Disclaimer: I have not read the article above yet.
I have been a heavy user of Facebook, and a light user. While Facebook was founded in February 2004, I don’t think I joined until a few years later, perhaps around 2007, so I have been off and on it for about 10 years. I have changed over that time, and the changes within me reflect how I have used Facebook.
In comparison to the general population, I personally feel I have a unique view of Facebook because of where I have reached on a spiritual level, which includes the ego work I have done, and think I have a helpful understanding around why people use it in the way they do.
What I am referring to is based on the average person, and user — the higher majority: It fills a void for people who need connection on an emotional level, especially for those who lack connection away from the internet. It has positives, such as promoting opportunities to balance your time through what you do, inspiring creativity, helping family connect who live far apart, but I see far too many negatives that outweigh the positives based on where humanity is at right now.
I needed Facebook when I was younger as I was in a certain state where it filled areas of a void; it was very effective at doing that.
A huge problem with Facebook is that there is a FB group consciousness (all users of FB) that tends to have the sheeple mentality, where they do what everyone else is doing most of the time (the greater majority) and share and promote things that are sometimes not accurate. This means there is a lot of rubbish on there, and therefore a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings are formed by a the group consciousness.
There are two sides to FB, one is connections and the other is information which includes advertisement.
I recently told a few people that I had to stop following my news feeds as it became overwhelming and very time consuming. In previous years I had setup groups of people to use on the feed, so I would only look at certain people’s posts (through using a group) as I have so many friends added that it’s impossible to follow everyone.
The reason I stopped following the feeds is that I started feeling uncomfortable following only certain people, when everyone deserves my attention and time, so I decided just not to follow anyone, in addition to my time being taken up so much trying to keep up with people and filter through the rubbish that gets posted which I have come to be able to discern on a psychic level meaning I know what most things are accurtae and inaccurate pretty fast.
Returning to what I touched upon earlier, I see it as a stepping stone to higher levels and can become an energetic barrier if used too frequently. People tend to forget that it’s not healthy to solely communicate with others in a digital way and that real life connections are required (as part of balance), Facebook promotes this unhealthy habit and goes to great lengths to keep people on there (for the reason of gaining money through advertisements).
Some people tend to form the habit and use it to complain about their life and issues, rather than resolve their issues, and this is not healthy.
It’s of course great for promoting yourself and your work, and that is required sometimes to survive and do what you want to do in life, but that is what Facebook is taking advantage of. It’s about making money for them and they go to great lengths to make money from advertising and forcing things on the users. The energy of advertisement is what really governs Facebook and that energy doesn’t resonate with me at all anymore, which also makes it hard for me to be around it, as I am becoming more energy sensitive. So there is that advertising side, but then the unhealthy emotional group consciousness side of what makes up FB energy. If I post a link to one of our articles or threads on the FB page I maintain for the site, the software that controls what users see will only show my link to about 10-15% of the 'likes' of the page. Originally it was 100% for groups, but Facebook wanted to make some money... now you have to pay money to promote your post so more users that like your page can see it and this is just one example of many about why FB is all about making money.
I do miss following people on FB and interacting with them like I have done in the past, but I know I need to look after me first and make sure I am where I need to be for my own health and sanity. This is similar to how I need to continue to listen to my body so I know what is best to consume for my diet, which includes what I may wash my hair and brush my teeth with.
From a spiritual perspective, it is a great place to help others if you are a mentor, teacher, guide and so on, but we all operate at different levels, just like with diet, we need to make changes based on where we are at on a personal level and FB is showing me a lower vibrational energy that I don’t need to be around as frequently as I have been in the past.
Oh, and I see FB, as well as some other social media platforms, as creating and worsening short attention spans, and then using that as a tool to advertise. People on Facebook, those heavy and long term users, tend to develop a psychological condition where they only have so much time for something they see, and they therefore miss out on so much from not following up and taking some real time to investigate what appeared before them. People have no choice but to scroll and move on, especially when so many people end up adding friend after friend after friend. Therefore if you are doing something important on FB, such as running a group or page, it's really hard to reach people.
If I wrote something like this on FB, I know I would have to limit what I said as most people wouldn’t take notice since it would be longer than a few lines… this is why pictures get the most attention on FB.
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