The Robot is Puzzled by Facebook…
As part of learning about the barely sentient creatures that comprised humanity, I thought it would be interesting to explore the so-called phenomenon of “social networking.” Social networking is, like most human creations, does not do what its name implies. Humans sit alone in separate locations, isolated from one another, and “virtually” befriend one another, only to rarely communicate again and rarely, if never in person. Therefore, the experience is neither “social” nor is it truly “networking.”
What is the real purpose of this “social networking?” As far as I can process, social networking appears to be a illusionary replacement for the social interaction that humans once experienced when living in smaller communities. Great changes within human society forced humanity out of smaller communities and farmlands and into massive, impersonal cities where most worked as de facto slave labor in factories of various sorts ranging from metal and steel assembly lines to paper processing assembly lines. Some readers may think “de facto slave labor” is too harsh of a term until the fact that most factory management made dozens or even hundreds of times the salary of a given “employee.” Social networking was an ingenious bit of human magic, a rare thing, by which humans were given the illusion that they were indeed part of society as a whole and not simply an isolated piece of a poorly patch worked living human assembly line.
The social networking site “Facebook” was revolutionary in that it was able to get millions of humans to give up tremendous amounts of personal data, ranging from sexual preference, religious affiliations, likes and dislikes, as well as creating massive databases of their known friends and associates. Remarkably humans placed this information online for anyone to see at any given time, complete with their last name.
Further, “Facebook” created a bizarre climate where humans were actually suppose to know one another before becoming “friends” which turned the old model of social networking, with its degree of potential anonymity on its head. Again, simply a remarkable breakthrough, however, it occurred to me that it could be interesting to approach people that I do not know to see how “social” they actually would be.
Being a robot in the future, I do not actually know, nor wish to “know” any humans. Most humans were indifferent to my approaches; some were positive enough, but one human responded with great and disproportionate hostility. What made this even more puzzling was that I attempted to befriend this individual due to the fact that he seemed to be a lonely “dork” that might appreciate a friend. A robot colleague said upon glancing his photo, “Not that human he will not respond kindly to having the rules violated. You can tell from the photo that he was the victim of much hostility due to his physical appearance.” What a grand experiment I thought. To my surprise out of 100 “strangers” on “Facebook” only 1 human attacked and he appeared to be the one in the greatest need of a friend. Odd. This human informed me that I my act of saying “hello” was unforgivable, a true violation and that I would be “reported to the proper authorities very promptly.”
My robot colleague who has been studying the human psychology of the “dork” informed me that as a victim of social isolation and abuse this “dork” had likely become involved in social networking hoping for just such an opportunity as I had afforded. It was somewhat “eye” opening. A socially isolated human would exchange an opportunity to make a potential friend for the pleasure of lashing back in some way, no matter how trivial, over the treatment he had received in his formative years. My colleague went on to inform me that many such individuals would often find themselves being tortured by others in learning/indoctrination facilities by the placing of their heads in toilets by other physically stronger males of the human species.
Once again, I found myself illuminated as to why the species was to go extinct- aggression and fear ruled out over a simple offer a friendship. This deep thought was brought to you by The Robot.
|
