Congrats Steve, for abandoning it.
WOW offers kind of the same addictive business model, but is obviously better at keeping ppl busy.
I myself never had that kind of problem since I never got the clou about that swarm thing, or about social interaction either.
However, it surprises me how constant connection to all parts in the world, a phenomen the internet introduced, can lead to such effects as depersonlization.
As a business proposal - wouldn't it be interesting to have a platform that artificially separates people, to allow for some deference so ppl actually have sth to say to each other when they meet? I guess WOW got that right again. Seems we can learn something here - mankind is not supposed to be a swarm, at least I wouldn't like the idea (that's why I'd be the only individual left when that happens to happen ;).
my 2ct
Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
71–80 of 112 posts
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#72that is one damn long essay about facebook
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah, 5k friends would be a horrible experience unless they were mostly hidden from your stream. You would never see anything you close friends posted.
I don't get what's the point having 5000 people in the first place, unless you use fb only as a publishing stream (but that's what fanpages are for).
The author of this piece is a professional blogger. Having 5,000 FB friends is probably natural to him because marketing himself is part of his job.
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#74There is a Facebook Like button right at the top of the post. The irony.
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#75I don't know why more people don't use the "hide" feature. I was rapidly becoming sick of Facebook. I only friended people that I'd met before, but even so it was polluted by people who I went to middle school, etc. with who I really didn't know that well even then. Then I found the "Hide" option. I hide probably 95% of my "friends." After I did this, I LOVED using Facebook again. Every time I logged in, I was able t…
> Then I found the "Hide" option.
I didn't know Facebook could do that! In general, I find fb's user interface confusing. Recently, I was trying to get it to display a list of all my friends; I managed to get it done eventually, but it took effort and frustration.
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#76I quit using Facebook about 3-4 years ago while I was still in university. Extremely interesting experience.. people I used to be "friends" with got angry at me, people who I had friendly relationships with stopped communicating with me almost immediately, and I no longer received any invitations to any type of social events ( http://www.thewrongbox.ca/videos/iamfacebook ). At first it was a little lonely, but it mad…
I had the same experience. I got Facebook in 2005, it was useful for keeping in contact with people in your dorm/class (you could search by dorms/classes then), other people you had recently met, and getting invitations to events. Then your list starts to bloat up with people you really only spoke with once for a few minutes in a class or at a party, you can't deny then or else you're seen as a dick and you're probably going to run into that person several more times so it will just be awkward. Then they let in the high schools and that diminishes its usefulness to me, then they opened it up to everyone with further diminished its usefulness. The longer I actually had a FB account, the less I used it and the less I appreciated it.
Once I graduated college, I deleted everyone that I felt like was only an acquaintance. Once I got a job, the bloat began again. How do you deny a friend request to someone you work with?
Now... I can't stand Facebook. There is no use for me in having friends, coworkers, and relatives in one space unless I'm at a wedding or funeral. Facebook also puts all the burden of responsibility on the user to segregate their friends into 'groups' which is by no means as easy as it should be.
I now feel like just deleting it. I hardly ever check it anymore unless I get a message from someone.
Like you said, I prefer to email or call someone.
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#77Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same experience here, as soon as I dropped out of facebook, I was immediately blacklisted in every social circle that used it, even if the primary mode of communication was texting/email. Some op-ed considered dropping out of facebook as a radically anti-social act, and I'd have to agree: you're not considering the group's views on communication, and you're forcing them into a personal world. When the entire social c…
> The hacker sees facebook as personal, and email/phone public. The average person sees facebook as a public place, and email/phone as a personal channel. Upvoted just for this. Not sure if it's true or not, but it's a provocative thought.
Sorry, I don't understand how email could be seen as public, let alone the phone. (Except in as much as they're not secure channels, but neither is facebook.)
Could someone explain what this means?
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#79I quit using Facebook about 3-4 years ago while I was still in university. Extremely interesting experience.. people I used to be "friends" with got angry at me, people who I had friendly relationships with stopped communicating with me almost immediately, and I no longer received any invitations to any type of social events ( http://www.thewrongbox.ca/videos/iamfacebook ). At first it was a little lonely, but it mad…
Same experience here, as soon as I dropped out of facebook, I was immediately blacklisted in every social circle that used it, even if the primary mode of communication was texting/email. Some op-ed considered dropping out of facebook as a radically anti-social act, and I'd have to agree: you're not considering the group's views on communication, and you're forcing them into a personal world. When the entire social c…
For what it's worth, I dropped off facebook a bit over two years ago, and didn't notice any impact on my social life.
Re: Steve Pavlina: 30 days since I quit Facebook
#80I don't know why more people don't use the "hide" feature. I was rapidly becoming sick of Facebook. I only friended people that I'd met before, but even so it was polluted by people who I went to middle school, etc. with who I really didn't know that well even then. Then I found the "Hide" option. I hide probably 95% of my "friends." After I did this, I LOVED using Facebook again. Every time I logged in, I was able t…
I tried doing the "Hide" thing for a while, but there are two problems:
1) It's a pain in the ass to hunt down and hide various people and apps, and you have to keep up with it. Consequently, your friends who are likely to say interesting things but not spend a ton of time tweaking their FB settings tend to drift off, driving your signal down.
2) Hiding people is a blunt instrument -- you hide someone who's 98% noisy but 2% interesting, and you've hidden more signal you wanted to see. Then, when they ask you about why you didn't see their baby photos, you have to tell them that the answer is because you were sick of "Which Twilight Character Are You?" and hid them.
In the end, it's easier just to quit and go back to using the regular internet.