
Death of the private self: how 15 years of Facebook changed the human condition - rapnie
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/31/how-facebook-robbed-us-of-our-sense-of-self
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mbostleman
One of the things that annoys me most about modern journalism is the use of
"we" and "our" as if everyone in the population does the thing or has the
experience that is being described. So I find it somehow ironic that a
journalist is grieving the loss of private selves when he doesn't even
recognize an individual self.

~~~
claudiawerner
The "we" being used aims to articulate that a particular trend is visible in
society in general; it does not include everyone, and it may not even include
the reader. This kind of phrasing in the most general sense is sometimes
necessary to firstly avoid looking patronizing and secondly to show that the
author considers themselves so humble as to be part of the group under
analysis. The trend may be at least partly inherited from critical theory.

~~~
mbostleman
How ever it's justified, it's a style choice. It can just as easily be
replaced with a sentence or two that provides some actual statistical context
like the percentage of users from various demographic groups. That would serve
to increase my engagement rather than having the opposite effect of making me
want to stop reading. But maybe it's just me.

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threwawasy1228
I still don't get it at all. As someone who has had a facebook account since
like 2009ish? I'm of the right age-cohort to be hooked into my phone like the
groups these people are referring to. But in the 10 years I've had a facebook
account, I rarely ever used it except as a way to message people really. I
don't understand how anyone could look at a newsfeed and find good content
there. Even in the 'good era' of facebook before all these ads it was still a
bunch of trash I didn't want to look at.

I can't image how anyone would want to look at their phone scrolling through
this kind of garbage for any extended period.

~~~
dave5104
Here's an interesting read for you:
[http://glusman.blogspot.com/2010/02/malcovich-bias-over-
year...](http://glusman.blogspot.com/2010/02/malcovich-bias-over-years-ive-
noticed.html)

~~~
_rpd
Are there anywhere you can get Malkovich Bias scores to see just how out of
the ordinary your web use habits are?

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ProAm
Zuckerberg said it himself in 2010: "The Age of Privacy Is Over" [1]

[1]
[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/external/readwri...](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/01/10/10readwriteweb-
facebooks-zuckerberg-says-the-age-of-privac-82963.html?pagewanted=1)

~~~
ahartmetz
But he didn't mean it for himself, because he of course doesn't want to be a
victim of this "new world" that he made up to legitimize his little evil
empire.

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davebryand
What I love about this whole wave of social media overdosing is that during
the hangover people might "look in the mirror" and try to re-find their
private, inner self. I see a reversion from extrinsic focus to intrinsic focus
which is going to lead to an explosion of creativity across the world and can
give us back our messy, fun internet.

~~~
cyberpip
Love this optimistic outlook!

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asdffdsa
Pretty soon I'm going to be so irked that I may have to write an article
"Death of the Individual: How Countless Pseudo-spiritual Personal Essays on
Transcending Social Platforms Reaffirms the Utter Banality of the Human
Psyche"

~~~
iamdave
Better idea: Change your name to Wallace F. Davidson, write this same article
but in novel form, publish it under the title "Infinite Mess", become best-
selling author, send me a check for $200,000 when you become a millionaire.

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woodandsteel
The private self is a rather recent invention. Human beings have lived
communally ever since the original forager tribes. That means the whole family
sleeping in a single room, and then getting up in the morning to go out and
collectively hunt or gather, and then coming back and sitting around in the
camp talking and engaging in other activities. With farming you are still
doing things as a family. With both foraging and agricultural societies,
anything important that happened in a person's life would be known to everyone
else, and original thoughts contrary to the cultural consensus were virtually
unknown.

More recently in the modern era, thanks in part to Greek philosophy, city
living, and the printing press, the idea developed of a private self that
needed to be protected against the culture and society.

Now with social media we have gone back to the public self, but unfortunately
it is in various ways much more dysfunctional than the original communal self
was.

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mrnobody_67
I never signed up for an account...* writing on the wall for this was clear
from the get-go, it's only in the last 18 months that the s _it has started
hitting the fan in the media. Took a long time.

_ Though FB creates "ghost" accounts for users who never formally
registered...

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headgasket
I wonder if some of last quarter's profit is being poured in producing op-ed
pieces to attempt to slow the traffic bleed... My son and his buddies call
them fagedbook and instagramma.

