I am a self-confessed Luddite when it comes to things like Facebook and twitter, which is ironic since I am in fact writing this on a computer (as opposed to punching keys on a typewriter, which I have done in days of yore) — but to me, Facebook is a double-edged sword of sorts.
On the one hand, it can be a great tool in helping to keep in touch with people I haven’t seen or talked to for a long time.
But unfortunately, it can be abused, along with other social media sites and even some sites on the Internet.
This is where the right of “freedom of speech” is also a double-edged sword, because you get people onto sites like Rant-and-Rave who do far more ranting than anything, spouting opinions about things they really don’t know anything about. But, if you’re going to have open freedom of speech, you have to allow for this, for anyone to express whatever opinion they want, or else you step onto a slippery downwards slope if you try restricting what people say — and I fully recognize that, as a writer and editorialist.
That said, I saw a portrayal of what Facebook has become, and I’d like to pass it on to my two readers of this column (if in fact you use social media at all …). It took the form of a sort of skit staged by Pastor Jay Mowchenko for his message one morning at the Free Methodist Church. To illustrate a point, he had a volunteer stand at a distance from him, and had his volunteer pretend he had something in his eye that he needed removed, like a speck of dirt or whatever. Staying at a distance, he yelled at him, “Hey, do you need help with that? Are you okay? Try sticking your finger in your eye and rubbing it.”
He stopped and looked at the audience, and said, “This … is Facebook.”
His point was well-taken, I think, that Facebook (and other social media-type sites) is like this: impersonal, not very helpful, and involving a lot of yelling but not really solving anything.
There is another aspect of Facebook that bothers me, and I want to share some points that were sent to us by D. Degenstien, the editor and publisher of the Last Mountain Times, based in Nokomis and Strasbourg, which had been passed on to him from someone else. His point was people and even some local and provincial governments use Facebook to put information out there rather than through the local community paper.
But here’s the thing, folks: Facebook doesn’t pay rent or property taxes, they don’t buy gas at the local gas station, they don’t have children or grandchildren in local schools or playing local sports. Facebook isn’t the local post office’s biggest volume customer, they don’t report on local events or local municipal governments, and Facebook does not contribute to the local economy, anywhere. We do — and that’s a major difference.
