Those of you who follow this blog and/or visit it regularly have probably noticed that this is the first blog post I have written and posted during the month of June 2021 which is not my usual modus operandi. I usually post at least 4 or more new blog posts in every calendar month and rarely do less. This has been my practice over the last several years and the number of the followers on the blog has steadily grown over the last couple of years from about 50 to nearly 200. I appreciate the continued interest in what I have to say in my writing. I attribute a large part of the recent growth in the number of followers to my use of Facebook Appalachian themed groups to promote this blog and specific blog posts. For me, this has been the best part of being on Facebook other than the ability to maintain contact with numerous friends on the site, both old friends from as far back as 50 years ago, and new friends whom I have gained from being on Facebook. When I say "New Friends" with regard to Facebook, I am referring to a small group of people whom I have come to know through the site on a meaningful personal level and not those who have sent me a Friend Request because something I posted there appealed to them. But for me, over the last several months to a few years, Facebook has steadily become an ever growing irritant due primarily to the mercenary advertising practices they use, especially the fairly recent practice of selling undeleteable, unblock-able ads and posting those ads repetitively on my personal timeline. I despise the practice and everything it connotes about Facebook and any company or agency which would stoop to attempting to force Facebook users to read their ads in order to see the content they actually came to the site to see. So I took a 30 day hiatus from Facebook where some of you blog readers also have regular contact with me. It has been a pleasant month since I have not had to read any unblock-able, undeleteable ads. I haven't missed, posted on my timeline before I logged off on May 30, 2021, that I was going to take a month off, and I am certain that I will use Facebook far less in the future. I have actively considered leaving the site completely and will still not rule out that possibility. I put my time to good use this past month, submitted a collection of short stories to publishers, wrote some stories I needed to write, and also submitted several other unpublished stories to magazines, etc. I also stayed in e-mail contact with most of the people who matter the most to me personally. This was actually the second time I have taken a month off Facebook. In October 2017, my wife Candice and I took a 28 day road trip in the Southwest through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. We even spent a few hours in Nogales Mexico. And, not once did we use Facebook during that entire trip. It was also a very pleasant month.
As of right now, I will continue to use Facebook in a limited way to maintain contact with real, live friends and to promote this blog and new posts in particular. But I will likely never again make a habit of being on Facebook for, at least a while, every day. I will also use the same Facebook Appalachian groups for personal learning and promotion of the blog. But I will continue to do one thing I had been doing for quite some time before I took this month off and will IMMEDIATELY log out of Facebook anytime an unblockable, undeleteable ad appears on my timeline or on any group I might be using at the time. I will also never sign into my personal timeline and begin scrolling down it because anytime you do that the next thing you see will be an unblock-able, undeletable ad; and that is when I will also log out. When I log out under those circumstances, I will not log on again until, at least, the next calendar day. I suggest that all of you do the same. Do not allow Facebook to force you to see ads you do not want to see. Do not allow their corporate greed to make you tolerate more of their corporate greed. What Facebook and their advertisers are doing with these ads in nothing more or less than the corporate based totalitarianism which writers like George Orwell and Noam Chomsky warned us about. They are using their power to control you and your actions. Don't allow them to do that anymore. Read the quotation below from Noam Chomsky and you will understand exactly what I am talking about with Facebook and these unblockable, undeletable ads.
“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge
corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation?
They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe
give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under
Stalinism.”
―
