In the past few weeks, I have become tired of seeing my mind work like a FaceBook post. I actually started noticing this on the 2009 Stencil Nation tour in Europe. As Pod and I wandered around Vienna, Austria, we realized that every city we toured, the word “FaceBook” kept showing up in random places. And we both realized that we were beginning to think as posts to FaceBook. “Woah, that’s funny. I should share that on FaceBook.” I didn’t have a phone in the EU and Pod’s phone was a cheap “dumb” phone, so we couldn’t go from thought to FB in a matter of seconds.
Beyond the concept of having a huge corporation enter my brain as a way to express myself, I have begun to worry about the content that I post on FB. Google just changed the way they gather user information. I’m sure you saw the ads all over the place telling you about Google’s plan to consolidate their user experience, and thus their user’s thoughts. Buddhist ads have begun to appear on FB. I don’t want to buy any buddha t-shirts, but FB thinks I do. As the FTC mulls a “do not track” rule, and Google and other companies get busted for accessing too much user data, I’m beginning to wonder if my already slim profile on FB (and Google+, which I rarely post to), is a bit too much. And as FB changes their format (and user agreements) every 3 months, I am growing tired of the overflow of information. I hear this FB burnout from other people as well, and I think that the FB OD is one reason Google+ just isn’t happening. Most people appear to be thinking “You mean I have to go to yet another website to post my life?!” Continue reading “Month of Blog”