Let me provide an alternative view then. I am still using Facebook, and I don’t find it necessary to delete it. Most of the time I just scroll, see nothing interesting after all, and get reminded that happiness is not found in the world. That’s a good reminder of seeing dukkha in sankhara.
Facebook is useful for the following reasons:
Listening to Dhamma talks online, so many Buddhist societies are doing facebook livestreams nowadays, and one can like so many Buddhist society pages. This is especially convenient for monks as we don’t have to trouble others to physically fetch us to the Dhamma talk location and trouble the organisers to prepare additional dana lunch, or having to sit in more special seats to listen to the other Venerable, or even lay speaker.
Get to know Dhamma events online, as well as news. I didn’t pick up the habit of reading newspaper until I hit on facebook. So basically any news important enough, it should get shared on facebook, if it’s not shared on facebook, it’s likely to be not important enough to merit notice. Cuts down most news. I can tailor what I want to see too by giving feedback: don’t show me this or that. So my feeds are largely safe from pop culture (not entirely yet) etc.
Share the Dhamma or connect with others. Given the possibility of changing phone numbers or losing phones, contacts on phones can be lost altogether. Facebook contact and messager provides an easy way to communicate with friends. As well as in monasteries with no phone allowed policy, but limited internet are allowed, facebook is the main way for people to contact me via chat, as whatsapp depends on the phone.
Reflecting upon aging, as people around my age got married, I can see the suffering of their married life, young parent life etc, and their lost of youth, beauty as time goes on. And get reminded that: nope, that’s not real happiness.
@NgXinZhao, Facebook doesn’t “own the patent” on any of those things in your thoughful list, though. Your argument is sort of like “since Dhamma can be squeezed out of it, that launders its use”. I disagree; Facebook’s pernicious nature doesn’t get laundered by anything in your list. Just because you don’t personally experience that pernicious nature, doesn’t mean that this pernicious nature magically somehow doesn’t exist, despite bountiful critical credible evidence (see 4 links to past threads, in OP).
Here’s a recent, pertinent development:
“We’re Making the Facebook Papers Public. Here’s Why and How”:
Choice quotation:
rare are stories about the violent collision between Facebook’s outwardly professed goal of “bringing people together,” and that of its underlying technologies, which seem to derive greater profits when driving people apart, and into increasingly dark places.
No, no Vinaya violation. But I feel I should make some sort of effort to stick up for values that are found in the suttas, like those found in AN 4.198:
“Having abandoned false speech, he abstains from false speech; he speaks truth, adheres to truth; he is trustworthy and reliable, no deceiver of the world. Having abandoned divisive speech, he abstains from divisive speech; he does not repeat elsewhere what he has heard here in order to divide [those people] from these, nor does he repeat to these what he has heard elsewhere in order to divide [these people] from those; thus he is one who reunites those who are divided, a promoter of unity, who enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, a speaker of words that promote concord.
Contrast this with what is quoted above:
[Facebook’s/Meta’s] underlying technologies, which seem to derive greater profits when driving people apart, and into increasingly dark places.
My concern is with the underlying technology (the “dark patterns” which are built into the platform, which leverage people’s emotions in unwholesome ways), whereas the apologists of Facebook look at the surface-level content (you know, the Buddhist content), saying, “where’s the problem?”. Those apologists aren’t looking deeply enough at the platform of Facebook/Meta as a whole.
Ah ok! Well, I’m glad we agree it isn’t a Vinaya matter.
So, if I understand your point, I feel like it’s a parallel with climate change. You’re essentially arguing that every time somebody uses Facebook, they’re contributing a bit to the division and confusion in society, similar to how, every time one travels, they’re contributing a little bit to the warming of the planet. Is that a fair summary of your point?
Well, I consider tackling the problems of climate change, and tackling the problems of Social Media to be fairly separate social causes, but yes, your analogy certainly has a lot of merit.
Yes, I wasn’t trying to unify them, merely an analogy to make sure we’re communicating.
So then, I think using Facebook is morally like travel, right? The carbon isn’t “laundered” if you’re flying for a good reason… but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons to travel. Sometimes, for some people, there really are no good alternatives to Facebook right now.
So, we can work on building those alternatives… but until those exist, it’s a bit “divisive” to yell about carbon at every passenger who comes out of the nearest airport, no?
I think that one should be very careful speaking in praise of deleting facebook and it being a virtue in front of people who are using those services because it might come of as insinuating that they are bad people by comparison. When one speaks in praise of good qualities and people don’t see those in themselves, it upsets them and one should take care not to compare one to another.
There is a sutta with a close to this kind of message.
Mendicants, it is inappropriate to speak to five kinds of person by comparing that person with someone else. What five?
It’s inappropriate to talk to an unfaithful person about faith. It’s inappropriate to talk to an unethical person about ethics. It’s inappropriate to talk to an unlearned person about learning. It’s inappropriate to talk to a stingy person about generosity. It’s inappropriate to talk to a witless person about wisdom.
[…]
they lose their temper, becoming annoyed, hostile, and hard-hearted, and displaying annoyance, hate, and bitterness. An5.157
If it were the case that I was yelling, you’d know that because I would be typing in all capital letters.
Please watch that you don’t fall into the mistake of “being admonished, he counter-admonishes”. In other words, when one problem is being discussed, it’s a tactic to twist out of it by bringing up some different problem, like too much CO2 in the air, and saying (or implying), “But aren’t you guilty of this other mistake? So who are you to blame then?”
I didn’t read his post as doing anything of the sort. He was using travel/carbon consumption as a simile. It wasn’t a whataboutism. And it certainly wasn’t a case of admonishing the admonisher.
I think he did imply that you were doing something equivalent to yelling, which I believe can be done without using all caps. Your posts on this topic do tend to have a certain tone to them that I am reluctant to name lest I be accused of admonishing you.
I acknowledged and praised the analogy earlier, @Snowbird . But then later added a caveat, mentioning a mistake to not get too close to.
To those readers who have a relationship with Facebook which is very “near-and-dear”, I apologize for casting any doubt upon your close relationship. May your expectation of a “safe space” here on this forum never be violated.
Ame mi no Makezu found posthumously in the notebook of Kenji Miyazawa
Unbeaten by the rain
Unbeaten by the wind
Bested by neither snow nor summer heat
Strong of body
Free of desire
Never angry
Always smiling quietly
Dining daily on four cups of brown rice
Some miso and a few vegetables
Observing all things
With dispassion
But remembering well
Living in a small, thatched-roof house
In the meadow beneath a canopy of pines
Going east to nurse the sick child
Going west to bear sheaves of rice for the weary mother
Going south to tell the dying man there is no cause for fear
Going north to tell those who fight to put aside their trifles
Shedding tears in time of drought
Wandering at a loss during the cold summer
Called useless by all
Neither praised
Nor a bother
Such is the person
I wish to be
To be on social media is, very often, a state of being thirsty for praise and blame. I find being useless far more conducive to contemplating wisdom.
On occasion people ask me if I want to go out drinking and I point out I don’t drink. Some of those people are upset that I don’t drink. Generally, the most upset are those who feel like I am parading my virtue by stating my preference for continuing to not drink.
It’s best to let them get on with that, I would say. Perhaps they could remove themselves to a hostelry to drown their sorrows.
I do not delete my FB account. I keep it. It is still there. I do not feel any addiction or attachment to it. When it is time to keep quiet then be it. And, do filtering regularly. When it come to someone talking about hatred, sex stories, nude photoes, etc I just find it a very easy effort to ‘UNFRIEND’, and the problem finish once and forever. And, I do not follow any FB friend that makes my front page full of ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Condolences’ or ‘Happy Birthdays’. FB is just a media to share the Dhamma, not a media to say ‘Good Morning’.
If he/she uses facebook, and the good qualities are growing such as share dhamma, practice dhamma, good thinking, finding dhamma friend. Then, he/she should keep using it.
But if he/she uses facebook, and bad qualities are growing, then he/she should avoid it.
However, deleting facebook is also consider a desire of not having. If you cling on the desire of not having and force others to not using it, it is also a suffering for oneself as well.
Everything depends on the personal context and thinking/action.
