There is a quote out there that says “Sometimes more isn’t better. Sometimes it’s just more.” That was the overwhelming sentiment that I had when I downloaded my Facebook content yesterday. Of course that was not the only sentiment that I had, it was also simultaneously cool and terrifying to be able to read my Facebook messages from four years ago. For some reason, I used to have this weird idea that Facebook messages were private. Stupid and naive high school me I guess. But back to the point, the sheer amount of information was astounding. Curious though I was, I couldn’t bring myself to look through it in its entirety. I just didn’t have that kind of time. The fact that I have a vested interest in my data and couldn’t bring myself to look through it all gives me a comforting feeling about other people, specifically the government, looking through my information.  Mamma Mia and Sarcasm is not the kind of interesting they are most likely looking for.

This brings me to my next revelation, when I came back today and looked more closely. Especially in the ads section, which was definitely the most extensive, some of the information was off. I expected to find a lot of information, I did not expect to find inaccurate information. Let me give you an example of what I mean. I was going through the ads and most of them were things I liked or posted about, but then I found some things I didn’t recognize. The first one was “Worm.” This was very random. Why worm? why not any other type of creepy slimy thing? Then I get this “Lovers (1991 film).” I had no idea what this was. Turns out it is an inappropiate Spanish film that came out before I was born. I have put the movie poster below.

Weird right? It gets weirder. There a few other weird things I found, like a small town in Wales I’ve never been to, another R-rated movie I’ve never seen and a French precision engineering company I’ve never heard of. But then I come to this. “Substance dependence.” That’s scary. I don’t do drugs. I am not addicted to anything. An argument can be made for caffeine, but that isn’t illegal. Why would that be on there? What could someone think if they found that while looking through my data? I don’t know about you, but that legitimately terrifies me.