Dear Colin:

I could not have written your critique any better. This is a masterpiece!

Social Media, as a concept, is nothing more than an addiction-creating, time-wasting money-pot. The so-called “best” SM use the same techniques and appeal to the same addiction nodes in the human brain that slot machines use. I have been and am bitterly opposed to advertising, since it is an adjunct of the manipulative behavior that the worst capitalists display.

By coming up with justifications for using FB, Instagram, Pintrest, and the other SM platforms, advertisers and their affiliate marketers get to pat themselves on the back and claim that they are fulfilling useful social purposes. In reality, these platforms are simply ways to get people to lose countless amounts of money buying things of nebulous value. Because so many people have difficulty maintaining focus on truly valuable matters, SM are ideal ways to create money-producing distractions.

I always wanted to know why we paid a premium to movie-theatres which foster tons of advertising. Aren’t we supposed to be getting an advertising-free viewing experience? The same holds true for so many things of import in our society: news; civic and cultural events; political affairs; etc. Yet, newspapers (now, Yahoo, HuffingtonPost, and others) just provide gossip (e)Printed on the backs of advertisements.

So long as advertising is the dominant matter communicated in society, that will measure our vacuous thoughts and nanosecond attention spans. When we get rid of advertising, then we will have a chance to evolve as human beings.