I used to check Facebook at least once a day. While I never installed the app on my phone, I checked in every morning to see what friends and family were up to. Occasionally I posted something to my homepage, but not very often. I am a reluctant social media user.

But last fall while waiting in line at a movie theatre concession stand the service was so amazingly horrible I wondered if I could set up a dummy Facebook account in the time it took to place my order. Sadly, I could. I made up a name and gave a fake birthday, nothing about it was true, just to see if I could do it, then left a scathing review of the theatre’s customer service. After the movie, which was the latest JK Rowling Fantastic Beasts, I forgot about the dummy account. And since I signed off of my real account several months ago when it became increasingly clear that Facebook has no concern for it’s members other than having the ability to sell their data to the highest bidder, I didn’t think anything about Facebook again until a few weeks ago. Then I remembered the fake account on my phone and thought I should try to delete it. So I logged back into it and there were all of the suggested ‘friends’ the program had chosen for me. Almost all of them were from the church I go to, who are already friends on my ‘real’ account. I figured this was obvious since Facebook tracks where I go, it would assume that I would know members of my church. But then the strangest thing happened. All of this data that’s collected is supposed to be anonymous, they say it can’t really track YOU, just your data. But there in the list of suggested ‘friends’ was a real friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in several years and who lives in another city. I am absolutely certain that I am the only human being who knows both the people from my church and this particular person who has no connection with the church or this city at all. Without entering a shred of truth about my real identity, the application had recognized me. Needless to say, I was shocked because I thought anonymous meant just that. As I said, I never installed the app on my phone and only checked my Facebook account, the real one, from my computer at home. A further nail in the coffin of my Facebook account. I prefer to think of it as Fakebook. Oh, the way it was able to sort me from the fake account was real enough, but other than that, there is no verification of what is posted. Only your identity, where you go, who you talk to?, what you buy, who knows what they are tracking. And what you choose to say online is beside the point. The only thing Fakebook is interested in is your data. That’s where all of the money lies. I have a friend, from the same church that it recognized, who says she doesn’t care that she is being tracked. But this is not truly realizing the danger that these programs pose to our society. All of us are being watched, and not just real time, but our past, everything we do is being recorded through these apps that we so willingly install on our phones, and if Fakebook had their way, would control every interaction we have with anyone. If the government tried to do this people would be up in arms, but we are so naïve we are welcoming it, even paying for devices that spy on us. Are we really so desperate for the sad semblance of human interaction that social media really is, that we are willing to sell every bit of information about ourselves to get it?