Facebook the Monster

Sometimes I think Facebook has become a monster. A monster that controls us all, and one who eats you up when you are not careful.

It used to be a friends-connecting device. I first knew about it when my then-supervisor emailed me a link to join Facebook. I thought it was at best another Friendster thing that would diminish over time. And because I was invited by my supervisor, I'd better joined it.

I was a dormant user for quite a while, not knowing how to utilise it, until a friend mentioned on her blog about looking at pictures on Facebook.

So I explored the function of uploading pictures on Facebook. I found it fun to be able to show my friends my pictures, so I uploaded hundreds and hundreds (a friend said there must be thousands) of them while the function was novel to me.

I progressed to using the 'What are you thinking of today?' function by posting my grouse of the day.

Then I made lists on Facebook so that it compelled me to remember what I had to do for the day.

Now I usually post things that make me laugh. Whether it is funny to my Facebook friends doesn't matter.

It becomes an addiction to check Facebook on a constant basis.

I had thought that it is a friendly device. It keeps me updated with what friends are up to, what their husbands buy for them, where they have been for holidays and the articles they read.

Until I read about this: Anton Casey, where has all our empathy gone?

The writer is very perceptive. I think just about the whole of Singapore has gone crazy with rage at Anton Casey. He picked up the herd mentality in this furore and summed up how humans are corrupted without themselves knowing:

The herd mentality has historically brought out the worst in human beings, because it stops us thinking as an individual, and doesn't allow us to find our moral compass.

It is also somewhat ironic that many of those who are angry against authoritative figures or the elites for perceived abused of power, often behave just as badly when they perceive that power has shifted to them - a power that is simply derived from the sheer number of people egging them on. Similarly, those who chastise the Government for groupthink also themselves fall prey to a groupthink mob mentality.

In short, the article is about how internet users are so sucked up in their anger towards Casey that sometimes we don't even think: are we angry with him because we are angry with him ourselves or are we angry with him because everybody is angry with him?

Call me spineless, but I honestly could not be bothered with what Casey thought. It was on his Facebook and he was entitled to his opinion. Anyway, my rich London experience has already given me a good inkling of how his kind perceive us. I just thought he was being stupid by posting such unintelligent stuff, something only frustrated, struggling peasants like me would do. Given his standing in the society and his obscene wealth, if I were him, I would remain a silent Facebook user like a banker friend I have. You have too much at stake to do silly things that peasants can do without any consequences!

But within a few short days, he has to fly to Perth to lie low from the mob.

Isn't Facebook a frightening thing? If Facebook doesn't exist, his life would not have experienced such an upheaval. The same goes for Amy Cheong, the lady who commented that some people should not get married if they could not afford something better than a void deck.

My Facebook friends' list consists mainly of people I know, and a few that I have met once, but felt comfortable to add as friends. But just a click of 'like' on my Facebook posts easily exposes my posts to other users that are out of my friends' list.

The Casey and Amy Cheong incidents serve as constant reminders that Facebook is a device that we should use with extra care. It can destroy us or our careers with a snap of its finger. It just takes a distasteful caption or a frank opinion to do that.

For someone as frank as me, all the more I should rein in my opinion.

A forummer pmed me that she 'start to appreciate your frankness a little more now' after reading a lengthy post I wrote. That jolted me further to rethink about being frank. "Nobody likes a frank person", as put by a straightforward friend when I was 20, when I commented that I liked her frankness, even when she pointed out to me that I had fats in my flabby upper arms. Apparently, her clique of friends was making their way out of her life because they did not appreciate her direct ways, but for someone who was raised to be repressed and submissive, frankness was something very refreshing to me. It is something that I have learnt and conscientiously value up till today.

Just that, for the age that I have come to, no matter how frank I am, I must withhold my frank opinion on Facebook the monster, sometimes.