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Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#61

Post by kevinbluer »

steego wrote: post #3

I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I am addicted to Facebook. As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I've always explained the phenomenon of gossip rags as a surrogate for our innate need to be social. Rather than engaging in actual social scenarios (which can carry social risks), many…

One thing that has recently helped me kick the "addiction" is by unfollowing literally everybody I know. It's taken a while, but now when I go back in it literally says something to the effect that "you need to follow friends to get news in your feed".

I'm now placing the onus on going back in and actively going to the feeds of friends and family that I care about; as opposed to the mindless thumbing through the feed.

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#62

Post by toddmorey »

From the article: "Facebook does come out with great, original ideas. It reinvented the iconic 'like' button and created Facebook reactions."

I know they had to tread carefully on a heavily-used feature of the app. And it's a welcome update for sure. Still, let's not oversell it, either. They added a few more icons. I hope that's not the leading example of a great, original idea.

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#63

Post by [deleted] »

burkaman wrote: post #37
Tenhundfeld wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go through an experience about once a year: 1) Log in to Facebook to look at picture of friend's new baby. This is nice. 2) Start browsing around, seeing what other friends have been up to. Oh neato. ... an hour later 3) Looking up people I knew in high school but haven't kept up with. ... another hour later 4) Holy crap, where'd the morning go? I can't do this. Shut it down. 5) Wait ~12 months for next event that…

Wouldn't it make a little more sense to spread those four hours out over the year? I never spend more than a few minutes at a time on Facebook, because there's never that much new stuff since I looked at it yesterday.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#64

Post by Scea91 »

overcast wrote: post #31
cm3 wrote: post #5

I've never used Facebook or LinkedIn and I'm someone who doesn't feel the urge to sign up. Should I be concerned?

No you shouldn't be concerned. Facebook for me personally, turned into just "blocking" everyone on my feed, because all they posted was garbage. It was endless posts of people airing their dirty laundry. Too much drama, so at the end of last year, I closed my account, and haven't logged in since. I do however have a separate developer account with zero connections, so I can get work done. LinkedIn, I still have an ac…

Not much drama on my feed. Maybe the fault is in your friends and not in Facebook.

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#65

Post by cbeach »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #58
cbeach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can control what you see from individual people and what things they share. It's very granular and it works well. You can also follow really interesting people, pages and groups. It's all about using the tool properly.

Tool? It all just gets thrown into one page, either chronologically (a setting FB constantly "forgets") or filtered through a totally opaque algorithm. There is no way to display things in various ways, e.g. as list (just the date, type (text/link/image/video), poster, number of likes/comments/shares). There is no way to show posts matching specific criteria, be it the date range or content. There is just the endless…

Facebook is not a blogging platform. It isn't promising a long-term store of curated searchable data. It's an endlessly scrolling feed of what's going on now, plus an events tool and photos etc. When did it ever promise anything more?

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#66

Post by unprepare »

basch wrote: post #50
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment, the frequency of social app turnover is much higher than the rate at which people become old, even for definitions of "old" as low as "30". Facebook is bucking the trend, but it's still not possible to know whether that's a "permanent" situation or just a trend-bucker. There's no guarantee they'll "end up" on Facebook.

if all the webs content ends up migrated into facebook, they wont have a ton of choice. imagine all of yelp and craigslist locked, oh and every small business web page, requiring an account to view. stuff kids might not be interested in, but adults probably are.

I very much doubt craigslist users desire to have their craigslist activity tied to their real life identity...

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#67

Post by Jaruzel »

sickbeard wrote: post #13

I find it really weird that when I click on a browser link from the facebook site to an external site, it ends up going back to opening facebook in firefox which asks me to login from the browser so I can see this external website. It's like it wants me to view the internet from facebook wtf

That's actually doing you a service - Facebook maintain a database of malware sites, and they run the link through it to make you aren't going to be exposed.

Of course, they don't really do this for your benefit, as it also enables them to track metrics on which links get clicked.

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#68

Post by cbeach »

Jaruzel wrote: post #60
luxpir wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue I've found since leaving the 'Facebook family' a few years back; there's a large disincentive for members you leave behind to contact you. You fall out of their habitual communication methods. The onus is on you to call them, which is already hard enough when both people could initiate the call. It becomes a much rarer event unless concerted effort is made. So until 'the next big social thing' comes alo…

I left FB (several times in fact), and I always end up returning. Firstly no-one cares you've gone - most of your 'friends' don't even notice you don't post or comment any more. Secondly, no-one contacts you directly either. You end up a social outcast, missing events that only get posted on Facebook. I didn't know some of my friends had had babies until several weeks after the fact, because they only announced on Fa…

Your post sounds a bit like "all the kids are in the playground, but I don't like it, so I sit on my own in the library. The playground sucks and all the other kids are wrong"

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#69

Post by s4chin »

Raphmedia wrote: post #35
steego wrote: post #3

I'm really ashamed to admit it, but I am addicted to Facebook. As much as I despise the lack of depth in the average content, I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I've always explained the phenomenon of gossip rags as a surrogate for our innate need to be social. Rather than engaging in actual social scenarios (which can carry social risks), many…

> I feel confident that Facebook has stumbled on something in our animal behavior that draws us closer to it. I strongly agree. I also believe that it is very easy to disturb their black magic. Ever since I started using Stylish to customize the interface, I find myself less compulsively drawn to it. My version of Facebook remplaces all the blue for red hues and adds a wallpaper. I find that this makes Facebook more…

Can you give a link of the style?

Re: Facebook is slowly eating the rest of the Internet

#70

Post by oever »

bovermyer wrote: post #34

I have friends and family scattered all over the place. They're all on Facebook. That makes it really easy to connect with them, which reinforces the loop. I use Facebook Messenger more often than texts now. But perhaps more interestingly, I'm neither addicted to Facebook nor worried about this trend. It just fades into the background for me. The real value is the communication I have with other people. And as for th…

I think it would be more accurate to say people are in Facebook instead of on Facebook.
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