As if the time suck wasn't enough, Facebook's minions are turning on the mother host. It's like one of those bad sci-fi movies. The offsprings, smelling blood in the water, or in Facebook's case, an opportunity to capitalize, are now speaking out. We heard from Sean Parker and now Chamath Palihapitiya, the companies former vice president of user growth, about the human complexity that is before us if we choose to be humans that frequent social networking sites.
For starters, Chamath's comments were harsh, but that's what makes them excellent reading material and a viral sensation. Yes, we know that Facebook is "eroding the core foundations of how people behave" and "ripping apart the social fabric." We know that we are "programmed," and the fact that Chamath even goes as far to mention that he does not let his kids "use that s**t" is just further confirmation of how individually addicted we are.
Be honest, if you heard this news somewhere online, you thought about shutting it all down and starting a new life for two seconds, then reconsidered the idea because your ex would miss this weeks bar crawl photos or because that new outfit deserves "likes" and comments. We stay because we are deeply attached, and no amount of telling us how bad it is will deter us. Take that Mr. Chamath.
The truth is the addiction does not stop with our social media feed, the dopamine fix from the attention has created a world in itself, and like any addict, our improvement will come at rock bottom.
The cliche rings true, Rome was not built in a day, and neither are our Facebook profiles. Overtime and with future revelations like Chamath, I hope that we make new decisions about how we operate online. It's not about should we use these sites that connect us to the world but how we use them.
I'm still figuring it out myself.
Watch Chamath Palihapitiya's full conversation at Stanford Business School