Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 30, 2021

Rat wants to remain “social.”

Facebook is my lifeline.

Facebook IS a LOT like crack. Including some of the ways it shanghais your endorphins.

Comment pages like this one are the closest I’ve ever come to “social media.” I guess I’m just not much of a socialist.

Zuckerbot has ensured that you keep going back to em Facecrooks.

I deleted Bitter. No more Biting for me.

And the things that Rat lists in the first panel are just his own posts!

“I can’t quit you!”

Social media reminds me a little of the Tower of Babel in that it makes some people feel god-like in their ability to communicate broadly, judge harshly and elevate themselves with their own opinion while denigrating opposing views. What could be a halcyon agoura of collective ideas feels more like a morass of warring factions! The dog videos are cute though…

I imagine Rat is on r/WallStreetBets.

The secret is to unfollow all of your QAnon “Friends”.

My son still has his addiction to FB. Someone from my highschool commented on me. I must have really fooled them since she referred to me as a Whiz kid. Me?

as far as i can tell, facebook appears to be for people who have lots of time and bad photos on their hands…

There’s a reason why I call it “anti-social media.” I’m sufficiently anti-social without it…

GoComics is the only place I’m Social.

It’s not that easy to delete a FB page. Good thing for Rat.

I use Facebook to show off my art. I do most of my arguing on GoComics.

Never signed up, so I’m immune.

Facebook is the only contact I have with a lot of friends I would not contact any other way!

I would be interested to know how many “friends” Rat has on FarceBook!

He’s done with the arguing, the negativity, the untrue stories. . . Who is that guy and what happened to Rat?

Once you get hacked you won’t go back ! … Croc Power !

Behavioral research would suggest that’s precisely what it’s like. And management investigations have clearly revealed that is precisely Facebook’s intent.

One of the best decisions I’ve made: leaving Facebook for good three years ago

The first time I found out about facebook and saw how attached my friends were, it was pretty obvious that, yep, it’s like crack. Posting pictures of your food?! Get me outa here. GoComics is as far as I go with social media.

I have a FB acct so I can get on forums. Bare minimum info on it.

Deleted mine seven years ago, never looked back :-)

Deleted mine last year. Nothing “social” about it. Good riddance.

I was on FB for about two weeks. I realized I didn’t care how many bananas people were buying.

I de-activated my account in May, for the reasons Rat lists. However, the notifications from “friends”, via facebook, never stop coming. Once in a while, I’d love to see what one of them is saying, but then it would start all over again.

You can’t get rid of social media. They’ll keep haunting you.

Well, you’re not wrong.

Nope. Completely deleted it. Zuckerplucker will still make his millions, but not from me!

I think social media has become a disaster. I have never used Twitter or the others except Facebook. I only have a page as my my work requires it and it is barebones.

I deleted my FB over a year ago! DON’T MISS IT!

Disqus is my FB. More than enough sociality for me here :)

It isn’t like crack for me. I deleted that garbage and left it deleted. FB is not something I’ll expose myself to any longer.

I deleted mine just last week!

It’s easy. Every time I’m tempted to sign up I visualize Zuckerberg grinning. Works every time.

What’s “facebook”?

I am on facebook. It’s the way I keep in touch with a gang of far-flung friends. But I have limits on it.

Facebook Purity keeps out the vast majority of the garbage facebook tries to feed you – suggested and promoted stories, “news”, junk like that. (try it, it’s awesome!)

An adblocker keeps out the rest of the ads.

I only ‘friend’ people I’ve met in person.

I ‘unfollow’ rather liberally. If someone’s posting upsetting political stuff or breakfast pictures, and nothing interesting, then I unfollow them. They’re still my friend and I can reach them if I want/need to, but I won’t be upset or bored by the stuff they’re posting.

I block anyone clearly duped by a consipracy. Don’t need that sort of chaos in my life.

I refuse to install the app or the messenger app on my phone. I only access it through a web browser, so no notifications.

What remains is my friends’ musings on their lives, which is why I’m there. And even then, I still fight the urge to refresh more than I should. But with my setup, facebook doesn’t have anything new to feed me unless my friends said something new, so it’s easier to get bored of seeing the same things and go do something productive.

I dumped Facebook years ago. Never looked back.

I also will unfollow and block as needed. The first time I felt guilty, but no more. I can messenger if there is a good reason. Rarely needed. I check what my family is up to before I get to the important part – comics! I don’t drink coffee. Don’t bother me until I have read my comics!

I’ve been off Facebook since the end of summer except for a minute or two check in once t twice a week to see how family and friends are doing. No politics, yay, and I don’t fall into a huge time suck.

No longer on FB, and I especially miss the photos…but after a while it has made my world much better. I make a point of keeping in touch personally, calling and writing family and family of friends, which for me has been a more real experience, and so, more rewarding than FB

I only check in once a month to see if a family member died.

Facebook is the opiate of the masses.

I deleted mine 10 years ago. One of the smartest things I’ve ever done.

by golly!

Just block certain persons/groups.

It’s really not. Delete it, and you won’t miss it

We’re more polite here.

It is kinda addictive. I don’t “do” other Social Media, but that social networking site is hard to do without once you’ve built a coterie of family and friends….

Back when Facebook first started you did have a page. You could decorate it however you wanted, quotes, posters, and so on. It’s nothing like that now.

I didn’t know you could say “Crack” on the Funnies page.