Friday 15 May 2020

Lockdown Ageing; Facebook, how very DARE you?

This morning Facebook decided to offer me the option to see their screen differently via a beta layout they are providing.   It was going to be easier for me to navigate, they said.  Things would be easier to find, they said.  The text would be BIGGER, they said.

I became instantly suspicious; were they making this offer because of my age?  At 53 am I now considered to be so old that I need the interweb to be made more accessible to me?  Has Lockdown impacted on me even more visibly than I previously thought?

It wouldn't be so bad if there was no merit in their suggestion, but I'm aware that the last couple of months have not been kind to me, physically.  There is the unavoidable fact of my jeans becoming noticeably tighter on the one day of the week I force myself into them - the result of too little exercise and too many fxck-it glasses of wine - and let's face it, I need a haircut.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but about a month ago.  Has fb been snooping and drawing it's own conclusions? 

If they have, there is the remote possibility that they may have heard me muttering about on-screen images getting harder to see.  They may have noticed I have increased the size of the font I use here, or that the best time of day for me to look at images on my phone is in the evening, just before I go to bed, when - crucially - I have taken my contact lenses out.   They may even - gasp - have seen the photo I sent to a WhatsApp group of girlfriends yesterday, showing my in-dire-need-of-attention too-long and increasingly-grey hair...

Obviously, I took a look at the new layout, and it does what it says on the tin.  Bigger text.  A simpler layout.  Easier to navigate.  You know, accessible.

But none of the above is of any interest to me because I am not old.  I have no need of this new dashboard.  I have, therefore, declined their offer and reverted to Facebook Classic (the one that has smaller text and a more complicated layout.  No, of course it isn't only because of the principle of the thing). 

Even though, deep down, I suspect I have cut off my nose to spite my own face.

'Rage, rage, against the dying of the light' and all that...

4 comments:

  1. As insidious as FaceBook is - it wouldn't surprise me at all if they are spying on you. I think what pisses me off the most about aging is that my contacts are practically useless anymore if I need to see anything up close. So much so, that pretty much for the entire lockdown I've just worn my glasses. I have a feeling that by the time this is all over, I will have probably ditched my contacts for the most part. We shan't discuss the state of my hair - my feeling is, if we don't discuss it then it's FINE.

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  2. Absolutely. My hair is fine. FINE, I tell you. (Oh god, why did I miss that last appointment 2 days before Lockdown - WHY?)

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  3. Is that why I was offered the Beta FB too, because of my age? That's annoying. Glad you're still blogging, look forward to reading more.

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    1. I couldn't possibly comment about your age, Jean - am writing only about my own insecurities!

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