Any of you hate it here, too?

 I've been on Facebook since 2009. In that time I've wracked up a lot of 30 day bans because I liked to argue about politics online and conversations get heated when you do that. But I had gone so long without a 30 day ban that my previous records were wiped and up until a few months ago, I didn't have anything taken down for violating community standards. So about a month ago, I received a three day suspension of my Facebook account. 

I used to fear being banned from Facebook so much that I made a second account to use while I was in Facebook jail. However, I didn't really care that I had been sent to the klink this time. I just laughed, since I've since learned how to use Twitter and Reddit. Messenger doesn't get suspended anymore, so I was able to text anyone I wanted to.

I haven't been sucked into the cesspools of Twitter and Reddit as much as I have Facebook, so I was able to avoid much of the toxicity that plagues it. During those three days I found myself being more relaxed and in a generally better mood.

And then I came back. And I immediately started back into old habits. Telling the boomers and the bigots off as best I could while avoiding a ban. Reading news stories that do nothing but fill me with anger. As the old habits and emotions came back, I could sense the change in my mood. 

Robert Evans does several podcasts, and one of them is called Behind the Bastards. A thoroughly entertaining show, Mr. Evans talks about some of the biggest scumbags in history. He's talked about Mark Zuckerberg several in several of them. I recall Mr. Evans saying that it was either in 2012 or 2014 that the algorithm on Facebook was changed so that you'd be more likely to see things that would make you angry. The reasoning is that anger created engagement, and more engagement meant more money for Facebook. You probably can recall that stuff on Facebook started to change after that. It became less fun. Regardless, most of us had been on Facebook for so long and were so addicted to it that we didn't notice that it had become toxic.

Facebook wants us to be angry every time we look at it.

Dan Sheehan wrote an blog post of his own called, "I Hate It Here, See You Tomorrow" where he discussed this feeling of anger that social media causes. He was talking about Twitter, though. He said:

I used to love being online but it now feels like any positive byproducts of social media were just misunderstood early symptoms of something much darker. All the fun memes and Wife Guys trained us to come when called, to reliably provide daily discourse so that the content mill could continue to churn at the cost of our time and sanity. We logged on because chemically simulated fun on demand sounded too good to pass up and we stayed because we were right. Like teens sharing cigarettes behind the bleachers who’ve become middle aged smokers cursing the cold, we’re no longer in a position to easily divorce ourselves from our habit despite the fact that the deal became one sided long ago.

I really hate what this has done to my mental health. It's exhausting to go online and see a bunch of people and posts that seem determined to just ruin your day. And I hate that I respond to them and try to ruin their day in return. This isn't fun anymore. Like Dan Sheehan also said, it feels like clocking in to work a job that you hate. 

The solution to this is the one thing we can't really do right now. Go out and meet some people and spend time with friends. But we're living in the middle of a plague. Who wants to meet new people right now? 

Going back to Dan Sheehan:

But what’re we going to do, leave? In the tenth month of a seemingly infinite pandemic, these digital spaces are all most of us have. We count ourselves lucky that hell at least has group chats.

Until this fucking plague is over, most of us are stuck here.

Do any of you hate it here, too?