Why I’m not angry about Facebook and didn’t buy a cat called Alan | Kevin McKenna

I was so looking forward to making new Facebook friends by sharing pictures of me and the cat chilling out together. It was going to be a male cat and I was going to call him Alan. Yes, I know but something about shouting “Alan, come on in and get your brunch” appealed when everyone would have expected me to call him something like Sparkey or Tiddles or Oscar. I fantasised about people seeing me in a whole new light and thinking I was gentle and wise with a wee mysterious edge going on too.

Next, I was going to practise my cooking and had looked out my old Nigella. I’d resolved to work much harder at winkling out some of her more exotic ingredients which used to defeat me. I was even going to share my Nigella dilemmas with my new Facebook chums by posting queries such as: “Can anyone tell me where I can find a decent tin of ground almonds or a bottle of pomegranate molasses or a bit of that tamarind paste?” New social media acquaintances would interact with me approvingly and say to themselves: “Who is this pale and interesting renaissance man?” Old chums would regret not having listened more to me when they were in my company and resolve to have me round for a dinner party.

I could barely contain myself at the thought of taking pictures of my avant garde culinary masterpieces and getting hundreds of appreciative messages and urbane ones from my fellow scribes (journalists always seem compelled to drop in arch and ironic apercus lest any of the amateurs think that their writing skills are as good as ours). I would download a boxed set of Masterbake.

I would spruce up on holiday destinations too and start jouking up some Munros. Look, there’s me feeding a yak in the Carpathians and there’s me up Ben MacTam.

And in my more reflective moments I would post wise epithets like: “If you love life, life will love you back” or “make hay while the sun shines but try to avoid doing so when it starts to rain”.

None of this ever happened, of course. I just kept putting it off because of my innate shyness and total absence of anything exotic, intrepid or intriguing in my life. I post the odd article I’ve written hoping that no-one says anything nasty about it otherwise I’d feel the need to chib them online. Occasionally I go into the Celtic fan sites to look at old pictures of the Hoops and to top up my levels of paranoia when I find myself in agreement with Daily Record football writers. This, though, doesn’t mean to suggest that at some time in the future I will indeed become more active on Facebook and stay in touch with close relatives and old friends.

Now, it seems, like most other concerned and liberal types, I might need to come off Facebook completely. Those Tory, Brexiteer, private school wideos at Cambridge Analytica seem to have spoiled this gentle forum for everyone else. They have researched and discovered pernicious ways of subconsciously controlling my mind by harvesting my Facebook history. They build up a virtual map of me based on what I like on Facebook and then direct a slew of information and products at me based on the psychological profile they had constructed.

I must admit I had my doubts about some of those Facebook quizzes early on. These are the ones that tell you only a Harvard Professor of Law gets more than six out of 10 and then asks you questions such as: “Compete this popular colour sequence. Black and wh*te.” I once completed a test asking me to name several English football grounds from aerial photographs. Suspiciously, I kept getting them right. I knew I was being manipulated though after I deliberately chose Wrexham FC’s old Racecourse Ground instead of Newport County’s Somerton Park. This was subtle manipulation and allowed Cambridge Analytica access to all of our emotional and psychological frailties and prejudices. This is the reason why the Tories spent more than £2 million on Facebook adverts in 2017 alone, a sum that dwarves the entire social media spend of all the other parties combined.

So ... it’s dishonest, unethical, manipulative and seedy; these being most of the qualities traditionally required to get ahead in the Conservative and Unionist Party. Yet I’m having a helluva time trying to dredge up a firm purpose of moral outrage at this. I’d really like to because, well … it seems another grand way of giving the Tories a right good kicking. As well as that it could further destabilise Donald Trump and lead to criminal prosecutions for a shower of privately educated, clever-clog rich kids who, quite frankly, had it coming to them all of their silver-spooned existence.

In short, it feeds all my personal, social and political prejudices which, I can assure you, do not need manipulated. I’ve been nurturing these for most of my life and had them fed and watered shamelessly by friends and older relatives when I was young and at my most psychologically vulnerable. I’ve attempted to do this with my own children and others.

The work of The Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr in exposing Russian interference in our democratic systems and possible criminality in the misuse of Facebook data has been outstanding. But it would be a shame if ordinary people felt pressurised to leave Facebook.

Perhaps there has been more than a degree of manipulation and the dark arts of psychological profiling. Essentially though, it is being exposed to other much more visible and compelling forces around us that have shaped our characters and many of our choices. These insidious, psychological manipulators are called our loved ones.

In my sporadic encounters with Facebook I’ve observed the pleasure it brings to vast, sprawling families scattered across the globe. And I’ve seen the solace it has provided to people suffering emotional crises who hadn’t realised how many people cared after all. It brings the kindness of many strangers to the doors of the vulnerable and the afflicted. This far outstrips the perils (insert thoughtful emoji here and perhaps a wee heart).