The quirky philosophy of social media.

Bertrand Russel writes about Idealism,

The first serious attempt to establish idealism .... was that of Bishop Berkeley.

He fully admits that the tree must continue to exist even when we shut our eyes or when no human being is near it. But this continued existence, he says, is due to the fact that God continues to perceive it; the 'real' tree, which corresponds to what we called the physical object, consists of ideas in the mind of God, ideas more or less like those we have when we see the tree, but differing in the fact that they are permanent in God's mind so long as the tree continues to exist. All our perceptions, according to him, consist in a partial participation in God's perceptions, and it is because of this participation that different people see more or less the same tree.

All our perceptions, according to him, consist in a partial participation in God's perceptions, and it is because of this participation that different people see more or less the same tree.

Let's run a thought experiment and think about Berekeley's 'tree' as 'customized webpage.' On Facebook all pages are built on demand. They are assembled on-the-fly from bits and pieces for a particular individual. Therefore, a customized webpage only exists when the individual invokes and perceives it. Once the individual turns off her demand for the page, it disappears. In this case, Facebook infrastructure plays the role of God's mind, ensuring that the page will be available when the individual invokes it next time.

When Facebook goes bankrupt or runs out of power, the world of social media disappears. All 'trees' of our perceptions are gone, just as Bishop Berkeley had predicted.

Maybe, people keep coming back to their Facebook pages all the time because they are subconsciously afraid that their world is going to vanish without them.