FU FB. What have you done for me lately Facebook?
Today I posted my first post on Steemit. I also received from Facebook a notification that 10 years today I joined Facebook….10 whole years in Facebook's clutches!
I have only been on Steemit for one day and already my relationship with it is different, partly the set up and partly the feeling of fuck it, lets get out there.
I have written more today about myself than I have put on Facebook in the last five years.
This may not sound like a positive but for me it is. I have a username that is not my real name. I know I could do this on Facebook but I never did.
Anonymity for me is a plus, it is giving me the freedom to truly be me, I probably won't meet you and so it's ok if you don't like my posts. I am a sensitive soul and I tread carefully. I do not see this anonymity as an excuse to lie or be fake.
I would only accept friends requests on Facebook of people I actually knew, so apart from online petitions that I wanted people to sign and the odd article my page was pretty sparse. I mostly used it as a tool for arranging and seeing what was going on.
What was the point in writing a post for the people I would see anyway. And why would I befriend someone I didn't know who was probably a fake account.
I know I will follow friends who sign up here in the future and I bet their content will be completely different to what they posted on Facebook.
The more I am on Steemit, the more I will trust it and its members and the more I will open up and post about myself and my world and you will know me.
I can already see that Steemit is about connections and community and I am feeling ok with that. This feels different. I think I want to be part of this (when I figure out how it all works!).
I suppose with the Steem reward system that people have something to lose and it is not worth their while to be shitty to each other. I am hoping that for once money is not going to be a corrupting factor and that it just makes people feel valued instead.
So what has Facebook done for me?
It has absorbed more hours than I care to remember.
It has made Mark Zuckerberg a very wealthy man.
It has harvested plenty of data on me.
It has exposed me to a myriad of shite posts trying to sell me stuff.
Chosen what it wants me to see.
It has made me a lazy friend and a voyeur.
On the plus side I have been able to note when friends are down due to their absence on it (this one has been good but maybe I should be contacting them more).
It has been a long relationship and it is going to be hard to wean myself off.
It will mean picking up the phone and meeting my friends and actually asking them how they are.
And on Steemit I am looking forward to making new friends from many places and learning what they think, what is going on in their lives and where they live.
Goodbye lazy Facebook, thanks for all the kitten pics, hello proactive sharing Steemit.
It is finally a thumbdown from me Facebook.
Pikl
Whilst you are at it, delete your Facebook account.
That is the end goal. It occurred to me that I don't have up to date phone numbers and addresses for everyone so the next step will be to get everything I need to contact people outside of it.
Luckily I don't use it for storing my photos but there will be pictures other people have that I will want to take a copy of.
This is probably half the reason people stay on Facebook, leaving it takes a lot of admin if you don't want to lose stuff.
That's the trouble with Facebook, they've made it sticky, which is a technical term that means it keeps you going back for more.