The first experience I will describe is a book I discovered on podiobooks.com and listened to. It is called A User's Manual for the Human Experience, by Michael W Dean. It can be downloaded as a pdf file here: http://michaelwdean.com/UMFTHE/Users_Manual_for_The_Human_Experience-eBook.pdf A review of the book can be found here: http://www.kikabink.com/reviews/a-users-manual-for-the-human-experience-by-michael-w-dean/ In my case I downloaded the book as a series of mp3's of the author reading the book. For my purposes at least it talks about people who stress our emotional reserves at best and cause emotional (and possibly physical) harm at worst. The book deals with removing these emotionally bothersome or harmful influences. There is some good information and advice in the book, and I think it is worth the time, but your mileage may vary. The review of the book gives a decent idea of the content, and who should not read the book.
With the idea of removing influences that could at the very least be a stress to my emotional well being in mind, I think I should really establish what it is that I want to get out of my time on facebook and others. For starters I look at social networking sites as a tool to stay connected. I have a number of friends and family that I enjoy getting a little slice of what they are up to. When I see someone in real life that I have been keeping up with on facebook, I like the idea that I could start up a conversation with him or her and it will be a lot more of a regular conversation and a little less catching up. I like to see what friends and family are doing and thinking. I like to see pictures of activities, new and old. I like to see growing families. I also like to hear new things and be entertained. I enjoy some links and videos. I get a kick out of jokes. Basically I like the feeling that my friends are people I hang out with regularly even though we might be separated by oceans.
Going along with that I have the desire to cut down on my time using facebook. I have a (perhaps OCD) need to go back through the new posts until I hit the last post I remember from my previous visit. I enjoy going through the posts, but there is a lot of noise in there and not a lot of signal. I want to have an improved signal to noise ratio. That will allow me to go through all the new posts since my last visit more quickly and save time I could put to better use somewhere else. I would love to be able to get on the computer and go through all the new stuff in less time.
Recently I have had a few experiences that really drive home that there are a few online behaviors that I could do without. I could see that some of the posts and links are things that cause me emotional annoyance to the point that I can appreciate following Mr. Dean's advice to remove the troublesome influences. Some of the behaviors I have been able to effectively and efficiently deal with by blocking posts made by games and other applications. Constantly allowing Mafia Wars or
Closely related to the games is the habit of spamming. Games tend to do this the worst. I used to enjoy playing Mafia Wars. I never did things in the game that would cause the game to post on my wall or other walls. The game could still be enjoyed in this manner, but to really enjoy the game it took spamming facebook with Mafia Wars posts. It is now almost becoming impossible to get any enjoyment out of Mafia Wars without spamming. I'm ready to block it altogether. Other things can be a source of spamming, and they aren't things that can cleanly be blocked. I've seen some people who almost exclusively post song lyrics. I call that spamming, and it isn't some nice easy fix where you can just block the app. This behavior is made worse when my dislike of a lot of popular music comes into play. Some might be a broken record of quotes, scriptures, or some other message. I'm all for the occasional use of one of these, but occasional is the key word. If I can replace all my interactions with you by randomly grabbing a passage from scripture, a quote book, or something like that, then I can do without.
On the heels of the serial quote/scripture/lyrics poster is the guy that may as well be the propaganda arm of a cause. There are a lot of posts from a select few that tend to be proclaiming the gospel of how modern medicine is bad, or some other conspiracy theory-esque idea. The typical whipping boy of these posts are how horrible vaccines are. One of my traits is curiosity. I see stuff and I like to look it up. Another is that I look at things with a skeptical eye. In the best of times I just get annoyed by some of these posts.
Recently there have been posts that have really cooked my goose. In these cases I tend to look at the linked article and start to analyze. I first break down how it jives with my education. Do I get any red flags from what I learned in anatomy, physiology, or some other course? Then I start to go over references or other more primary material. For example if an article claims ingredient X causes condition Y when taking product Z, I look up what the toxic dose is for ingredient X and see if it is even realistic with how much is actually in product Z. Now I know that the person that told me Carmex causes cancer didn't realize that it would take regular/chronic consumption (read: eating) of multiple packages. The amount that is put on lips isn't going to do anything. Never mind that the ingredient in question won't even get to where it needs to go to do the damage; it just isn't realistically going to happen with the quantities people actually use.
Sometimes analyzing the articles involves going over the primary research that is cited ( if there actually is any) and see if the research says what the article actually claims it says. A prime example of this is an (in)famous article by Robert F Kennedy Jr called Deadly Immunity. It was originally published in Salon, but it can now only be found on RFK's website. When this article was passed on to me (via email at the time) I ended up tracking down the paper it extensively cited. Reading the references was enlightening. The article is a worthy case study in how not to cite material. Quotes were improperly attributed (wrong people saying things), taken completely out of context (in one case it took back tracking about 100 pages to understand the context), and just plain wrong. It was either sheer laziness on the part of the author, or it was intentional lies and distortions to advance the author's agenda. I've seen enough of these “science exposes” that I don't want to see any more. I will be annoyed by them, and if I read them I will analyze them and know they are a pile of crap. I don't want the repeated exposure to these kinds of stories and the comments that smack of blind devotion that are attached. I don't want the emotional “think of the kids” comments on some story about how there is a conspiracy to make people infertile through vaccinations.
Another thing I want to exorcise from my online activities is drama. I hate manufactured drama. I did my best to stay far away from it in high school. I don't want to be swimming in it 20 years later. I think this kind of fake drama is all rooted in immaturity. It's something that I don't want to see. If I see someone carrying on a private conversation in front of everyone on facebook, then I am going to get an itchy unfriend trigger finger. It about makes me ill to read something that really should be done over the phone, instant/private message, or email. It is even more painful when the guilty parties could have just as easily sent private messages back and forth via facebook chat or facebook messages. It's a horrible kind of lazy, and it is a kind of immature drama that I don't want to see.
Basically I don't want to see a bunch of junk when I go to catch up with people on facebook. I don't want the spam. I don't want the propaganda. I don't want my time wasted with crap. I want to know about my friends. If all my friends have to offer is crap, then I will shed some friends. I will still talk to them when I meet them in real life, but I don't want my leisure time on facebook monopolized by stuff I would walk away from in real life. I want to be more productive, and waste less time. This is one way I'm going to do it. I feel like I should say don't take it personally, but in essence I'm saying my friends that habitually post stuff that I don't care to see are going to be dropped.
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