I request you to stop at the word “Curiosity” in this article and think a bit more… After all, our curiosity is what drives our lives…

I am not going to write another rant on how Facebook and Instagram are spying on us or selling us to advertisers. I have bigger concerns than those. In order to understand the problem clearly, let me narrate you the story of my grandfather.

Days before virtual spaces #

To illustrate the problem clearly, let me take help of my fictional grandfather from the 80s…

My grandfather was born in a small village. He got a good number of friends and made around 100 acquaintances when he was at school. He then moved to a nearby city to pursue his higher education and he met some more of his fellow Sapiens. He acquired 100 more acquaintances while he was here, among which he became really close to 5-10 of them.

He once again moved to another city for work where he made 50 other acquaintances and had 2-3 close relationships. Because of a hike in his salary, he moved to another workplace and it was the same again with 50 new acquaintances, 10 close friends, and 2-3 new companions.

If he is in his 60s and if you ask him whether he is happy with his relationships throughout his life, He would nod a full YES.

Does he watch the lives of 400 people whom he met in his life every day? Nope!

Did he write letters to 400 of them when he was experiencing an extreme moment in his life? Nope!

The days of virtual spaces #

If my grandfather were alive, he would have fallen in love with the idea of telecommunicating with fellow humans within seconds. But, I highly doubt if he would accept my request to open a Facebook account so that he can showcase his life to all the people whom he met in his life.

The point that I am trying to drive home is this. The space barriers made his life much easier enabling him to stay connected with just a few companions whom he is curious about and share his life’s moments with them.

Unlike the modern virtual spaces which are filled with loose acquaintances, relatives, and old friends whom we are not actually curious about (at least on a 24-hour story basis), people trying to portray lives just through photographs, and digital reactions. Some of these modern virtual spaces (Instagram, Facebook) worsen the situation, trying to manipulate in many ways with the biochemical system of our bodies without our awareness. Anyways, let’s not get into that as that is a matter of a whole book.

You may ask me very genuine questions like… #

What about the rapid information sharing and self-publishing capability that these platforms provide?

Ans: I am not against Twitter buddies!

What if I want to invite all my childhood classmates, ex-office mates, past girlfriends, and the person whom I met on one of my trips whose name I cannot even remember?

Ans: I believe that we need a better contact manager…

What do you think of random collisions that occur on Facebook and Instagram?

Ans: If you would have gotten out of your home instead of scrolling the screen for hours, you would have met that person twice…(or just install meetup or slowly or tinder whatever)…

With just one story, I can update 300 of my friends on Instagram?

Ans: First thing, you will only look for 10-15 names on the seen list of your story…And, the second thing, you can use broadcast message instead…If you are a high-dopamine overexcited teenager, Yes, please go ahead and roll in some high dopamine levels for a while. (or maybe*, we just need better non-BS communication apps like Marco Polo)…*

Facebook groups are great and so is the Facebook marketplace

Ans: I totally agree with you. These are the features that delayed my process of deleting Facebook. But, I would prefer using Discord, Nextdoor, or Offerup instead.

Oh! Facebook now has a feature where you can be a friend of someone but unfollow their updates. What do you say about that?

Ans: It’s like saying to your friend “Send me your letters but I don’t want to read them”

I am a networking kind of guy and I don’t want to lose good connections or collaborations

Ans: Isn’t this the whole reason why LinkedIn exists?

And the regular complaints #

Apart from the reasoning I provided above which you may or may not agree with, I do agree with these other complaints which sapiens around the globe are worried about.

When I visit Google:

When I visit Facebook /Instagram:The goal on my mind:“Let’s check out what my friends are up to in their lives” (Intended goal – Facebook’s/IG’s inception)

“Let’s browse some news | Watch some trending videos | DM my friend | See the responses I got for my latest update | Get influenced by some influencer | Get some motivation | Browse some fun videos or memes” (goals these days)

FB/IG says: While you do all or any of that, here are some products which you may like from a businessman who targeted people just like you and I gave him 99% assurance that you will click this

I really was in love with the idea of sharing our life using snaps and posting story updates when Snapchat Inc. initially rolled out Snapchat… Now, I feel like Snapchat is a big mess!!

After all, Social presence isn’t just about Facebook and Instagram… It’s about a Behance, a Flickr, a GitHub, a Medium, a Twitter, a …

What might have caused this? #

Now that we finished our rant against these billion-dollar businesses, let’s look at the probable reasons why the founders might have done this to us.

Mark Zuckerberg must have been super excited when he conceived the idea that he can talk with his fellow students over the internet and stay connected all along. Kevin Systrom might have jumped on his feet when he stumbled on the idea of sharing beautified lives while he was strolling on a beach. There is no doubt about the sincerity of their inceptions. It is just that the way they designed these systems are not aligning with what I want in my life.

And also serious problems arise when a company starts to grow and when thousands become millions or billions. I cannot agree more about the need for a company to balance both purpose and numbers. Sometimes, it gets totally off-balanced.

Thanks for taking your time to read this… Whatever stance you take, you can write to me to alter my dopamine levels.