Assignment 2 - 'Like' Everything On Facebook

So, not unlike many people in latter part of 2014, I no longer utilize Facebook at a high level – if at all. My attentions have shifted to other social media or in some areas I've gone off grid completely, therefore making the control of this experiment, at least in my case, a bit slanted. That preface is only stated to lay the foundation for what was concluded by “Liking” everything on Facebook for a few days.

The other options available (hiding and not liking) I essentially already do on a daily basis by ignoring my Facebook page. I have to assume that my experience is similar to most people who try to perform the high wire act of clicking ‘Like’ on everything. My news feed became saturated with crap that totally drowned out any personal connections, content mills dominated my feed, and I had a bit of awkwardness due to liking some pics that a very distant acquaintance decided to share with the planet of his new wife in a bikini. However, I anticipated the weirdness of liking everyone’s photos and posts about how Obama is cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. I also projected the polarizing views that would populate my page that find me algorithmically by feigning passion about everything regardless of consequence.  However, there were some things I did not anticipate.

• While nobody hit me up to ask if I was hacked, I did get a surprising amount of friends and family ask if I changed political parties –although none were specific about who I was changing to or from. As someone who has never been a staunch advocate of either side of the aisle, that was perplexing.

• The difference in mobile feeds and desktop feeds was significant. It’s as if Facebook assumes you think more critically at your computer than on your phone so they try to “pull a fast one on ya” much less frequently with desktop content.

• Interact or die! Once something is ‘Liked’ and triggers a call to action or related post or an associated advertisement which is then ‘Liked’ or ignored, then the real assault begins as Facebook will continue a relentless campaign to get interaction predicated on that ‘Like’. There was no way to call of the dogs of follow-up posts as they continued to pile up, ambivalent to falling on deaf ears.