Tag Archives: corporate greed

Facebook Detox – Benefits and Drawbacks

My final twitterings about my recent Facebook detox program are thus:
It’s been a week since my sudden withdrawal from the ‘wall’, from posting habitually, from keeping a tab constantly open, and from checking to see if anything is happening every five minutes.
I can honestly say I have got more done this week than in recent memory. I have been more composed, more motivated by my own passion, more focused and less impacted by what others say think or do..

There is a lot to say about how we use Social Media, and how we are used by it. It is a modern phenomenon and so new we cannot see the impact it has on us individually or collectively. But something is going on. When you can access, instantly, news, opinions and information from anywhere in the world instantly it’s going to have an effect on the collective mind. The sheer speed of communication is awesome!
Information, good and bad, spreads like wildfire. When this is harnessed for a campaign it can be truly incredible..BUT, everything that exists has a light side and a shadow side, it is the nature of things.
And so with Social Media, particularly the highly interactive Facebook. It’s used by people from all walks of life. My field, business and social, is the ‘spiritual’ area, and that means communication is mostly respectful and courteous. People are genuinely sharing inspiration and insight. This is a phenomenon itself and plays a part in the global consciousness movement, a valuable and mysterious part…
But everyone is an individual with their own reasons, their own 3D lives that still exist in whatever locality they are in. We are not virtual beings, though maybe we are heading that way. I have seen and felt that sometimes it seems easier to interact on the virtual level through Facebook with people I virtually know than to deal with the very real issues in my life, my family, my neighbourhood and my community. Human beings are EXCELLENT at avoiding pain, it is the nature of the ego body to try and avoid pain by seeking pleasure or numbness or distraction etc, and the power of being ‘plugged in’ to a community of thousands of ‘like minded beings’ online is an extraordinary way of avoiding the pain of one’s own life.
And the craziest thing about it is that it is subtle addiction, not brutal and obvious. We dont even know it. Now I am not making comparisons here with the horrendous mind numbing thought control of TV. TV is in a class of its own and nothing humanity has yet created is quite as powerful and all pervading. Yet the internet and social media is as vulnerable to manipulation by corporate interests as anything else. Imagine for a minute you are a corporate company who have no scruples and you just want to create wealth for your investors. When you see the almost 1 Billion Facebook users you will only see one thing right? POTENTIAL REVENUE STREAM..Nothing else. And you will do anything to get to that revenue stream. And take this one step further. How do you boil a frog? Very slowly without the frog even knowing that it’s warming up..See what I’m getting at. Corporate interests employ marketing genius and pay millions to subtly and ingeniously manipulate or influence behaviour. It’s what they do for a living and they are VERY good at it..I’m not sure about you but that worries me…They know millions of people will become socially addicted to the status updating that happens, they know that the constant visual impact on the feed will keep you plugged in. And they know how to feed in bits of influential information to slowly program the unconscious of the most vulnerable. And Facebook is not what it once once..It’s not a little game Zuckerberg is playing. It is a huge Corporation itself that has investors..It’s been floated on the market, therefore it is now playing by the market rules..That means ANYTHING GOES..Be warned..

OK I’ve said enough. All I guess I’m really saying is this..AWARENESS is key to everything we do. It doesn’t matter what we do when we have awareness. Sometimes you need to have break from something to get some clarity about it. It’s not a judgment I’m making. Everyone has their own lives and makes their own decisions. But what I’m saying may be news to you, it may nudge you to take a peek at your own relationship with things, including Facebook. Personally I feel liberated somewhat from the constant itching a scratch that wont go away. I installed Hootsuite that I use to post bits and pieces to Twitter and Facebook. I have checked once or twice to see if I have missed anything..But in truth when I have visited the wall its been a bit overwhelming and I scurried off like a fox caught in the headlights…I’m happy with my new relationship. I’m still there, still connect with friends, but it’s much more on my terms…

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Have a  great day..x Kavi

 

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