Facebook loses users for the first time

Junk is everywhere and I don’t understand how people focus on the company. Everyone here should understand how difficult it is to combat spam, especially on a planetary level like on Facebook.

The same point applies to family, for example, and whether I need better family or not they’re all I’ve got. And Facebook has pushed them really far down whatever fringe they had a slight inclination to. Before Facebook any extreme views could be tempered a bit in family conversations, but now everyone thinks they have the weight and authority of the whole world, or at least their tribe, behind every argument.

This bait and switch is not something we agreed to as a society. We joined for the pics of partners, kids and puppies, and to stalk and ‘poke’ people we had real life crushes on. We stayed because we found a million welcoming tribes all defined by hatred and anger.

wow.

You hit the nail on the head. I have close relatives I'd never ever imagined I'd not want showing up at family functions :(

While I can't comment about Facebook specifically (I haven't been on it for over a decade by now), but I've seen the same happen on many other platforms as social media has become staple of life.

I know people I've been friends with (and I mean, close friends) for almost two decades by now. I have all kinds of family members, far and close friends, acquaintances, online friends that go back to a decade or two ago on IRC channels, etc. I'm not saying every single one of them has changed, but a very LARGE portion of them has. We all have our own demons, our own beliefs, our own pet peeves and general grievances. People are sharing all kinds of sensationalist news and (let's say it) garbage all the time related to whatever orbits their belief or view of the world (or what they are afraid of). The more sensationalist something is, the more divisive it is, the more rounds it will do and the more it will get entrenched into the minds of someone.

Very often, that someone can be you, your friends, or your family. That doesn't make them (or you) bad people necessarily. I know people who I'd consider to be very good people, nice, caring, outgoing, friendly, etc. And yet they still share their demons on social media. The vitriol-induced "us vs them" articles, the fake news-style misinformation, the half truth, whatever fits their view of the world (because we simply don't know better).

It's a huge mental and emotional toll to be consistently bombarded by this kind of stuff. I don't mind talking about certain topics with certain people, what I do mind is getting consistently dragged (either willingly or not) into the same topics/conversations all the time, mostly fueled by emotional outrage (whether it is justified or not).

This doesn't make them "bad" friends. It just makes them "human" friends. You can definitely be completely and utterly emotionally drained talking with friends about topics that you care about, not in a bad way, it's just the way it is. The world is being more and more painted like it's all going to shit (whether or not that's true depends on what news you're being fed, I'm not making judgement here), and that does have a toll on you as a human.

Sorry for the long rant, but I just had to get it out there.