Fearing Facebook

FOR SOME REASON, I was always reluctant to use Facebook. My experiences with chat rooms and instant messaging around the turn of the century steered me away from social media of all sorts; i concluded that getting to know people on a computer screen had too many drawbacks, and too few benefits. Too much acrimony, as if the computer screen unleashed all pent up human aggression and anger. Much has been written about this. Also, of course, is the narcissism factor. Self promotion enhances self esteem, perhaps, but sharing one's life to an amorphous mass of billions of strangers seems, somehow, pointless. I finally got a Facebook page, but I never put anything on it, pretty much left it blank. Somehow, I acquired a list of "friends", about nine or them, all people I have known for years, in real time, real space, real life. None of this online friendship formation. I get a constant "feed" or whatever you call it, of comments made by people I love but haven't seen in forever. but I go no further. I never post anything on Facebook. A few people wished my a happy birthday last year; I wa amazed that they had this information. I cannot muster enough interest in my own life to share pictures of my pretty house and pretty life with strangers. Maybe now I know why. My feeling that there is something a bit creepy about Facebook may be in the process of being proven by our newest scandal; Steve Bannon and something called Cambridge Analytics. Where all this well end, we can only wait and see. Maybe Facebook, without even knowing it, helped Trump get elected, along with the Russians, and heavens knows who else. Somehow, I don't much care. I have long since resigned myself to the proposition that whatever form of human corruption can exist, will exist.