Guest: 5 reasons to not Facebook.

For like the past 3 years (ever since the terrible movie “the Social Network” got released it has only gotten worse) people have been accosting me, with questions like: “Do you have Facebook”, “Are you on Facebook”, “What is your Facebook id” and at first my retort was “What is this curious thing you call Facebook?”, I’d get terrible replies detailing what FB represented to them, then I asked someone who is actually interweb (yes, that is how you should say it) savvy and I found out that FB (the cool way to say Facebook is apparently – FB) is a “social network” where people come to find old friends, make new friends, greet people on important days, and just generally keep people in the loop.

So I thought to myself… this sounds good, why am I not on this “Facebook”? I asked my head of media (who I consider to be a really smart gal) the question and then she very calmly told me why I should never, never ever create an account on Facebook. Here are the brilliant eye-opening reasons she gave me as to why I shouldn’t signup on Facebook:

1. Waste of time: Facebook is an utter waste of time. Where people come ONLY to:

• Look at pictures of you (Fulfillment of sexual fantasy).
• Feel better about themselves by reading up on your misfortune (Schadenfreude).
• Feel masochistic pleasure by reading up on your good fortune (Masochism).
• Take pleasure in knowing people like to ogle at pictures of them (Ego boost).
• Shamelessly promote themselves and or their products (Commerce).
• Be part of the hip, cool generation (that was formerly) on FB (Need for acceptance).

2. Nazi future: Facebook is a fascistic company wishing to control the interwebs. The interwebs which flourished only because of it’s decentralized and free nature! So if you’re on FB you’re kinda saying “Hitler was an alright dude”.

3. Only idiots actually use FB: Cognitive scientists have proven that people who use Facebook are dimwits (or in scientific terms, users of FB are less intelligent then non-users of FB).

Are you ashamed that you find Facebook boring? Are you angst-ridden by your weak social-networking skills? Do you look with envy on those whose friend-count dwarfs your own? Buck up, my friend. The traits you consider signs of failure may actually be marks of intellectual vigor, according to a new study by Bu Zhong and Marie Hardin at Penn State and Tao Sun at the University of Vermont, they’re one of the first to examine the personalities of social networkers. The researchers looked in particular at connections between social-network use and the personality trait that psychologists refer to as “need for cognition,” or NFC. NFC – is a recognized indicator for deep or shallow thinking. People who like to challenge their minds have high NFC, while those who avoid deep thinking have low NFC (FB users). Whereas, according to the authors, “high NFC individuals possess an intrinsic motivation to think, having a natural motivation to seek knowledge,” those with low NFC don’t like to grapple with complexity and tend to content themselves with superficial assessments, particularly when faced with difficult intellectual challenges. The researchers surveyed 436 college students during 2010. Each participant completed a standard psychological assessment measuring NFC as well as a questionnaire measuring social network use. (Given what we know about college students’ social networking in 2010, it can be assumed that the bulk of the activity consisted of Facebook use.) The study revealed a significant negative correlation between social network site (SNS) activity and NFC scores. “The key finding,” the authors write, “is that NFC played an important role in SNS use. Specifically, high NFC individuals tended to use SNS less often than low NFC people, suggesting that effortful thinking may be associated with less social networking among young people.” Moreover, “high NFC participants were significantly less likely to add new friends to their SNS accounts than low or medium NFC individuals.” To put it in layman’s terms, the study suggests that if you want to be a big success on Facebook, it helps to be a dumb dimwit.

4. Psychological Manipulation: Facebook psychologically manipulates users in to being social “why?” you may ask, well I’ll tell ya’ the more things users do on Facebook the larger it becomes. Like drug dealer who wants to sell more drugs FB manipulates you in to doing stuff you don’t wanna do (wish people on their birthdays, send friend requests to people you don’t know, etc.) so that it can grow bigger and bigger; in fact FB does this by making use of core psychological triggers present in the minds of its user group. See, I told you they were fascists.

5. That girl you just whacked it to is probably a SPAM bot: Almost 80% of the “users” seen on FB are SPAM robots (not people). SPAM bots are essentially creatures sired by brilliant but malicious individuals who apparently want everyone to a) buy a lot of viagra. b) FB “like” content these nefarious individuals wish to promote.

6. Ruin your professional life: The old (and unfashionable) reason to hate on FB, which is that your holy work on FB will very likely be read by your future employers, so if you are a worker bee, a drone who works for someone else, you’re lowering the odds of working at your dream company by posting pictures of yourself “getting higher than a kite” (or in your case, pictures of you goofing off at your previous place of employment – so that your future employer knows what you really mean when you say you’ll give a 100 percent) on FB.

There, six reasons for you, one more than the five I promised, because that is the kind of person I am! How do ya’ like ‘em eggrolls, Mr. Goldstone?