Does facebook trigger you? (if not, i could use your insight!)

[blackemerald1]

@Swift I hear you when you say a program is amoral. Programmers have to show their bosses lots of clicks to get fed and their bosses then get richer etc... which leads to the issue (possibly philosophical) an 'idea' ie fb founders etc., do need to have accountability by someone. Who is that someone going to be (now)?

Handing over decision making to a bunch of ppl who are crunching 0's & 1's to mine for personal information from people who never gave their authority for their information to be mined or sold on....all sounds immoral.

Are we allowing (quite intentionally) or through some absence of unconscious thought, electronic machines to make up our minds for us? Is this a good idea? I know the horse has bolted already. Sad to say that fb has been the medium for a lot of harm.

Though I appreciate that ethic's, morals and the law can be unsympathetic bedfellows. Even in the absence of a law or regulation so far... Why hasn't someone noticed this getting out of hand before it did? Why are there so many ppl addicted to this type of media?

Setting aside those ppl who must use it for work purposes... and those who can manage their lives without constantly clicking for fb to see how their social standing has risen or fallen...of course.

 

[Muttly]

So, I first got Facebook so I could follow my niece's life. I never wanted to have a big part of it. Then at my old job, I became the Facebook manager for our page. I got to see Facebook used in a positive way. Mostly we shared information, not ads. We got good and interesting comments back. Yes, we had the occasional crank, but overall it was good.

My personal page kept growing though and felt like I was spending too much time on it. So, I dumped most of the contacts and intended to keep it to a few close people. That worked for quite some time.. I didn't get too triggered by people posting happy things about their life, because I know that Facebook is often only for the shiny stuff. They may post about their marriage and not post about their depression. My "friends" list grew again though and quite a few of my friends post about social justice type of stuff. So then I took another break and was away from Facebook for a good chunk of time. That really helped.

Then about 1.5 years ago, I opened my business and started a Facebook page for that. It's active. I also still had the Facebook page for my special pup. She's got a core of caring followers and they want me to post. (Things you never know will happen). I didn't want to dump either of those pages because they lead me in the direction my life is going. Because I am keeping those pages active I still had personal page and started adding in groups related to my interests .One page I follow, just makes fun posts about animals. That really began to shift the balance of my page. I actually learn from my feed. I can find inspiring things on my feed. In the last year, since my business got known and my job has changed, I've gotten a lot of friend requests and accepted them all. They might be a future customer. They might have something wise to say.

I hide a fair number of folks. If their posts are upsetting to me more than a few times, I hide them. I am under no obligation to see stuff that doesn't help me. I haven't dumped them, so they hopefully will experience no insult. I had to make a deal with myself. I can not keep up with my feed. I don't try. I don't have to see and know everything. That was a bit of a hard bargain, and I think I kept adding pages to my feed just to make it impossible to keep up.I have specific times I check Facebook. Other than that, I mostly leave it alone. If it's not one of those times, when I'm doing Facebook work, I look at the first few posts and then leave it. If I find myself getting sucked in, I walk away from the computer entirely. Pretty much the only time I check it on the phone is if I'm checking the neighborhood page for a specific reason, like finding out the road/snow conditions.

Shrug. It seems to work for me. It took some work to get here but now Facebook is just a tool.

 

[Sideways]

Just an an insight, because it’s come up in this thread a few times:

People sharing pics of happy moments in their life? Means they have happy moments in their life.

Happy pics = happy person? Is a cognitive distortion.

That a person can recognise “This is a happy moment! I think I’ll preserve it in a photo, and maybe even share it with some friends”? One might argue that’s, well, just a healthy way of being mindful of happy moments when they happen, because the happy moments? Are what propel you through the depressive times...

 

[blackemerald1]

@Sideways happy snaps may also inadvertently plunge one into despair too.

I love being happy when I am. I don't take a pic of every happy moment & send it via a social media platform (that has removed my rights to my pic to use it for example for advertising) without telling me.

I guess some ppl would love that or even do take pic's to prove how much happier they are than their peers or 'friends'. Idk.

I suppose it depends entirely on intentionally relinquishing your right to chose who gets to see your pic's & why.

What happens when fb cause's misery & depression?

I see ppl on this site mostly saying they keep a tight rein on their exposure to & from fb. If this is correct they may be preserving their happiness?

 

[Mee]

What I find interesting reading this is that I think my triggers are super weird.
I have not list track of the idea that photographs of posts are snap shots of life and that people are often not fully ’exposing’ nor do I expect them to be.

I Probably posted more triggering stuff tbh. I post some rape stats randomly.

I note my ’tone’ gas changed. I would be bored of me :)

My triggers tend to be insincere declarations of love / support / friendship and positivity memes. I really hate those positivity memes that essentially say that you get back what you put out: so ’this’ is all.my fault. It's victim blaming but because it's presented with ’love’ to point this out is ’ putting out more negativity and inviting this back into your life’. I’m more for better laws and justice that Law of Attraction personally.

 

[Sideways]

I see ppl on this site mostly saying they keep a tight rein on their exposure to & from fb. If this is correct they may be preserving their happiness?

Absolutely. I’m a person who has pretty strict boundaries for myself on the way I use FB, because without those boundaries? It makes me miserable.

And if FB is only making a person miserable? It’s okay to not use FB. Society doesn’t require us to use it - there are plenty of ways to communicate and keep in touch with people and it’s appropriate that people pick and choose what types of social interaction work for them. FB is just one of hundreds of ways we can interact socially.

But for me? Working through some of those cognitive distortions, like: Everyone else is so happy, I’m always miserable, I can’t tolerate happy snaps, , they’re just trying to be popular, or happy snaps are somehow ‘phony’.. etc etc. There’s a whole tonne of cognitive distortions and warped core beliefs that were turning FB into a miserable place for me.

For me? I stepped back from FB for several years, and had no FB page at all. Then I found that there were people who I wanted to keep in touch with, and because of the issues we collectively had with making face to face interactions happen, FB became a way for us to communicate with each other. And, having set boundaries for myself about how and why I use FB, I’m now far more connected than I used to be.

An important part of that, for me? Was recognising, and deciding to toss out, a lot of the judgements and cognitive distortions that I’d been having when I initially used it. There’s no reason for me now to get upset if one of my friends puts up a happy snap. Because we keep in contact, and I know that their happy snap is an achievement. Having a happy moment was a big deal for them. They’re actually not happy a lot of the time, and so yeah, I like that. Go them! It’s kind of inspiration to try and create my own happy moments - not because I want their life, or because my life isn’t good enough. Just because recognising and celebrating happy moments? Has been critical to my surviving chronic depression. For me.

And if some company on the other side of the world seems to think they can use happy snaps of my dog running along the beach for nefarious means? Good on ‘em! Doesn’t actually bother me at all! If FB is experimenting with my mind? They’re not doing a very good job!!

 

[blackemerald1]

@Sideways you are so grounded. Wish all fb users had this knowledge. :)

 

[Sideways]

@blackemerald1 - sometimes. Much like my FB posts, a few healthy posts every now and again? Doesn’t equal healthy person all the time!!

ETA: the opposite approach? I’m only going to engage with people who are prepared to share the misery of their life with me? Not helpful!!

 

[blackemerald1]

Ok well I like ppl who are happy, sad, poor, rich, funny, different & the same.. Well, not exactly the same as me.. that would a nightmare lol.

That's why I don't like or use fb. It's not real to me but I respect your ability to use it & enjoy it.

 

[Swift]

@blackemerald1 I couldn't agree more.
The code itself is amoral , the ways in which we use it are where moral judgement comes in.
Programs are amoral in their design is all I meant.
How do we teach a program to act morally when it's incentivised to act immorally? You're right about horses bolting. These programs run without oversight, and they get engagements any way they can. Which includes being immoral. The more addictive it is, the better it's doinf.
One of the things I'm really interested in is false neutrality in general, but particularly with computers. Like, is this person engaging because they're happy and this is making their life better, or because they're sad and this is scratching an itch? And how does the program tell the difference? How do we teach it to not make people sad or addicted, when that's exactly the way it was built?
Basically, how do we stop incentivizing immorality?
I don't have the answers, but it's interesting to think about.

 

[Cactus Bloom]

I have never been into social media until about 3 years ago. I have been on disability for 7 years and I’m never the same person that I was 5 years ago, 2 years ago, 2 months ago or 1 hour ago. Everything about me is constantly changing and my needs, wants, emotions or lack of, obsessions, compulsiveness, etc is never the same.

I had gotten a divorce, have no children (my two kitties are my kids) and moved back to the city and state I grew up in to be close to my family because it was the first time I actually needed their help. I don’t have the need for being social and am content with having my one best friend living 3 hours away so I’m not expected to have to go out or visit with her but texting is satisfying for me. About 3 years ago I did create a Facebook page and had taken pictures of pictures I had of myself throughout the years that I liked and put them on my page and of course pictures of my kitties. I had friended people that were my classmates in high school and people I had known long ago and I would spend hours a day checking out their pages but it was so surreal to me and it freaked me out because it didn’t make sense that these people that I went to school with when I was young are now married, have jobs, spouses and children. Because I’m so disconnected with myself and my past “lives” it was too much to wrap my mind around the concept that these people weren’t still high school age. Does that make sense? Because I don’t have an age and time doesn’t make sense to me. One day it just freaked me out so much that I unfriended all of them and deactivated my account. I was never jealous or compared myself to them and I never have done that. It’s just because of this disconnect that it’s somewhat impossible to have those feelings.

Now, about 1 year ago, I decided to try it again but I only had my 5 adult siblings and my nieces and nephews and four friends and my mom and aunt as “friends”. My siblings aren’t really into Facebook so they seldom posted anything on there. I LOVE pictures! I’ve always been the one with the camera since I was young and I’m so glad I have all these memories with my family since we were growing up so I would take pictures of those pictures to post so that my siblings could enjoy them and they did so that made me happy. But then, I wanted them to “learn” about what was going on with me by finding articles about how PTSD works and other important and interesting subjects I was finding to understand what was going on with me. I get so excited so I post those articles but no one reads them but when I would post pictures of my kitties, I would get instant comments from them. That was such an amazing feeling to get that rush that someone (even though it was my family members) was liking something I posted but then extremely disappointed that they didn’t want to read the short articles about the things that would explain what is going on inside me. I get it in my head that because I find something so interesting that other people will also find it interesting especially if it is based in science. This was a new development for me as in becoming obsessed about learning everything and anything I could get my hands on to explain me. Even finding information to explain them through understanding the way we were raised. But, they never have had that need or desire to understand life like I had just become obsessed about learning. They was living their lives and very content with that. I would keep “forgetting” this was the reality and I kept getting disappointed over and over again so I got angry and deactivated my account again but I continued to learn things but kept it to myself.

About 4 months ago I activated my account again and it was the first time I actually clicked on an article my brother had posted and it was about politics. I’ve never been aware of anything political so I was fascinated by what I read and I took a deep dive into social media and I dove deep and came too close to drowning. I didn’t understand how people became addicted to social media but holy cow I was addicted! I would get up at 1 am and I would read one article but I had never read any of the comments at first. Whatever the article was about I had to do my own research to understand what was going on so before I knew it, it would be 6 pm and I hadn’t eaten anything and had no idea where the time went. I used to count the hours before I could go to bed at 2 or 3 pm but not anymore! I decided to read the comments and I was shocked and horrified at how people were so obscene and awful to each other. It was comments on a PBS article that had to do with politics and I got out a notebook and started writing all these words and terms that was being used that I had no idea what they meant. Words like snowflakes (I actually thought that was sweet to be called a snowflake because they’re so pretty), social justice warriors, triggered (I understood that in the PTSD world but this wasn’t in that context), etc. I was shocked people called each other the “c” word all of the time! I was so interested in understanding why people were angry at things that seemed like common sense to me so I started googling everything pertaining to that subject and I learned that to get any information that didn’t reaffirm my own thoughts and beliefs, I had to come up with many different words and ways of framing questions into the search to finally find information that new to me. I had an open mind and found that my beliefs was constantly changing because I had never looked at things from other points of view because I didn’t know they existed.

I was scared to leave a comment because I didn’t want to be attacked and called names so I thought that after doing all the hours of research on the particular subject I could leave a more informative comment that wouldn’t leave me open to being attacked. For one comment on one article would take me at least 9 hours to research and then form a good comment. Well, no one would acknowledge my thought out comment but people would instead jump over mine and continue on calling all the other people nasty names! At the end of every day, I would be emotionally exhausted and so depressed because no one would engage in a discussion with me. I would cry and go to bed but as soon as I got up again at 1 am, I did the same thing over and over again for about 2 months. I learned a lot about many subject I would have never thought of on my own so I’m glad that I have notebooks full of notes. My desire for learning is a blessing and sometimes a curse. I had left a comment for someone and that guy friended me but I checked out his page and he had some very interesting things he was into so I accepted and that took me down a rabbit hole so deep. I had never been into conspiracy theories or really knew what those were about but my curiosity led me down a dark path but I started to believe in those really crazy conspiracy theories and soon I was involved in many different groups but I was getting so overwhelmed and pretty soon my trauma and PTSD and DID was considered to be enlightenment and I was “waking up” to knowing the truth about what is really going on in the world. My reality was being dismissed everywhere I turned. I was searching for connection with anyone to hear my pain and be validated for my suffering but I was getting the opposite. Once again, people was telling me what to think and my experiences wasn’t real. It was like how I was traumatized as a child because no one would listen to me. Well, throughout my whole life, no one would listen to me and validate my feelings. I was scared out of my mind. Even without all of that other stuff, I was constantly disappointed when one of my family wouldn’t acknowledge a picture I had posted of one of my kitties. Sometimes I would tag them so hopefully they would see it:) I was looking for connection but the internet definitely doesn’t do that. I was suffering with being so obsessed with all the overwhelming information so I finally deactivated my account. I decided that I don’t care if I’m “awake” or not. I’m going to do nothing and believe in nothing and if the world collapses around me then so be it. I don’t want to know anymore.

But, guess what? I found a thing called Reddit and once again got sucked in but that lasted a couple of months and three days ago I deactivated my account because no matter where I turn, I’m continuously getting seriously disappointed because there isn’t anyone out there that will ever satisfy my need for a “deep and meaningful” conversation. I just need to accept that but I know that I’m always changing and don’t realize or remember that I keep getting hurt so it’s likely that I’ll keep doing it.

Being with people isn’t much better either. I love being alone but feel more alone around people than I do just keeping to myself. I’ve put notes all around my house to remember that because I keep forgetting that reality. Goodness:)

 

[Mee]

Fiona's; you mention no one listening it hearing you.

Thus us a big thing for me too and I think leads me to have unhealthy frustration with social media : an extension of not being heard in other areas of life?