The Facebook Rat Race

By Paul Stevens

Is Facebook a good thing or a bad thing? This counter intuitive article explores how Facebook actually makes us miserable every single day and maybe multiple times a day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Stevens
• Release date: Jun 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311342072

Paul Stevens

There is a favorite line from my novella Dinner Party For Eight in which Angela asks Harry: “What do you think I am?” Harry considered this for a moment. What was she actually? “Well I suppose you are a very beautiful cook.” So if I have to answer the same question what am I actually? I would also need to consider this for a moment. I would like to say I’m an ex astronaut, have more degrees than a thermometer, have competed in the Tour de France without any EPO, surfed Teahupoo in Tahiti and emerged unscathed, sailed round the world, am an ace Alpine skier, am a member of Mensa, have a beauty queen wife and gorgeous kids, and started my own corporation which has listed on NASDAQ. I could go on but like Arnold Schwarzenegger I don’t want to boast. Well to be honest, I have gone some of the way towards all those things. I do have a letter from Wernher von Braun, I do have three degrees in Physics, I have flown in a jet plane (Emirates Air), I do cycle the mega steep hills here where I live but unfortunately can’t get EPO anywhere, I am a keen surfer who has almost managed to break his neck, I am an ocean going skipper and I did own my own yacht though if it was me I wouldn’t sail with me as captain, I do ski but you need to get out of the way, I do have a beautiful wife (though her agreeing to marry me has to be my biggest piece of luck ever) and two great kids, I do have my own software business but no stock exchanges alas and I would like to take the Mensa test but I’m pretty sure I would fail and then I wouldn’t be able to live with that so I would rather rationalize. I live in that sapphire city – Cape Town.

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The Facebook Rat Race

All Rights Reserved © 2016 Paul Stevens

An Article in the Steve’s Essays Series

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Contents

The Facebook Rat Race – Also By This Author

The Facebook Rat Race

Here’s how Wikipedia sums up Facebook:

"Facebook is a for-profit corporation and online social networking service based in Menlo Park, California, United States. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his Harvard College roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to higher education institutions in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to high school students. Since 2006, anyone in general aged 13 and older has been allowed to become a registered user of the website, though variations exist in the minimum age requirement, depending on applicable local laws. Its name comes from the face book directories often given to U.S. university students.

After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, post status updates and photos, share videos, use various apps, and receive notifications when others update their profiles. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups organized by workplace, school, or other characteristics, and