The desire to belong is primal, and strong.

I’ve had a facebook account since it was first unleashed on the world, but these days I only use it for messenger and marketplace. I’ve changed all my privacy settings to as strict as they can possibly be, and I never browse or post anything.

I asked a younger coworker something similar about Facebook and facebook messenger a few years ago in relation to cyber bullying. I asked her why the younger generation doesn’t just get off social media if they’re being bullied, and her response was that these platforms are how people communicate now. Without them, you don’t find out about parties, trips, events, etc. Without them you get left out. If you abandon them, you’re essentially ostracizing yourself.

After hearing that I understood why just giving them up is difficult.

He has a cousin that’s worse, so I guess I should count my blessings.

I turned the content filter to its most restrictive setting and it still gave him rainbow friends. I shudder to think what he might see if it was unrestricted.

We let him have Roblox for one. single. day. before we had to delete it. He found a rainbow friends server or whatever and was driving us fucking nuts chasing us around making rainbow friends noises and telling us all about the different color friends. It was exhausting.