<p>Hello fellow college aspiring kids. So something is on my mind and it is really bugging me. </p>
<p>I have noticed lately that it feels with most forms of technology and social media, all people want is personal attention. As in one solitary person will go to any length to get a number of likes, retweets, what have you. I mean, a commercial, for example, wants your attention for a good reason. A product needs to be sold. But then I go on facebook (it’s so disgusting to me anymore; I’m about to deactivate mine) and there’s some stupid picture of a cartoon heart with a caption that says, “Like if you love your parent, scroll down if you don’t.” Really? Did you REALLY NEED to make that? All that person wants is to log in at the end of the day and go, “omg 134,567 likes on my pic” and feel some sort of satisfaction from that, like a number of clicks makes their self-worth higher. (It really doesn’t.) And to me that’s kind of sick. And I know this has been covered for ages but I feel the news media (and now, EVERYONE) takes everything, even TRADEGY, and exploits the crap out of it for their self worth, their ratings, whatever. And boy has it got me down. Could someone tell me if I am just being too angsty and it’s only me?</p>
<p>Now that I proofread I sound hypocritical, but I’m not doing this for a response number. I want to see how people feel, if they agree, disagree, whatever. Thank you.</p>
<p>It’s not you. And it’s not just facebook, it’s all over the internet </p>
<p>Media has what some people call a “crisis bias.” That’s the reason you see the news still reporting on the history of George Zimmerman’s life, even though it’s rather irrelevant to the fact that he killed Trayvon Martin. That’s the reason you hear about police officers pepper spraying protesters, but you don’t hear about the policemen who actually do their job properly. People want to see what is new, dramatic, and exciting. Why do you think Reddit has taken off? It calls itself “the front page of the Internet” (and rightly so!). Twitter lets you see instantly whatever is on someone’s mind. It’s the information age - people are used to instant and interesting news.</p>
<p>I think your rant about people posting useless crap on facebook is a bit of an overreaction. Yes, it’s unnecessary, but I think it’s going far to think that people get their sense of self-worth from a picture.</p>
<p>Flamewire pretty much nailed it about news. Nobody wants to read about mundane or ordinary things. It’s the same reason why horror films and tragedies and thrillers are waaaay more popular than ordinary, happy-go-lucky movies.</p>
<p>As for Facebook, hey man, whatever other people get their jollies off of is of no concern to me.</p>
<p>I don’t have problems with the kind of posts the op is describing, but I can’t stand the disturbing, bloody, etc pictures of abused animals, injuries, etc. And then underneath those pics, there is always something like "like this if you care, to stop animal abuse, etc, and I wondered besides raising awareness, do the likes really help? </p>
<p>And the posts of “like this and I will rate you” annoy me as well.</p>
<p>Okay. Glad it’s not just me. Facebook is really getting on my nerves though. I believe it has started to go down the road of MySpace…people are going to get annoyed with it and then it will be nothing. Just another Facebook tidbit. Why am I so obsessed with it today? Figures.</p>
<p>It’s not just facebook, but yeah. Facebook is the epitome of attention-seeking. Everywhere I look, people do ridiculous things on that site. Half of my friends take pictures of themselves wearing fancy clothing and loads of makeup for no reason whatsoever, and then photoshop the images immensely so that they are pretty, but almost unrecognizable. Then on top of that, they instagram-ize the pictures to look spiffy and professional.</p>
<p>And then friend requests. omg. Why do people abuse friend requests? People send requests to 800+ people they’ve never met in their life… it’s kind of creepy. I guess people find pleasure in having the semblance of a mass group of “followers” behind them or something?</p>
<p>I dont have problems with it. I’ll like something if it’s funny or clever. I won’t on the other hand like those “like if you love your dad/mom/baby orphaned puppies.” Also, after over a year of having a facebook (had it longer but have actively used it for a year) I have never done a like my status. I probably will eventually though lol.</p>
<p>I don’t really mind those to be honest. If it’s “Like this if _____” then I’ll like it if it’s funny, ignore it if it’s not. I don’t really see a problem with people who post stuff like that. The only thing I find weird is how people WANT to have 1000+ friends on facebook that they’ve never met irl.</p>
<p>I have never done a LMS, but since I’m an overly sensitive maudlin, I’ll probably end up doing one after I graduate from HS so that I can rant and sob about how I loved everyone in my class in at least one way or another LOL.</p>