All our old, long-lost friends together in one place, beamed in from all over the world, reunited in real time? Doesn’t that literally conform to the traditional concept of Heaven? The Big Party at the end of the World? FaceBook is all that. Hell, we should count ourselves lucky-we aren’t even dead yet.

Or are we? If Philip K Dick lived to see this, he’d probably think that They had infected us with social media so that we’d go as softly as lambs to the slaughter. Read “A Scanner Darkly” if you want to know what I’m talking about.

I will just speak for myself from here on. My “We” is a rhetorical device, a hope that I will not be alone in turning away from the instantly gratifying, coffin-like comfort of FaceBook and other social media. The too-good-to-be-true quality, like all addictive things, is so seductive! How and why would I turn away?

Let me count the reasons:

1. Mark Zuckerberg
   • He is not to be trusted
   • He hides his profit motive behind a fig leaf-concern for free speech
   • He is harvesting our data
   • His oversights put Trump in power
2. Cycle of Outrage
   • algorithms feed me what I want to see and what will trigger my fight or flight instinct
   • I am our President’s pin ball and he’s ping ping pinging me around between the newsfeed and social media and racking up points at my expense; every time I scream it’s a bonus point for him
   • My outrage on FaceBook doesn’t do any good. I’m either preaching to the choir or arguing with people who are as dug in as I am and you cannot argue with ideology
3. Dopamines (this is my main reason)
   • Dopamines are the chemicals that make me feel good. I reach for my feed like it was beer or weed
   • I have this lizard-brain idea that everything is better, like I haven’t fully DONE it, until I’ve shared it on FaceBook (or done it high)
4. Freeing My Mind
   • I got sober Five years ago because I was tired of the brain dance on an hourly, daily, minute-by-minute basis deciding when I could use again
   • I have many ambitions. Staring at my phone is not one of them. But there I am, every spare moment-FaceBook and the dopamine hit
   • I could try to moderate. But moderation is the hobgoblin of the addictive personality. It eats up bandwidth. I want all that bandwidth for my other projects

I have many ambitions. Staring at my phone is not one of them.

So if you see me sharing on FaceBook again. Great. Maybe I’ll come back when I have something to show for myself. Maybe I’ll lapse. But don’t wait. Go DO something! Call or text or visit or hire me. I’m out there in meatspace. Let’s have coffee or something.

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