Facebook Fast - Part Deux, The Reckoning

On my desire to revert to my pre-internet brain

Hello. First, shout out to those of you who have joined in on these prognostications. The sheer volume of online content available for perusal is overwhelming and, therefore, it is no small thing that you took the trouble to subscribe, It is a privilege to have you here. Thank you. As a Substack newcomer, I am bowled over by the quality content available to me via this platform. I am writing among giants! I bow down to you.

Twenty six days ago, I logged out of my Facebook account. I take a break annually for a three month interval, but, this time, it feels different. To bolster my resolve to remain unplugged, I revisited Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. Published in 2011, Carr’s volume was prescient and, while his vision is not as uniformly dark as I remember, it is cautionary, confirming what I suspected about the use of social media platforms correlating with a decreased capacity to think deeply and critically along with a shortening of our attention spans. This has been studied and meticulously documented by expert neurologists. However, thanks to neuroplasticity, the miraculous ability of our brains to form and reorganize connections, we have the ability to regain that which we have lost.

I signed up for a Facebook account in 2008. I began as a frequent user, eventually I tapered off. When I felt the need to communicate thoughtfully, I deferred to the platform, writing mini-essays in the form of status updates. I rationalized my usage and continued communicating via F.B. even as engagement became increasingly upsetting as some of my friends, amiable in the analog world, became increasingly critical and argumentative online. In spite of the detrimental effect this had on my psyche, interpersonal conflict causes me anguish, there I remained.

I continued using Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. I continued my usage after Mark Zuckerberg enforced a media ban on Canadian news sharing. As Facebook is enmeshed with event listings and local businesses, I must retain my profile, as I see no other way, but one thing I do have extenuating control over is how how often I log in and I hope to do that infrequently.

It is a strange paradox that connectivity via social media platforms can exacerbate a sense of isolation and loneliness. I have cultivated friendships via social media platforms that have flourished in the real world. My engagement with Facebook over the years has not always been unrewarding. There have been moments of shared levity. Kindnesses were extended toward me when I expressed sorrow or dismay.

Recently however, I noted dissent and entropy overtaking my feed.. Exchange of differing opinions is a cornerstone of democracy, yet, when a small handful of my Facebook friends drank conspiracy Kool-Aid and began to actively foment distrust of vaccinations and further undermine the tenets of infection control necessary for public safety, I became demoralized. Others, vehemently angry and frightened, lashed out in increasingly ugly rhetoric that did nothing to dispel the paranoia of the handful of individuals reluctant to get vaccinated. You could say that the vaccine debates are a metaphor for the toxicity actively encouraged by Facebook’s algorithm. Facebook’s algorithm is nothing short of what I like to call the world’s pre-eminent gas-lighter.

Nothing of what I have written is anything you, the intelligent reader aren’t already acutely aware of. The vitriol leveled against those employed in the healthcare profession during the pandemic was, for me, psychologically detrimental as I could not compartmentalize it as, for the majority of my working life, I have been employed in the field of medicine. I worked in various support administrative jobs over the years, from OR booking to medical transcription. At the onset of the pandemic, my hospital job of twenty-eight years vanished, quite literally, overnight. I was forced to take a job in one of the new outpatient Urgent Care Centers in Victoria, at a lower rate of pay, and with reduced working hours. The job loss was an incredible shock, the reduction of pay devastating, but I was not entirely unhappy. I felt that my new job would enable me to serve my community directly as a public servant. There is a critical shortage of access to primary care via family physicians in British Columbia. I wanted to help mitigate that, albeit in an indirect, supportive role. It turned out to be a fraught experience. I could not countenance the abuse doled out from the general public (it was truly a time of insanity). The discord on Facebook made me feel exponentially worse. People, ostensibly my friends, called me a “sheeple” for upholding the tenets of western medicine. I unfriended those giving ammunition to Covid conspiracy theories or expressing unfounded skepticism towards life-saving vaccine technologies. In that regard, I have not looked back, but I was appalled at the level of virtiole online communication could devolve into. While Covid conspiracy theories are an extreme example, the way Facebook brings out the contrarian in us all was the impetus behind my decision to withdraw from active participation. I defer therefore, to the bright new environment of Substack. Time will tell as to whether or not my resolve holds, or if I shall retreat back into the maelstrom of self-doubt and anxiety that permeates my psyche whenever I get sucked into the Metaverse. Why do we fail to avoid that which inflicts the most harm? I hope one day to be able to answer that.

I hope my engagement with Substack will be a first step towards the quieter, more introspective life I have been seeking. I hope you’ll come along for the ride with me. Thank you all again for being here. I think this is enough for now. I will opine more on this subject at a later date. Until next time! Take care all. xx