Facebook Eats Everything

[Canotrouge]

Bailer. Nuff said.




I may need a hat like that. I definitely need to increase my C2H5OH intake; I feel another rant coming on. A Facebook rant in part, but a smart phone rant in particular. As in people who are addicted to their dang smart phones.

People in the shop, helping while I work on their boat “Oh look, I have a call”, yadda, yadda, yadda for 10 minutes while I stand there holding a drill. Companions on car rides, hearing one side of a conversation for 20 minutes while I have the radio turned down “Uh huh”. . . “Yeah”. . . . “He did what?”. . . . .”No, really?”.

Unless that is some family or work emergency, which it has yet to be, I want to throw their #@$%& phone out the window.

Worse, maybe worst, people on trips, sitting around the campfire conversation and suddenly, “Oh look, I have a signal” before they fall into an I-phone trance checking their e-mail or Facebook status and sending updates. “I’m just sitting around a campfire on the lake shore, ignoring everyone”

Seriously? You are out in the woods with friends. Unless that’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse and you need to answer in the next 60 second that crap can wait.

The first time I encountered that smart phone addiction I had never seen such a thing and was perplexed.

I was driving a young woman and a half dozen other paddlers down to a canoe race in the van and we were, as usual, talking about strategies and tides and route peculiarities. She had never raced before, only done some test paddling trips in the canoe I was loaning her. I thought she would have been curiously attentive and maybe ask questions, or at least pretend to pay some involved participation.

She was buried in her Smartphone for the entire three hour ride and said not a word. She still managed a good time, and enjoyed the day. She was a bit more engaging on the ride back, I expect after posting her 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] place woman’s rec finish (3 entries, 1 DNF) to Facebook. If only she had put the phone down, listened and not cut those corners into the sandbar shallows.

So yeah, I am running out ASAP to get a smart phone and sign up for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And Pintrest, so I can show you photos of my diner breakfast.

Oh look, there’s the Plaid Prancer on Grindr

(OH GAWD, I had to look up that site name on Google. What have I done to my data analytics?)

Ok I gonna say it... Not your thing, good don't use them. But I'm sure when internet started you must have said the same thing about it and the people using it... When the first synthetic tent came on the market you must have thought this is stupid.... Hope I'm wrong about all of that and that the only thing you complain about is face book.... But for some reason I doubt it!!

 

[memaquay]

Mike, babycakes, I don't believe you had to look that site up, in fact, while I've been swiping right, I saw this Duck Dynasty looking fella in overalls, I was sure it was you. Just in case you find more than one Plaid Prancer on Grindr, here's my latest profile pick, so you can swipe right. If you swipe left, the Plaid Prancer will be sad!

 

[memaquay]

I'm the blond with the sunglasses

 

[memaquay]

Just to keep this on topic, like about canoes, here's one of my secret pictures, you have to be a member to see.

 

[Guest]

Ok I gonna say it... Not your thing, good don't use them. But I'm sure when internet started you must have said the same thing about it and the people using it... When the first synthetic tent came on the market you must have thought this is stupid....

I didn’t get hooked at first back in the day. And now I won’t use recent “advances” in social media. The designed endorphin-release algorithms are bad enough, but selling my profile to anyone and everyone, for whatever purpose, is too much.

But, when the internet first got going, at least canoe-wise, I was an early adopter of the rec.boats.paddle forum. Perhaps that was a gentler time.

I may single out Facebook, because they are the 800 lb Gorilla in the room, and because some of their advanced analytics and algorithms are invasive scary, especially given the potential for misuse fostering political tribalism.

There has been some interesting brain science and human behavior research done in the last few years with regard to social media’s deliberately addictive design and its effects. I do recognize how addictive I can be, and refuse to be hooked. Y’all may be stronger than me, but once on-board resistance is futile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhfMMP_jx-Q

I am generally not an early adopter of anything new, but once modern tents tent materials and design, composite canoes & paddles, and Sil-nlyon tarps had some proven history, yeah buddy, that crap works, gimme one.

Hope I'm wrong about all of that and that the only thing you complain about is face book.... But for some reason I doubt it!!

Right you are, I complain about more than just Facebook, but without rage or angry grievance. I just kinda chuckle to myself and keep my distance. I gave up things beyond my control like, inter-net or road-rage years ago, now I just laugh and mutter “WTF dude”, even to myself when alone in the truck, and ease off in the granny lane.

I’m retired. I got better, gentler things to do. And a little laughter every day is a good thing.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Are Facebook and “meet-up” groups killing canoe clubs?

Yes, of course social media have killed canoe clubs, not to mention -- so I won't beyond this sentence -- destroying society with nonstop tribalization and biased algorithms that have created a generation of illiberal, intolerant and narrowly educated minds.

Back to canoe clubs, which I define as a collection of homo sapiens sapiens who physically meet frequently with each other, in person, to talk and touch and hold and hug and and drink and laugh and cry together, in each other's physical presence, even when not on paddling trips.

Prior to the 90's, there were no social media, no internet, and darned few personal computers. Belonging to a club was not a matter of staring at pixels on a screen, typing inanities like "LOL" and "LMAO" and clicking on a thumb up or follow button. You actually had to talk to real people, at least on the phone, and go to their homes, or a restaurant or a bar or a church to meet with them. A club was much more than an electronic medium to schedule trips; it was a living micro-society of human beings who actually socialized with each other at . . . the same spacetime coordinate. Frequently.

To see a new canoe you had to go to a store, or to a an actual (not a virtual) meetup. To get water levels for a Saturday river trip 100 miles away you had to call Joe on the phone, who lived near that river, and then phone calls would proliferate and fissionate, like Carl Sagan's ping pong balls on a pool table. People talking to people.

I miss those clubs, those times, those people. People who wouldn't spurn a paddler because of identity politics, or even talk about the damnable subject. (Mike McCrea has has a sign in his shop that says something like: "Just canoes, no politics." Right on, man!)

I've adopted the internet selectively for canoe talk because not only are canoe clubs dead, but so is just about everyone I used to paddle with in my salad days. But actively joining Facebook, Twitter and other brainwashing and brain-deadening social media . . . AAGH! . . . I'll be way behind the righteously ranting Mr. McCrea in that line.

YMMV. LOL. QED.

 

[memaquay]

OMG, who is this Glenn fella? LOL, LMFAO, Holy Cow!

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Hey, Glenn!

I'd hang with ya in person on location at the drop of a phone call, but it's too long of a drive. It's sure good to see you posting here again though!


"No politics". I actually had to state that out loud on a recent group trip. The innanet, with its political saturation, infects and threatens to kill even that.