I wrote this and sent it to the Daily Orange hoping they would publish it in their opinion section.
Ira Glass, the host of NPR’s This American Life said it best during his visit last semester. “Fuck Facebook.”
It wasn’t some sophomoric joke destined for cheap pleasure to be replayed for its shock-value (lolz!). Glass “tweeted” to the crowd what many, including myself, are distressed about: the cheapening of the human experience by technology.
You see, Ira Glass is from old-school talk radio where hosts and guests spread dangerously intellectual conversation and ideas (with suspiciously sexy voices no less). Even without lazy abbreviation Glass managed to say a whole lot by selecting his two words very carefully.
He connected Facebook, the entity deserving of being fucked, with a verb that means to fuck and also starting with an F, so as to make the phrase especially powerful with alliteration. This is why he gets paid the big bucks and gets to wear black-brimmed glasses without being laughed at in secret.
The assumption that technology automatically improves our lives is a dangerous delusion to avoid as we travel even further into the 21st century.
The world is so backward now that there is actually a video game called “Wii Fit” that emphasizes the aid of video games to improve your fitness. Go outside and walk around the block until you understand why this is ridiculous. Any counter-argument is laziness.
Technology has become an instrument of delusion rather than of utility in our current society. Facebook users spend countless hours “staying in touch” and “chatting” both euphemisms for creating a virtual self to present to others in place of their real self.
Reality is at stake here people.
If we don’t take a stand here one day people might do things like routinely congregate in a damp stone buildings every Sunday and believe they are drinking the blood of this dead guy who lived a long time ago and watches your every move while judiciously stroking his beard deciding if you get presents or coal… errr I mean eternal salvation.
You actually do have a choice to sit back and enjoy the experience we often call life. If your virtual self no longer exists I am confident you will still exist, I deleted mine and I’m still around. I’m only communicating by bible verse and carrier pigeon these days and its working out great.
Make like Ira Glass and delete your Facebook, and think about improving your real life rather than your virtual(ly) false image online.
2 years ago