I never caught on to Facebook and it never caught on to me. I was curious enough a decade or so ago to sign in and was absolutely amazed that within half-a-day, several of my relatives in California knew about it and asked to friend me. To this day, I don’t know how that connection was made so quickly.

I asked adult grandchildren to be my friend because I knew enough about FB to know that I would learn more about what they were doing in their lives. I have three adult stepchildren. One is an avid FB user, another admitted being “scared” of it and refused to learn how it worked, and the third simply wasn’t interested.

Beyond that, I didn’t request friends, not because I wasn’t interested; rather, I soon figured out that I wasn’t going to be a very good FB friend. People asked me to be friends and I always accepted. Why wouldn’t I? My acceptance included a message that explained my new FB friend shouldn’t expect much from me.

By then I had learned that FB took time, a lot of it. I enjoy it when I go on it which usually occurs when I receive the occasional FB email telling me that someone posted something interesting. I like commenting and like “liking” or whatever icon best describes my reaction to the posting.

I was surprised it took FB so long to come up with more icons than “like” and “unlike.” I was relieved when they did because it got me out of the double-bind of not responding to something sad.

Besides not being a good FB friend, I confess to using FB for personal gratification by sharing particularly good travel experiences with my FB friends. I have even posted my column when I think it is something my California relatives would like to read.

Just like everyone else, I get a rush when someone “likes” it, more if “loves” it, and even more if someone takes the time to comment. It really is fun to share those meaningful events.

The face of Facebook’s changes

Over my years on FB and admitted limited use, I’ve been aware of changes. Since I was an infrequent user, I easily recognized change. Ad postings increased exponentially over the years including some from friends who liked a product or place of business and some specifically targeting me.

How do I know that? All FB users know it. I shop online a fair amount. I marveled that the exact item I lingered over on certain catalog websites showed up on my FB page. The reasonable explanations are that either the retailer has automated its inquiries to go to FB or FB is monitoring my online searches. I thought the first explanation was likely the most accurate, but now I wonder.

My growing suspicion that FB was linking my personal business to others, along with the difficulty I had finding family or friend postings among the ads caused me to increase my distance from FB.

One exception was using FB to send messages to the adult stepchild who favored FB messages over email. I adapted for her until FB came out with FB messaging.

For those out of the loop, FB messaging requires a special sign-in from one’s cellphone. I took a stand on principle that I would not do it. I just couldn’t see why I had to take three steps to send or receive a message instead of one.

Turns out that decision was accidental self-protective genius because it stopped FB from gathering even more personal data from me through my cellphone.

Scandal

How naive on my part to think that FB’s product was connecting people and its primary revenue came from advertisers posting on all those millions of pages.

It appears that FB developed a lucrative product line that was dependent on collecting and sorting the personal information from unsuspecting people’s connections with FB. Once collected, FB mined and sorted the data according to specific criteria requests from companies, groups or individuals for people groups that met the criteria. I understand that FB had little interest in the reason for the data reach but did provide training resources to effectively distribute it within the vast FB network.

The stark revelation of Russian attempts to influence our elections started with the use of FB data and messaging in the 2016 election. Slowly, the nefarious activities around the creative use of FB data and messaging that fueled and fuels the political divide are being revealed.

The ease at which another country infiltrated our thoughts should cause us worry about innocently becoming part of another data request that is driven by dark motivations.

FB founders and operators should be worrying about what they allowed this ingenious and innovative vehicle to become and return to its social connectivity purpose without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and face of FB, continues to look and sound like a boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and keeps saying, “I’m innocent. I thought all the cookies were mine.”

Time to exercise the same creativity and innovation that got him and FB into this mess to get out of this mess.

Despite my poor record at FB, I want it to regain its original purpose and value. I have too many family and friends who enjoy it or view it as a pleasurable hobby.

I’ll just continue to muddle along in FB and wonder why people seem to know so much more about each other than I do.

Bertha Cooper spent her career years as a health care organization and program administrator and consultant and is a featured columnist in Sequim Gazette. Cooper has lived in Sequim with her husband for nearly 20 years.