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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)

#181

Post by bunderbunder »

gyim wrote: post #159
beachy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

I'm always sad when I read something like this. If believing in God and protecting the planet or accepting basic science are contrasting ideas, then your wife's grandparents are believing in a caricature, not God. But I think you can do better than just saying "these are fairy tales". I recently read a book from a former atheist (Jennifer Fulwiler) who came from a very loving and intellectually honest family. Her fat…

That first paragraph is emblematic of the thing that most worries me about using religious groups as the core of one's social life. It may come from a well-intentioned place, but people are way too quick to resort to outright denigrating other people's beliefs in a way that, at best, infantilizes them with descriptions like "fairy tale" and "caricature". (There's not a whole lot of semantic distinction between these two characterizations.) Because of the ways that group behavior and peer pressure work, that will only get magnified if most your social life revolves around people who share identical beliefs.

There need to be more social institutions that encourage different people from different backgrounds to come together and learn to be more respectful of one another. How about a renaissance for bowling leagues?

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

#183

Post by Mc_Big_G »

Would you use an alternative to facebook if...?

* It was free of advertisements

* Posts were fully encrypted so even facebook couldn't see read them

  Meaning:

    * There's no public posting

    * They can't data mine

    * They can't sell your data
* You could create different user groups to post to

* Everyone in a group had their own server side and/or local copy of all posts to that group

* You could unfriend or ignore users

* You could create filters by users or groups and keep them off your main "timeline" (also complex filters based on attributes like title, content, photos)

* You could delete your copy of posts but not other people's copy

* You could easily download all the data including posts and pictures any time you want

* You could easily set up internal or private "facebooks" on your own servers

* If you forget your password, there's no recovering anything.

* You don't need a separate app for private messaging

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

#184

Post by elboru »

badestrand wrote: post #117
wutbrodo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love it if Facebook worked that way for me. But unfortunately its just selfies and crappy shares of motivational or "funny" memes. I don't know much about Facebook's feed because I don't use it a ton, but can't you just unfollow the people who post this stuff? I'd imagine after doing this just a handful of times, your feed would become a lot better tuned to the kind of stuff you actually want to see. The ~o…

> can't you just unfollow the people who post this stuff? Actually I did just a month ago but now my feed is quite empty. It seems the people I am interested in stopped posting or even deleted their accounts. I wonder whether and how FB is working on getting those back.

The same happened to me. First, I started unfollowing people I don't interact with in real life anymore, after that, I unfollowed people I care about but who posted uninteresting things, then, I noticed there were tons of irrelevant Facebook pages in my timeline (pages I've "Liked" a long time ago maybe because I saw a good post from them or maybe the page's name was appealing) so I unfollowed all of them. I used to check Facebook several times during the day, now I check it two or maybe three times a day, because my timeline is almost empty. After several tries of quitting by deactivating my account, I think I finally found a good way to quit it, and maybe I don't even need to totally deactivate it since it doesn't absorbs my time anymore.

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

#185

Post by iicc »

Chathamization wrote: post #150
CorpOverreach wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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://www.sundayassembly.com/faq

>What is Sunday Assembly?

>Sunday Assembly is a secular community that meet regularly to celebrate life. Our motto is “Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More” and our mission is to help everyone live life as fully as possible.

>What happens at a Sunday Assembly?

>A Sunday Assembly service consists of songs (pop songs mainly) sung by the congregation, a reading (usually a poet), an interesting talk (that fits into live better, help often or wonder more), a moment of reflection and an address, which sums up the day and hopefully gives a take home message. Afterwards we have tea and cake (well, in Britain anyway!) to encourage people to stay and mingle with one another. Outside of the event we organise small groups (Smoups), and other social activities such as book clubs and choir, peer-to-peer support and local volunteering.

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

#186

Post by zeeveener »

EADGBE wrote: post #179
quickthrower2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worrying from the perspective of Facebook having so much power. It sounds like in your case, the enjoyment of your life i.e. "get invited to more events" and indeed one of the lower 'needs' is enhanced by joining Facebook (and reduced by leaving it). If Facebook is the Junk Food of Socializing, it is like a McDonalds that has successfully lobbied for a ban on the sale of home cookware, whilst buying out all t…

>it is like a McDonalds that has successfully lobbied for a ban on the sale of home cookware They've successfully lobbied to ban my personal website?

Yeah that comparison isn't really relevant. I believe it would be more like:

McDonalds has successfully convinced people that it's not worth cooking food at home anymore.

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

#188

Post by ep103 »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #183

Would you use an alternative to facebook if...? * It was free of advertisements * Posts were fully encrypted so even facebook couldn't see read them Meaning: * There's no public posting * They can't data mine * They can't sell your data * You could create different user groups to post to * Everyone in a group had their own server side and/or local copy of all posts to that group * You could unfriend or ignore users *…

* My friends were also on it

Then yes

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

#189

Post by whatimherefor »

So as a girl working in tech, all I remember about facebook back when I had one was everytime a new girl started working at our company, all the guys flocked to one guys computer and they stalked the crap out of her one Facebook, and by the time she walked through the door they knew who she was dating, had already decided he wasn't good enough for her and were already in competition to date her and trying to woo her by pretending to have all the same interest and the poor girl is like first day on the job and she thinks shes going to have a normal life.

I've seen this happen at three tech companies multiple times at each so I'm not willing to entertain the group of guys who I KNOW are going to comment on this and say "well not every guy is like that". True, but it only takes a few at every company to make a girl feel like a targeted object more than an employee.

Once the facebook search came out (way after I got rid of it) I was a manager managing about 25 guys in my tech firm and they used to use the facebook search to search by age, relationship status of all the females in the company constantly on the prowl.

Was so gross and terrifying and made me happy I didnt have one.

Another time about three years after college a guy I had never seen or met before came up to me at a restaurant and started blabbing on about my life, asking me if I was still dating that deuschbag from college and openly admitted who knew all of this from my facebook back in college and asked me what I was up to now. I mean wow, couldn't possible be more happy that people DON't know what I'm up to.

Not to mention old guys are creepy and use it to stare at all the bikini pics of their friends daughters.

I wish I could be ignorant and dumb enough to not know all this but unfortunately I work with a bunch of creepy men twice my age in tech for years now and they assume I don't notice these things.

If you are a girl in tech, youre better off not having a facebook, you honestly cannot even begin to fathom how many men are keeping tabs on you.

and here come the downvotes....

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

#190

Post by whatever_dude »

ben_jones wrote: post #34
rxhernandez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted my Facebook in 2010 and it stayed deleted until the end of 2016. Now I get invited to more events, my friends no longer feel like distant strangers when I see them for the first time in months and I know how all my family is doing. It really sucks seeing how much more of a life some people have through facebook but research is a lifestyle and I knew what I signed up for. Your miles may vary though as I have…

As someone toying with the idea of "getting back into" social media, how did you go about making your profile "normal"? I'm not the type to take tons of selfies, so do I just start out with a shitty profile picture? I feel like it'll look like a fake account, or me like a weird dude, compared to my friends who all have amazing profiles. ^^^ And this is the type of mentality that makes me not want to use social media…

I never post anything and it's a normal enough profile. I just interact with friends once in while via messages or by seeing posts from them.

You don't need to go all out on joining some imaginary race to the best profile. No one cares.

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