Would you accept a job at Facebook?

I despise the work that Meta / Facebook has done on my generation, those around me, and me personally. Screen addiction has been baked into the everyday life of people my age with purpose and intention for years because Meta knew it would hook a lifelong user. Now that I’m mature enough to recognize and understand the systematic and repeated damage that social media has done, I’ve started asking more questions. I recently had a long discussion with my parents about their perspective on social media when it came to raising my two older sisters and me. In hindsight, it seems so obvious that social media had a firm grip on us for most of our lives, but my parents said “they were completely blind sided” by the harm that social media caused regarding screentime.

I’ve spent the last few years exploring the possibilities of VR, AR, and MR. I’m so excited about the potential good and benefits that the new medium introduces, but, of course, the best way to get hands-on, industry experience with VR is to work for Meta. It created a question of exploring this new passion and interest, but only doing it for a company with the express goal of hooking a new generation of users into a worse form of addiction.

Ultimately, I decided that it was the best option to position myself in a place where I could take charge of  how the technology is used later in my career. As the reading states, it’s nearly impossible to work for a completely ethical company and I believe the best route is a balanced ethical stance. Since it’s the only company that is making average consumer-friendly headsets(that is not thousands of dollars at least), it’s the only current option to ensure I have the power to inflict change later down the line when the technology is more widely adopted. I consider it a strict launch pad and not a long-term career.