I still hate Facebook.  Always have and always will.  But I’m forced to use it, so I take advantage of it the best I can.  Many people have made it their only means of communication.

However, do you remember when people talked to each other?  I mean actually called up, or came over and talked about a trip they took or when their child did something special?  Now it’s a low grade picture and a caption shared among certain groups or possibly publicly.  If you’re lucky, you can get a couple of horribly worded paragraphs.

OK and sure you can “like” something.  Or even now we can laugh, be thoughtful, angry, shocked and love something.  Where’s the “fuck you” button, or don’t give two shits button?  I bet they’d get used more than the others.

But here’s where you really find out who gives a shit and who don’t.  People who used to call and tell you I love you, or want to talk about their life, now just wait for attention from everyone to see who wants to give them a like or some pity comment.  Or wait for that praise on how pretty your 5000th selfie is.  Seriously, for some of you beauty is only skin deep.

When a special occasion happens like a birthday, graduation, wedding or a “first” of some sort.  Such as your baby’s first word or step.  Is now a mere photograph or video online reduced in quality for easy loading on grandma’s phone.  No one shares actual high quality photos or videos anymore.  As an example.  I have two kids who are married.  Wedding photos?  Why you can look at them on Facebook!  Low grade, grainy quality, good luck putting them up on the wall and don’t look too closely as they are pixelated from trying to “blow them up” to fit a 5×7 photo frame.  Same thing goes for my grand children.  Can’t get an actual photo to hang up, just have to right click and save from Facebook.  I live a little over 30 minutes away now.  But unless I go and take pictures myself, this is all I get.  Sadly, I generally am not there when something special happens.

Video’s are even harder to deal with.  Your phone may be able to record in High Def or Ultra High Def, but good luck getting Facebook to allow you to download that quality.  Phones generally automatically reduce quality when uploading to social media.  Again, so you can look at it on a portable device quickly.

I remember a few short years ago, I tried share a life event on Facebook.  Mostly because I was very weak and could barely speak cognitively and my mom didn’t know most of the phone numbers needed to contact folks.  I got a lot of angry people telling me finding out on Facebook wasn’t cool.

Though I could say the same about finding out a month late that my step daughter was pregnant for the second time.  By chance I was scrolling through old posts of hers.  Which is hard to do when you have to fish for anything worth while among the bat shit crazy list of things I could care less about.  Foamy says it best here:

Unfortunately I catch myself sharing things that I’m sure some of you don’t care about.  Before Facebook, this would’ve never been known that I have such feelings about stuff.  Though I don’t apologize for who I am.  I know I’ve lost a few “friends” because of this.  If you can call Facebook friends real friends.  Some of these people I don’t really know, they just added me to their list or follow me.  Though, I do try to keep things I share to a minimum.

Honestly though, I miss things the way they used to be.  Family gatherings, talking on the phone or in person, and sharing photos and videos in ways that they can be appreciated by showing them off on a wall or full size screen.  Mobile isn’t great for people with fading eyesight.