Posted on 07/30/2011 7:40:57 PM PDT by Mount Athos
There was a time, perhaps before yours, when a man was admired who “kept his own counsel.” Women too.
There was a time when people were largely filled with their own sense of self and self worth, rather than filled with the vulnerablity of infantile hungering to have their need for recognition and approval supplied by others.
There was a time when one or two solid, close friends would last a person a lifetime, along with a smattering of healthy acquaintences. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics discusses this as friendships of good/vitrue, vs those of utility or pleasure Even among these categories, you might think the “friends” of Facebook and Twitter might fall into the “pleasure” category, but they are even more insipidly, pathologically narcissistic than that. The quote below from the Carsons Post website says it about as succinctly as it can be said:
“Friendships of utility are those where people are on cordial terms primarily because each person benefits from the other in some way. Business partnerships, relationships among co-workers, and classmate connections are examples.
“Friendships of pleasure are those where individuals seek out each other’s company because of the joy it brings. Passionate love affairs, people associating with each other due to belonging to the same hobby organization, and fishing buddies fall into this category.
“Most important of all are friendships of the good. These are friendships based upon mutual respect, admiration for each other’s virtues, and a strong desire to aid and assist the other person because one recognizes their essential goodness.”
You don't need any.
You have you.
Ya’ think? /sarcasm
Oh, beg pardon, this is "Abuse." You want "Argument"...thats 2 doors down the hall.
(old Monty Python)
What!
I find that Twitter has become useless over time and even more so when people you follow begin to link their Twitter accounts to sites like Foursquare.
I don't care if Joe Blow has become mayor of some stupid city online because he stops at Starbucks twice a day. I don't want people to know where the hell I'm at, at any given moment either.
It's even more annoying when people link their Twitter and Facebook accounts and then you see their Twitter stream cluttering up your Facebook wall.
Social media in it's infancy was useful, but now it's just more wasted space online because some idiots feel the want to be famous.
Patient: "Doc, I think I'm addicted to Twitter."
Doctor: "I don't follow you."
Most people are very active right after they sign up and then you never hear from them again. It is the narcissists who are constantly posting and never stop.
I have a page and I check it every day, I never comment and only “like” some of my grand-children’s posts. I learn some interesting things and who is so in love with themselves that they need us all to know that they are grocery shopping or washing the dishes.
I use the “hide” feature often on facebook. Whenever someone on my list fills up my newsfeed with gaming crap, or any kind of nonsense I find irritating - I just hide them from my newsfeed.
They don’t know I’ve done it - I don’t have to read the crap.
Everyone is happy.
I’ve enjoyed finding old friends. When you’re taking care of kids all day and all night, it’s nice to have a way to converse with adults.
And consider that most people on FR post in hopes of some sort of feedback.
Don’t give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
Bookmark
There's also a "Reply" button under your post ;)
“. . . a larger circle of friends”???
In psychological terminology, these are not what used to be called a “friend,” but are instead merely “self objects.” The tragic emptiness and loneliness of the young people today, whose lives seem so paradoxically “full,” and rich in “friends,” is something I see daily in my practice (psychiatric), and this is what the article is about.
Personally, I come to FR for news and the insights of others. I post here when I do because it pleases me, not because I am looking for “feedback” or “friends” - I often don’t check my “new posts to you” file for days.
I feel sorry for you. If what you’re after in life is a whole lot of “friends” and “feedback,” you’re probably trying to fill something inside you that should not be empty.
Probably not the “feedback” you were hoping for.
Liberalism has created a generation of vain, self-obsessed narcissists long before Facebook or Twitter came along.
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme welfare, gimme food stamps, gimme unemployment insurance, gimme health care, take care of me. Don’t ask me to care for my neighbor, don’t as me to contribute to charity, the government will do it. Dennis Prager is right: the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. Look at the people in Greece who’re rioting because they’re now ONLY getting 12 monthly paychecks per year instead of 14. Liberalism created those people.
I won’t go back to Facebook unless they add two buttons:
(1) DISLIKE
(2) TOTAL CONTEMPT
Actually, though, I did find some value to Facebook for awhile, but I cancelled my account.
It did get me back in touch with a lot of friends and family who are widely scattered, but now that I have their email addresses I’ll just try to stay in touch that way.
Plus, of course, the people that really matter in your life shouldn’t need Facebook to be in contact..... but it does have some convenience factor.
that is, contact with fairly distant “friends” from years ago, and extended family such as cousins etc. who I’ve never seen much of in my life but am glad to “know” in a limited way due to a common heritage
I’m not on Facebook anymore, and it was all rather superficial, but all I’m saying is that it did enable me to re-contact people I was glad to be back in touch with from decades past and many miles of separation.
Trust me. They already existed
If I believed in evolution, I’d say kids are sign humanity is evolving into batteries to power the Matrix.
I know folks who make regular Facebook postings about mundane events in their daily lives. They have social circles they hang out in, but their personalities reflect a type that has no real friends, if you know what I mean.
Those postings always seem like desperate cries for attention to me.
That being said, I like the fact that I have located old high school and college friends on Facebook. I just do not use it as a substitute for real relationships.
Some use pets and/or plants, and some use social media to fill the gaps created in us as social creatures needing human interaction.
Oh...right then....have a seat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.