From yahoo.com today, "On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Facebook co-founder and CEO will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and later he'll appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This comes after weeks of uncertainty over whether Zuckerberg would agree to meet with lawmakers following the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal, which may have exposed the private information of up to 87 million users."
I am not sure how to feel about this. And I am not sure that I comprehend what really happened with the sharing of information.
But a former Facebook executive, Chamath Palihapitiya, said this about the company he once worked for, "The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/11/facebook-former-executive-ripping-society-apart
I have Facebook but my group of contacts or as we know it "friends" is rather small. I am not sure what Facebook could had gathered from me besides a lot of pics of me and Chhaya, me posting about my political views and opinions on animal cruelty and pictures from places I went to and with whom. As of today I have 57 friends. And almost all of them I know IN REAL LIFE. Two are cousins in Poland, that I have never met on my Dad's side that I connected with and exchanged a few messages back and forth with about family related stuff. One is a guy I really don't know but I have communicated with him about important Burning Man stuff that relates to me and my interests. The rest are friends and family. And it is more convenient and cheaper to PM my family and friends in Sweden instead of writing letters, emails or calling.
I call my Mom and brother through Facebook for free, in the past I spent a lot on long distance calls. But I do not have random friends and I am also like that in real life, I don't like loose and fake connections. I do not believe for a second that the people with several hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook know all those people in reality or have even met all of them, regardless of what they claim. I can see the benefits of having that many contacts on Facebook if you are a professional in some field where networking is important (like real estate, designer, photographer/artist or DJing come to mind) but other than that.....no. Not for me.
I know someone with 5000 friends (I think that is the limit), the famous Sarah Jane aka WonderHussy and through her network I was able to rent a car for several months from a private person instead of using a car rental place, so that worked out great. She also helped me out with some other things through her network of people. She also promotes herself on Facebook so I guess all those connections work in her favor. Besides my meager 57 friends (does this mean that nobody likes me??!! boooohooooo) I am also part of two Burning Man communities and two dog related groups on Facebook, the latter have been very informative and helpful. So I can totally see the benefits of Facebook but I am also aware of the fake lives some people pretend to have on social media. And that I don't particularly like.
The perfect relationship or #GOALS when in reality the relationship sucks really bad.
Your significant other abuses you verbally and/or physically but on Facebook you have the perfect relationship and many likes, because likes are important. It is embarrassing to live a lie like that. Plus who really looks at a complete strangers couple pics and thinks "goals"? I can see immature kids doing that maybe but an adult? I hope not.
Or distorting/filtering your face until you look nothing like what you do in reality. Do I put up a pic of me that makes me look in my eyes ugly or a pic where I look normal or pretty?
Of course I pick the one where I look "pretty", I am not going to pretend that I don't but I would hope you would still recognize me if you saw me out. Perhaps not when I wear my hair in the bun I fell asleep with last night and my glasses on but with my hair loose or braided and my face washed and contact lenses in. I pretty much look rather disheveled during the day anyways. Because I don't care, I am not trying to impress any men out there.
I would be lucky if 57 people came to my birthday party.
Although I genuinely enjoy taking pictures. Before Facebook and all other social media I loved taking photos (both me being in front of the camera and behind it) and I really like photography. I have several very thought out photo albums, unfortunately many of them went missing (stolen), which still to this day makes me sad.
I think this is true for some people......
The internet has been of great benefit to me. I real A LOT. I love absorbing news, information and facts, so many subjects are interesting to me but I think that social media and the disconnection especially the younger generation, today's teens, is experiencing, the lack of REAL eye to eye communication is damaging and I think we see this development when kids go to school and shoot people. Even when adults go on that shooting rampage that is so common here in the US. There is a major disconnection and desensitization happening and that is very bad. Society in many ways is sick.
Here is an interesting article that touches the subject.
"Social media led to numerous instances of cyberbullying and sexual harassment, and several students said it had contributed to their depression."
""The kinds of challenges that I experienced in high school along with my peers are now 24/7 issues because of technology, computers, cellphones, and social media," Shane Feldman, an undercover student who graduated from high school in 2012, told Business Insider. "There's no real escape."
http://www.businessinsider.com/undercover-high-teenagers-2018-4
Also young girls feel, due to social media, very insecure about their appearances. And turn to surgery to fix whatever they feel makes them imperfect. Those ass pics on Instagram that women put up.....everyone's behind can look plump and great if you just take the picture from the right angle, have good light and pump your behind out and arch your back.
Trust me, I can put up two pics of my butt, one where it looks like Instagram #GOALS and another where it doesn't look appealing at all, according to social media. Plus it makes me feel uneasy that girls need that much attention focused on tits and ass ONLY, fishing for comments, likes and approval from mostly strangers that are male that really do not care anything about the girl behind that image, they only want to have sex and more pics of your body parts.
Having said that, I can't be a hypocrite. I too have pics of my body parts (butt & boobs) on this blog and even a full nude or two but the latter were the results of photoshoots and I feel that the pics are both beautiful and tasteful and not at all intended for getting random dudes interested in me. I feel that there is beauty and art in the naked body but there is a fine line and also a line in the eyes of the observer to what is artistic and what is pure objectification.
The butt & boob pics can be explained to my reality as a dancer, this is normal to me and I am surrounded by women in various stages of undress and the pics were perhaps put up in relation to a blog entry but I am sure some made no sense at all.....kind of cringe worthy probably. LOL. Although I do see the beauty in nudity and form.
Besides if you have been reading my blog for a while, there is much more here than butt and boobs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/labiaplasty-vagina-surgery-cosmetic-procedure-plastic-study-international-society-aesthetic-plastic-a7837181.html
Oh and Tinder.....fast consumerism of human beings. Not for me. But I understand that people want a connection and for some a connection for an evening is better than no connection at all. And there are those who have found love or at least a relationship, however long it lasted, on Tinder. So that is good.
But yes, in Japan especially younger people are not interested in real love, they instead fall "in love" with a meme or a game character. I don't get that. Again, the disconnection. There is a difference between wanting to be left alone and have some quality alone time and being disconnected from society. I don't think the latter is good for your mental well being.
Unless you are a true hermit, a Buddhist monk or a person searching for an enlightenment of some sort.
Every time I take that first sip of my hopefully well brewed latte, I am grateful and enjoy the moment.
I have wondered this many times. And I still wonder sometimes.
Today's latte with a pretty heart on top. I sent this pic to two friends that comforted me yesterday when I was sad and upset. Yes, I have those days. Like a good part of 2016 I was sad and upset. But I am so over that sadness. But I encounter situations where I need to talk to somebody and get their input and somebody that is there, listening and caring. It is nice to have friends.
All the pictures for this entry (except the latte pic) come from the March/April 2018 issue of Adbusters. A rather good issue this time, I am sending one copy to a friend in CA.
