If you combine Meta's new AI app with the new Meta AI sunglasses you are tacitly agreeing to give up your own perceptual reality in favor of a reality fashioned by Mark Zuckerberg. Think about that.

Don't get me wrong. This is, for the moment, still a free country and you can do what you want.

Here's the problem:

Imagine walking down a street and having your face scanned by a dozen pairs of AI glasses, your expressions analyzed, your emotional state cataloged by strangers in real time.

You didn’t sign up for this, but your image becomes fair game. Now scale it up. Multiply that by tens of millions. A society where every interaction becomes a transaction. Every human moment, an opportunity for data extraction. Every unguarded second, a potential violation. Meta doesn’t just want your attention anymore. It wants your environment, your context, your reality. - The Hill

It's like CCTV – only more invasive.

Not long ago, Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. A couple of weeks later he donated $1m to the Trump fund – along with other tech industry leaders.

Now, New Scientist reports that under the Trump administration, multiple US government agencies are using AI and other tools to broadly track the social media of tourists and immigrants

– but that it's nearly impossible to do this without looking at everyone's social media.

It's not a leap to assume Meta is giving your data to the Trump administration. Without a warrant. Without a reason. Just because.

But gathering data takes time. It can be expensive. You might have to ask for permission, or – at the very least – generate a EULA stating that by using the product you agree to turn over your data. If you convince people to buy a product that will simply stream in real time massive amounts of data via goggles and apps? You reduce the time, the expense, and increase the troll exponentially – plus you get all that second-hand, drive-by humanity that isn't on Facebook.

Social media platforms are just programs. As a service? They are more than a failed experiment. Adobe Photoshop occasionally makes me cry, but I've never considered killing myself over it in the 25+ years I've used it. But it makes sense that programs built around functionality like word processing rather than ego manipulation would have a longer shelf life.

... and yet, social media is hard to quit.

If it was built around anything other than us -- providing all the content to keep it alive for years? We wouldn't think twice about dumping it. Quitting feels wrong – antisocial. But ask yourself, would I ever cut this much slack to Microsoft Excel? No one cared when I stopped using Aldus Pagemaker.

Facebook, however, came with a little blowback.

While quitting social media is on the rise, many just switch platforms. USA Today Cybersecurity expert Kim Komando said, "the amount of data TikTok collects is so extensive that it can come dangerously close to cloning your entire phone.”

2025 is the year to quit cold turkey.

Zuckerberg's blue pill of blissful ignorance, augmented reality glasses and creepy AI companions obscure intentions that are anything but transparent – with your virtual identity and reality being controlled – and sold – by others.