Facebook, Say It Again

Facebook. Huh. What is it good for? Good God y’all. I have no idea any more. I’m thinking about mercilessly purging my friend list.

Here’s what I want to see when I look at Facebook:

• A short note about something interesting or amusing that happened in someone’s day.
• A picture someone took of something interesting or amusing they saw in their day.
• Links to things people think I might be interested in.

But here’s what I actually see when I look at Facebook:

• Ads for things I don’t need or want.
• Social game messages that I immediately block.
• Photos of people or kids that I don’t know who all look much happier than me.
• Recycled meme pictures with funny lolcat captions that usually aren’t that funny.
• Stories that people read that they probably didn’t want everyone to know about, but they didn’t know Facebook tells everyone what stories they read.
• Recycled inspirational sayings about life or religion or bad days at work.
• Recycled posts that tell me to “repost this if…” I’m a) a true friend, b) a true patriot, c) a true Christian, d) a true believer in some other thing or another.
• Recycled warnings about something like aliens or body parts in peanut butter or abused children that were all proven false on Snopes years ago but I can’t correct the poster because it might hurt their feelings or make me sound like I don’t care about abused children even though it drives me crazy when people spread misinformation without taking two minutes to question it.
• Links to controversial articles about politics, religion, or baby seal massacre that are guaranteed to start a flame war if you comment on them.
• Too much information about someone’s day.
• Nothing at all.

To be fair, some people do actually use Facebook correctly. But most people don’t. Maybe I should write instructions.