Every time I tell someone that I don’t have a Facebook account anymore, you would think from the response I get that I had said I didn’t have running water. With the social media hegemony Facebook has become, I completely understand where the shock is coming from. The age of the telephone book is gone; if my name doesn’t come up from a Facebook search, then I don’t exist.

The intriguing thing about Facebook, and other social media platforms, is that it is a false mode of communication. Instead of going to you and telling you that I won some sort of award, or am expecting a child, I post it for everyone to see.

Though I might be friends with you online, if I were to ask why you didn’t tell me the news directly, I might get a reply of, “Well, I posted it?”

By adding this layer to communication, we are sharing and not sharing our lives at the same time. We are updated on what is going on in our friends’ and families’ lives, but only at a distance.

But there’s a reason for this. Even though I am posting things online for everyone to see, I am not doing so to inform individual people, but to inform the collective.

This distinction matters in that, those who are truly my close friends would already know about the news I am about to tell the public, because I am in constant interpersonal contact with them, whether through text, phone calls, or let me dare say, hanging out.

This is where Facebook’s main use is revealed: it allows to us to connect to those who aren’t really our friends.

Facebook has become a market for morale; though you are called my “friend,” we don’t ever speak or see each other in person, but are willing to exchange niceties in the form of “likes” so that our online personas are gratified and popularized.

Our life events become a double-sided form of pleasure: The congratulations we get from those we care about (through direct contact), and the congratulations we get from those we only associate with (in a secondary format).

Facebook, in reality, becomes a form of virtual masturbation.

It is a space through which we can tell the collective that, “My life is worth living,” and “My life is full of adventure and fulfillment.”

It is for this reason our phones stay in our hands longer than they do in our pockets. It is for this reason why any attempts by Facebook to implement a “dislike” button will ultimately end in failure.

In order for Facebook to maintain its control over the internet, it must make sure that everyone is feeling positive and being reaffirmed by their peers.

Without this, we might just have to go back to the days when the label of “friend” actually meant something.