Joining In.

 Pesky old social media. I always feel that, say, ten years ago, it was just a place to hang out and shoot the breeze with all seven of my cool friends, whereas nowadays, I never see any of their posts and that makes me sad. But that can't be right. Why would Meta twist and distort the machinations of their website just to make feel more isolated and helpless, craving a frugal diet of likes from a barren field of disinterest. They wouldn't, surely? They're not BAD people. 

I couldn't shake this nagging feeling that Meta had replaced my old pals with a stream of people I'd never heard of, pages I hadn't followed, and adverts for things I didn't want. So I did an experiment. These are all the things I saw on my Facebook feed, in order, until I'd filled up two pages of my notebook. That's the cutoff point. 

Basingstoke so much to answer for

Here goes: 

Severin Films - I do follow Severin films. 

Eternal Family - It's a page I don't follow. 

British GQ - An advert. 

Mighty World of British Comics - A page I don't follow. 

Samuel Delany - Someone I don't know. 

Listen Music - A page I don't follow. 

Stripe and Stare - An advert for knickers. 

Literary Hub - A page I don't follow. 

The KVB - A page I don't follow. 

Jennilee Harrison - Either a page or a person I don't follow. 

Tesco - An Advert. 

People You May Know - A List of People Facebook Thinks I Might Know. I Don't. 

Julian Thornley - A friend!

The Spectator - An advert. 

RNLI - An advert. 

Petey Rosebar - A friend!

Reynard Toombs - Either a person or a page I don't follow. 

Julia Mann - A friend!

Panadol - An advert. 

Aiden London - Either a person or a page I don't follow. 

History Extra - A page I don't follow. 

Paddy Power Games - An advert. 

The New York Times - A page I don't follow. 

Hidden Genius of Fantasy and Science Fiction - A page I don't follow. 

Sleepy Deepy - An advert. 

Lower The Flags - A page I don't follow. 

Nick Robinson - A page I don't follow. 

The Scottish National Party - An advert. 

Far Out Cinema - A page I don't follow. 

Vintage Library - A page I don't follow. 

Elana Gomel - Either a person or a page I don't follow. 

"Nobody Wants This" and "Samsung" - An advert. 

Cool Vintage Paleo Art - A page I don't follow.  

I make that thirty three items in my social media feed, one after the other, and I guess its pretty representative of Facebook's current business model. It showed me a single page I actually followed, and three friends. I make that an 11th of the sample group. And Julia and Petey were just reposting the latest atrocities from newspapers without comment. So in the 33 posts there was a single one from a page I actively follow and just one post from a friend telling me something about their life. 

Not sure why I persist with this rubbish. The enshittification is real. The enshittification is the model. Enshittification is the point. Enshittification is the future. 

Where's Joseph Bazalgette when you need him? Dead, that's where. Bloody Victorians.