Hitting the Wall...

by Skip Cohen

​Although Sunday Morning Reflections are rarely about business and marketing, I suppose I'm crossing that line this morning by whining about Facebook. As their A.I.-driven robots deleted a post of mine on Friday, I feel like the character above— not knowing whether to just give up or listen to Pink Floyd's Tear Down the Wall. 

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be an easy alternative with Facebook. Over the last few years, their algorithms and policies have become increasingly unreasonable, as A.I. has become more and more misdirected. My post last Friday was a great example—nothing whatsoever deceptive—just a short post wishing everybody a terrific weekend. And while I protested their wrong call, I have no confidence that anything will change.

Just like the challenges with Twitter that I've given up on, along with so many of you, F.B. will eventually become another "I-remember-when" story. I picture a few of us sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of a nursing home with stories of the past and things we miss in how we used to communicate.

I miss those days when...

• I could post something on social media and know it made it to the people I wanted to share it with
• A troll was a character in a children's story
• The Internet "Police" were real people who you could contact and actually talk to if necessary
• You knew most of the people who followed you
• A stolen identity meant you lost your wallet
• When our phone rang, it was somebody we knew, or, at the very least, a company I wanted to talk to - NOT an idiot outside the U.S. trying to sell me an extended warranty on my car, health care, or extension of the Geek Squad's coverage!

The list goes on and on, with the cold, hard reality of simply knowing I have to grow up. I still want to be Peter Pan at heart, but it gets tougher and tougher not to become a curmudgeon flying around in green tights, helping Chicken Little spread the word that the sky really is falling! LOL

And on that note, it's time to wrap up what's turned into a rant. My solution to the problem is focused on saving my own sanity. This is when your family and friends become so valuable - I can't change F.B., and the serenity prayer becomes so remarkably appropriate:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Wishing you a day ahead without the challenges of technology. Make it a day to spend time with the people you love the most. Go for those old-fashioned eleven-second therapeutic hugs I always write about and put all your frustrations in a box with a very tight lid not to be opened until tomorrow. Today's a perfect day to kick back and recharge your battery, which is what I originally wrote about in the post FB's robots pulled.

Weekends are not for catching up with work; they are meant for catching up with yourself!
N. Singhal

Happy Sunday or Monday on the other side of the world.