Why I Quit Facebook

I was late in coming to Facebook. I joined for a reason very unlike me - because everybody else was doing it. Although I am a fan of the written word and still send out birthday and xmas cards with a well-composed xmas letter, it was clear that even friends nearby were resorting to FB as a way to send all manner of well-wishes. Maybe I should get with it, I thought; perhaps my reluctance to become device-sitized was just plain old-fashioned. Once I joined, several high school classmates from back home reached out to me, and I thought FB might be a good way to keep in touch with those people not necessarily within my circle of friends but who had been a part of my life. In a short time and with less than a 100 "friends," I found FB to be both overwhelming and, frankly, less than stimulating. What's more, it was plain to see that my political rantings were not of interest to the majority of my FB friends who were busy posting pictures of grown-up children and grandchildren whom I didn't know and "feel- good" posts about how to become a better person by people like Thich Nhat Hanh who have resisted the encumbrances of capitalism. Like my sister and others who simply follow FB as a way to find out what's going on, I could have done the same but then the FB platform itself became my enemy. After finding out about FB's abuse of private information, the Russians' use of FB in an attempt to manipulate public opinion and its ridiculous Trump-like response - preventing non-citizens from posting political ads - and then it's algorithm allowing selective posting by friends, I had had enough. I decided to use my favorite weapon: the boycott. After several months, my friends asked me if if I was "jonesing," and I could honestly answer, "I wasn't." However, I still wanted a way to connect with people who, like me, love to talk politics and exchange ideas. Determined to find another way, I started this blog. So let the rantings begin and FB be damned.