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Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

nautil.us

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Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#141

Post by rdiddly »

nordsieck wrote: post #125
morpheuskafka wrote: post #120

Anyone who choses to use FB is just not thinking. I could get joining Instagram, Snapchat, etc b/c of friends. But even if you don't care about privacy, don;t care about algorithms censoring human expression, and don't care about unauthorized physiological experiments to influence your emotions, why would you choose a platform with tons of ads, a terrible UI that fills up timelines with every time someone uploads a n…

> Anyone who choses to use FB is just not thinking. One of the answers to your implied question is events. I belong to one of many, many subcultures who organize almost exclusively through facebook. This one happens to be related to dancing. There are around 5 weekly events held regularly, along with a number regular of monthly-ish classes and around one special event per month held locally. Facebook is just way bett…

I get tired just thinking about 5 dance events per week.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#142

Post by PeOe »

rayiner wrote: post #42

These articles ignore people’s real alternatives. I’m in my 30s and have a small child. While I love to fly into Chicago or New York for a night of drinking with my still-single friends, that’s not really something I get to do more than once every couple of months. Seeing my wife’s extended family (3,000 miles away in the west coast) is a once every year thing, and seeing my extended family (7,000 miles away in Asia)…

I have to agree with you here. Although an interaction via Facebook doesn´t come close to a personal one, I still think it is beneficial in some ways. Of course especially when you´re far away from the people you want to connect with. I use Facebook for work and personally. But for me, it has become more of a news feed than actual communication with friends. My inner circle and acquaintances I tend to have regular contact with both have my phone number and can either call me or Whatsapp me.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#143

Post by codingdave »

rock_hard wrote: post #136
codingdave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you ask what people did before Facebook, if your intent was simply try to discredit a genuine response with statistics? Do the math. 17 hours per day with the TV not turned on. And even the hours it was on doesn't mean the whole family was watching. Let also consider how many people watched the news every night, and stayed up for Carson. And an hour of TV after school was probably the norm. Soap operas also w…

Not if you discount 8h for sleeping! Then you only got 16h left...minus 7h of watching TV leaves 9h...most people work 8h and in 1985 had a 40m or so commute to work...if you are still counting: we just hit about 0! Sorry...that’s how statistics work. That not to discount cute edge cases of families playing cards with their neighbors and having ice cream...it’s just not the reality for the majority of the population…

You are thinking per person. The statistic is per household.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#144

Post by skgoa »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #26

I confess, most of what I consume via the internet is of little use to me. Sure, some of it might be interesting; some of it my present itself as relevant; but most of it (the truth is) life would go on without it. Don't take this the wrong way, but push come to shove, HN falls into this low truly impactful life nutrition as well. This is not a critique. It's just that despite my semi-best attempts the signal to noic…

FB definitely adds much more value to my life than HN or reddit.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#145

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

2-4-Flinching wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use a combination of Google Hangouts, email, and just plain old phone calls to keep up to date with their lives. I share photos daily, via google photos, directly to those that I want to see them. And my family, who happen to use Facebook, know to send me photos using other methods. This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively.

> This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively. If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Inconvenience is when they don't care enough to keep in contact with you. While in a perfect world everyone would accept your impose line of communication, in your case Facebook, everyones preference is different.

> If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you.

Yes, but isn't it a bit ironic to say you don't use Facebook because it wastes your time, and then expect others to spend extra time communicating with you?

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#147

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

jjeaff wrote: post #131
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you didn't answer the main question. What if I recognize the potential value in all of the things you mention, but don't believe in God and don't want to lie to people about it?

You don't have to lie to people. You can go to church and not believe. I know several people that do that. So, I'm assuming that you also have some qualms about how Facebook or Google does business? Does that mean you refuse to use Facebook or Google? By using commercial services, you are actually supporting them financially. You can go to most any church without donating anything at all.

> You don't have to lie to people. You can go to church and not believe. I know several people that do that.

Interesting. In my (predominantly Catholic) country, people do that for weddings and funerals, it's widely accepted and in fact it would look radical to stay out of a wedding for not believing. But I don't think non-believers going to "regular" mass is a common thing, I think it would be seen as odd and probably not very welcome by the believers.

Also, one of the main prayers said in Catholic mass starts with "I believe in God, the Father Almighty". So consciously being in a group that says that looks literally like lying to me, even if it's a white lie.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#148

Post by beachy »

Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

I respect your suggestion, but sadly have found myself moving in the opposite direction lately.

My wife's parents are strongly religious. When my 5 year old son stays over he gets a good dose of creationism. I've always thought that that was fine. Its not my belief but I don't see why people can't hold different beliefs. I enjoyed the idea that he could make up his mind on his own.

But lately, its become apparent that for many church-goers, they aren't prepared to (or able to) hold contrasting positions in their heads. Most specifically, I don't see why people can't maintain their belief in god, but at the same time understand that its man that has to rescue himself from the wreckage we are inflicting on the planet.

I've now reached the stage where I need to tell my son that his grandparent's beliefs are fairy tales, because I really fear the danger that is being wrought by people who hold zealous, single minded views. Certainly not all religious people are like that - but it increasingly seems that many are.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#149

Post by staticelf »

Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

I believe most people leave church / christianity because they are not religious. In my country it's like ~80%+ atheists so religious people are really uncommon, unless you are talking about muslims.

It is not cool to go to church because it's still a terrible ideology for society.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#150

Post by Chathamization »

CorpOverreach wrote: post #93
Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

> Also if you think “hey I can’t go to church they don’t believe in XYZ” What if that "XYZ" is the god that the church believes in? Or no god at all? I really wish there was an alternative to "go to church", because I do agree with you on the community aspect. To me it's just a shame that probably the most efficient way of connecting with people is still via religious beliefs.

It would be nice to see people work on some alternatives to traditional churches. We tried creating a scientific pantheism[1] group a while ago and there was a decent amount of interest, but at some point it became clear that continuing it really required more time than any of us was able to put in. We might try something like that again some day; I definitely think there's a lot of untapped potential out there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_pantheism

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