FB has 2 barbs which are quite painful when deployed together: 1) The cheap and easy social validation of the "like" and 2) The observation of other people's st

FB has 2 barbs which are quite painful when deployed together: 1) The cheap and easy social validation of the "like" and 2) The observation of other people's status-seeking, which invalidates our own. It's much like a drug- if you can use it responsibly, that's great. But we are just animals and all too often we gradually use FB more and more as a dopamine trigger. Often, this is in the form of edgy memes, angry politics, soft-core porn or just status-seeking. Add some FOMO to the mix and you will assuredly feel pretty crummy. The FB like button is such an insanely powerful feedback mechanism. I never would have thought, 15 years ago, that such a simple thing could take over people's minds so completely. But it's becoming abundantly clear that not only is FB playing to our weakness, they are playing us against each other. In the scramble for likes, we obsessively refresh our pages. Likes cost FB nothing but the chase for them leads its users to churn in circles, all the while generating ad revenue and which finally resolves itself as Zuckerberg's 18th mansion.