conversational.
If you want to be concerned, feel free. But if I were you, I would concentrate on influencing the people you actually meet. Otherwise, make an appointment with a very good psychiatrist. Skip the psychologist - I tried to reason with you.
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, and maybe that was a bad/extreme example. Say, you live under a dictatorship and don't enjoy torture. If the police thinks otherwise, and your fellow citizens don't mind or don't dare to help you, you have no choice. That's also extreme, but much more realistic.
I know I'm dangerously close to say "we can only choose what society offers us as choice", and in a way I mean that, but of course, we all are part of that society, and we can come up with new things as individuals, thereby helping form that society. But a LOT of the ideas we examine, and keep or throw away, have been prepared by others. We are, biologically, not any different than humans 5000-10000 years ago. That means a human from back then could be born today and you might not even notice. Let them have attentive parents and a good school and they might cure cancer. Let a modern baby grow up with cavemen, and it will hunt whatever cavemen hunted. (I don't mean to say any of this as if you don't know that, I'm just rambling ^^) Yes, we can achieve a lot in a lifetime, we can cover a lot of distance, but we always start out where society is currently at.
You see, my problem isn't so much that I'm bored "because people are boring". Only boring people get bored! But I imagine to see continuing trends I don't like, I don't accept them as given, until I know exactly why and how they come to be; that these trends exist does not automatically justify their continued existence. We all sit in little pockets and cliques and classes, feeding the same machinery *we* are building, while pretending it is some kind of anonymous force, and judge ourselves by how well we are adapted to that. I find that nuts, when I stop to think about it, and what you call concerning oneself with the fate of the world, I might also call concerning oneself with the actions of yourself and your contemporaries. Sure, it's a middle class luxury thing to ponder these things, but for me thinking/talking about this stuff is no chore; silently enduring it would be.
And then there is power and its abuses lurking constantly. Maybe we don't get more shallow and driven because "that's just how it goes", maybe it's like hysterical laughter at the dinner table can be connected to the abuse taking place in that family. Man, I suck with analogies, but yeah. Where there is smoke, there is fire?
I don't disagree at all. But still, how much have you learned from books? I learned a big deal. I knew wise people, but the wisest ideas, or the most eloquent ways to put what I "had on the tip of my tongue", came from people I never met, or who were already dead for a long time. You can encourage people you meet AND ramble about it on the interwebs. I don't chat, I always liked forums, and thinking aloud in written form. It ain't literature, but it's what I can do. I've been influenced by others who do that, so I don't think it's presumptuous to say each of us is also having a small effect on some of the people who read it. I try to speak the same way, but of course that's so heavily limited in polite company with strangers, compared to talking to strangers on the net :O
But yes, I'm not responsible for what others do, and of course loosing the plot and fighting windmills is silly. As easily as I forget that, as easily I remember it, it's basic hygiene of the soul I guess. Though when I regained my calm and humour, I still care. I accept that the world is as it is, but I'd still like more justice; and for that I need people to actually think, and I need doublethink and sophistry to be "uncool" - I need to have words for these things, so I can criticize them. By criticizing them, I hope to help preserving those concepts for future generations.
Damn, that sounds quite pompous, even to me. Think o