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Facebook – You are the Product

lrb.co.uk

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Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#61

Post by yawz »

marpstar wrote: post #54
noonshine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been off facebook for 5 years. Now my kid started school and there's info in private facebook groups that is not shared any other way. I hate it but decided to rejoin.

So wait...the school uses Facebook for communication? Gross. My kids' school uses something called ClassDojo, which is exactly like Facebook, but geared towards classroom settings. It works well enough.

I'm guessing that parents connect through Facebook groups.

Today, being the first day of school here in Colorado, my wife told me that the parents decided to organize a Facebook group to share information. My suggestion was a Whatsapp group, but I guess that's Facebook as well :).

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#62

Post by turc1656 »

olympus wrote: post #40
akeck wrote: post #6

I wonder if, in the future, being able not to be on any social media will be an higher class privilege.

I think it already is. I recently deleted my FB and Twitter accounts. I had to keep my LinkedIn account because a recruiter told me that if I didn't have at least some online persona then I was weird and wouldn't be hired. I guess I'm not rich enough to delete all my social media.

Fascinating that a recruiter actually told you that. I wonder if it's actually true or if the recruiter was saying that because...they are a recruiter and having people on LinkedIn makes their life easier.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#63

Post by iaml »

ProAm wrote: post #41
d-sc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A call or text is a different interaction than scrolling through an infinite newsfeed designed to keep you addicted.

A facebook message doesn't force you to scroll forever. It's a message, just like a text message.

I find it a bit ridiculous that on HN you are damned both ways: if you rarely use fb to contact folks, you are still contributing to fb stats and still addicted (actual claims from other threads regarding fb), and if you aren't you're ignoring a (valuable) message channel.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#64

Post by stephengillie »

adrianlmm wrote: post #44
adrianlmm wrote: post #20

I've been using Facebook for years, awesome tool, I'm in contact with friends, relatives and parters, it is awesome.

Why the mod downs? It makes you angry that I find Facebook useful?

The echo chamber disenjoys dissonance.

I use FB to keep in touch with family and friends, and as a way for them to invite me to events. I avoid the "news" feed like the plague, and strongly prefer Imgur's User Submitted for a feed of "what's going on in the world today".

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#65

Post by steaknsteak »

adrianlmm wrote: post #44
adrianlmm wrote: post #20

I've been using Facebook for years, awesome tool, I'm in contact with friends, relatives and parters, it is awesome.

Why the mod downs? It makes you angry that I find Facebook useful?

Facebook isn't new anymore so it's not cool to like it. I also find it vastly more useful than other social media sites.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#66

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

hk__2 wrote: post #26
sidcool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I know dislike FB. But there are hundreds of millions out there for whom FB had become an addiction. B

Research shows that most people use FB to keep in touch with their close friends and family. I don’t think it’s bad to be addicted to that. Edit: Some references for the people who downvoted: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397308000701 (also talks about how FB is a good help for people with low self-esteem) http://www.cairn.info/revue-sociologie-2017-1-p-57.htm (French) http://www.cairn.info/re…

Facebook wants you to believe that it "enables" communication with friends and family, but in practice they work hard to maintain a stranglehold upon that vector, excluding or absorbing alternative tools to ensure that they can gather personal information and insert advertising.

Communication isn't a problem, but communication mediated by a predatory middleman and augmented with addictive mechanics absolutely is.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#67

Post by turc1656 »

kome wrote: post #35
akeck wrote: post #6

I wonder if, in the future, being able not to be on any social media will be an higher class privilege.

Am I lower or upper class by not being on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Twitter? I am on last.fm tho ;) but not with my real name.

You sound awesome and are, in this regard, better than me. I never had WhatsApp, Instagram, or Twitter, but I still have my Facebook account. However, I am not active. I log in only when I receive a message or some alert I actually care about (which is exceedingly rare these days). I see no reason to actually delete my account since I haven't posted anything in years and have barely communicated privately on the platform.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#68

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

parthdesai wrote: post #49
notadoc wrote: post #5

I stopped using Facebook years ago and I could not recommend it more. I found it to be mental pollution at best and and a total waste of time. If you want to 'keep in touch' with people, call or text them. Make an effort to actually interact with the people who matter to you.

So tell me, how do i replace around 5 different group chats i have on messenger which can have anywhere between 5-10 people in each chat? Music events that i go to are exclusively promoted on facebook. How do you recommend i find out about these events so that i can get a cheaper ticket price? if anyone wants to organize a plan that has more than 8 people, facebook groups make it much much easier. I personally hate f…

It's not that hard, you've just forgotten how to do these things without Facebook.

>I personally hate facebook's mobile apps and some it's policies ( Internet.org comes 1st to my mind), but it's hard to completely stop using it.

Try it! Deactivate your account for a week. Do it again later for two weeks. Maybe for a month. When you learn how to live without it, delete it.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#69

Post by poopoopoopoo »

olympus wrote: post #56
rditooait wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry - I want to make clear that the point of sharing this article on HN is not to give credit to who came up with this concept. I simply want to start (or continue) discourse on this particular subject. To be honest, this isn't even just about Facebook, I'm sure you could have the same argument about the majority of today's tech companies who are commoditizing information about users and using that to monetize. Gen…

OP, I didn't mean to imply that you did. This was me shouting stuff out to the HN crowd because I think it's interesting and it's tangentially related to the article. That, plus there's sure to be a young whipper-snapper on HN that will read the article and think, "what a neat idea that nobody has ever thought of..."

Nice use of a 400 year old idiom.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#70

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

yawz wrote: post #58
notadoc wrote: post #5

I stopped using Facebook years ago and I could not recommend it more. I found it to be mental pollution at best and and a total waste of time. If you want to 'keep in touch' with people, call or text them. Make an effort to actually interact with the people who matter to you.

Well... As someone who has moved to various countries and across continents a few times over the last three decades, I can hardly find another medium that allows me to keep up with friends and family across many countries and time zones easily. Before Facebook I created and/or used e-mail aliases, e-mail groups, forums, file hosting services, etc. to share our story with friends and family. Facebook makes it much sim…

How about letters via snail mail? It's a lot more personal, since you have to set aside some time to sit down and read/write the letters without the all of the distractions Facebook presents to you, and you're able to filter it to the subjects that are important to you rather than a constant stream of thought from everyone you know.
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