Stargazer43 wrote:
I personally think that Facebook hurts, rather than helps, social skills. It promotes a very false and superficial form of socialization, and almost discourages actually interacting with other people.
I totally agree. I don't know if Facebook has helped or hurt my social skills but what I do know is that I've finally gotten good enough at them in real life to get my foot in the door of an NT social life, only to find another hazard of social anxiety - Facebook.
I get upwards of 30 or 40 likes on some of my pictures, including some from very attractive girls, and this just puts me in a confusion. Because I don't know what a "like" from someone you hope is interested in you could mean, and I don't think most NTs do either. What I do know is that it's part of the reevaluation process that we all go through when seeing someone's internet persona, both to yourself and everyone you know.
FB is really good for window-shopping the glitz and the glam of an NT social life but that doesn't mean the most attractive and successful people are into it. The most attractive and successful people are not showoffs and have no reason to use it to its fullest, because everyone already knows they get around and flexing it over social media would just make them seem like an as*hole. Whereas some people who are less desirable make their way up to a king/queen of social media, to cover up the fact that they're not very popular. And I disagree with the idea that it was made for really social people...it was created out of boredom and insecurity. And then boredom and insecurity keep people attached it to it. Watch The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg is a computer nerd who in college was more miserable than some AS outsider, he's an NT loser - on the social ladder but at the bottom.
Another thing people don't realize is that Facebook is the first of its kind with no special niche - just try to catalog everyone you know in real life. Compare it to something like Last.fm or Xbox Live...there's a shared interest that gets people signed up, you get a clear and enjoyable objective to be met with no trap you can't click X out of. Vs Facebook which has a much less clear objective and it's basically a trap lined with inner traps. Instagram is another one I like because although it is popular and "mainstream" as FB and Twitter, it has a more creative bend and the best IGers are posting more interesting or beautiful content than just selfies or party pictures. It can bring out the best in people.
Rumor also has it that some of the first investors of FB were defense contractors with some links to the NSA and FBI and such. So if Facebook doesn't creep you out enough from behind your computer, it's probably a million times more sketchy in Silicon Valley and Washington DC. Everyone knows your employer is going to look at your FB but what else is jurisdictions all over the US are writing their rules for how to use it for evidence in a criminal procedure, and the first impressions of those rules are that they give mercy to people who are active on Facebook about 3 times per year. Twitter isn't any better, but I see it more of a new advertising medium of the private sector - hashtag this product, follow this celebrity, etc.
One more thing - a general warning to everyone that one day, something on your Facebook will be used against you and you're gonna really regret it. It might not be in court, it might not be with your parents, but it's gonna happen and you won't be ready for it.
_________________
"Psychic kids, try to understand who made them this way, so they don't feel bad...floating in space, the ghost is out there, so you're not alone, only out there"
Sagittarius, ISFP, diagnosed with AS when I was 13.
http://www.last.fm/user/DolphinCove
05 Feb 2014, 1:30 pm
