Friday, November 26, 2010

Facebook Obit

Belated Happy Turkey Day to all.  It was pretty uneventful on this end which perhaps is not such a bad thing at all.  It has been a pretty mellow week ride schedule wise (recovery week) so the rides have been somewhat short and easy.  I will probably do another light spin today but will maintain the easy week concept.



This week should help in letting the legs recover and get some snap back - although it is difficult to ascertain that on a spin bike.

On another note, I decided to cancel my profile on Facebook.  I had been thinking about it for a while and can't help but think that it might at some point be used to gather yet additional data on us.  It might just be a paranoia but Big Brother (which has now extended to Big Business) is constantly watching and vigilant and they don't need to know everything about us.  

Another reason I killed the FB thing is because I can't help but think that despite technology 'connecting' us to each other, it is actually having the reverse impact of making us less connected to us (unless of course you are one of those people that don't have a filter and post everything on Facebook - which no one really wants to read).  It is easier to drop someone a 1 line update as opposed to picking up the phone or sending them an email (partial beef with that too...when was the last time you got a real letter snail mail route from someone?).  In a way it has turned us more 'impersonal' and it can't be a good thing in the long term for society.  It also has a way of making people more 'self-absorbed' as in the look at me and what I am doing scenario.   Generally at surface level, it is all good but there is a subversive tone it has having which seems to create more separation between us all.  It also has a way of connecting you to people you might not really want to be connected to - not enough degrees of separation!   I have not yet had any withdrawal symptoms from FB and it feels pretty liberating.  Bear in mind I was not a frequent poster but none the less it is one less thing to think about...and who knows maybe at some point it might make sense to rejoin the FB tribe but for now it feels awesome to be disconnected from the connection hub.




2 comments:

  1. Are you going to all cash with no other modes of tracking too? credit cards, loyalty programs (grocery, fuel, hotel, airline, etc), search engines, email, blogs, catalogs, smart phone apps et al.

    The down-arrow is that no matter what we do online & off, someone is tracking the data and or information for use somehow with & without your explicit permission. When is the last time you fully read and understood a software user license agreement such as blogspot?

    I definitely respect the FB opt-out on personal reasons, but if only for privacy reasons that is just an infinitesimally small first step to getting off the data tracking grid if that is even possible anymore.

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  2. I am going to go with the barter system! Just kidding...definitely agree with the data tracking and that is certainly not the main reason I opted out of Facebook. Considering that I work in technology and am part of corporate data collection (current consulting assignment being for the database engineering group for a major financial institution), it would be pretty small minded to justify opting out just due to the data tracking & collection facet of FB.

    I just think it is way too easy to stay in touch with people 'surface level' and FB is the perfect vehicle for that. The data tracking piece is really a minor piece to that decision...Heck, the govt and big biz probably know more about me than I do.

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