When I first signed up for it, Facebook seemed like a great idea. I could keep in regular contact with my friends all over the world without having to actually contact them by letter or telephone. All I had to do was post a comment about something, or a picture of my lunch, and friends would comment on it and so we were all happy that we had current and continuous contact with everybody who we ever came into contact with.
I could wish each and every one of them a happy birthday just by posting the same humorous and slightly irreverent image every year and they responded with a like or a love emoji and all was well.
We only needed to write a private message to someone when we wanted something from them, such as ‘We have just boarded a flight in London for Washington DC should arrive in seven hours can we stay with you tonight?’ ... followed by ‘Hello, how are you, been meaning to get in touch?’ “Actually that one did work and we had a wonderful weekend with Lori and Greg.
For the bulk of the last 20-odd years Facebook and Instagram have been our most used apps and it has allowed us to keep in touch with and participate in the lives of many, many friends in a way that was impossible before. However, it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain these connections now because of the dreaded algorithms which fill our news feeds with many adverts and posts and, whatever you do, do not open any of them.
A few weeks ago I clicked on a post showing how a large log was cut in a sawmill, now I have about eight to 10 posts a day from different wood-cutting operations.
My news feed is so full of posts I do not want, or need, that there is no room for my friends. Indeed, I am aware that the algorithm minimises posts from some of your friends because it has decided you no longer keep in touch with them simply because you never liked anything from them in a while.
The reality is that Facebook is so heavily entrenched within our daily lives that it is difficult to delete our accounts and switch it off.
How would we be able to keep in touch? But, Facebook has now become unfit for purpose.
Yes, I understand that it is free to use and that they have to make money somehow, but driving their users away is not the answer. If Facebook were to offer an ad free service which would only show you the posts from your friends, and only show you posts from advertisers that you specifically signed up to, then I would be happy to pay an annual subscription to it.
I have been looking to see if there are any alternatives and there are some which are tiny but trying to get traction such as FriendRewind.com which at the moment only has a few thousand users but it claims to be ad free but it may eventually have the same issues, as it grows it will need money to fund server farms and, if it stays free to use, it will have to start bombarding its users with unwanted media.
There is a massive requirement for a social media site that charges a subscription and is advertisement free. Please someone get on it!
jackie@jbeedie.com
Jackie: Editor’s note: Try www.gdnlife.com - it’s free, fun and growing in popularity.
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