Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays

Very similar to my thoughts. Plus, I have some other experiences to compare to, and FB doesn't come out very well in those comparisons.

Some websites allow you meet new people and to get to know them better over the years. You'd think "social" networks should do that as well, but they aren't. In fact, Facebook sort of works in the opposite way. For the most part, it's a collection of people whom you used to know, but whom you know less and less as the time goes. It doesn't allow for much real communication (which is essential in preserving any kind of meaningful relationships) and it's designed to discourage speaking with "strangers". (Remember all those warnings about not friending people you don't know?)

What irritates me to no end is that there are lots of people who seem to be (socially) incapable of using email, IM or phone to share the same information they share on Facebook.

How did they know about my Facebook usage habits? Is this a thickly veiled privacy article? Though seriously, it's easy to look back in retrospect and summarize webapps like this. It would have been more interesting if they discussed what the future could hold for Facebook. They are in a bit of a "serves no real purpose" limbo for me and I'm sure many other people. I have some fuzzy ideas on where they can take it to become more engrained in everyday real life, but I don't think society is ready for what I have in mind yet...

"Part of the problem is there's not really an obvious problem to solve."

Isn't that just a nice way of saying that Facebook isn't useful?

I think the interesting take-away from this article is not so much that Facebook has changed the context by adding features that include a larger network of people, but rather that perhaps Facebook is most useful when you use it exclusively with a small network of people with whom you have very real, close relationships. Suppose Facebook had exactly the same features that it has now but was limited to college campuses where connections could be made only with close friends and classmates. Would the experience really be any worse than it was when the functionality was more limited?

When the author was in college and he had just recently joined Facebook (and presumably most people he had ever met were just starting to use it) his network was necessarily small and limited to those people whom he had recently met and socialized with. As the years went by, more and more people joined his network. But few, if any left.

The problem is that that is not an accurate reflection of real-world relationships. Over time people prune relationships, either consciously or subconsciously, but the point is that in the real world, relationships evolve and end, but Facebook doesn't do a great job of evolving with those relationships. Recently I find myself using Twitter more and more to the exclusion of Facebook because on Facebook I get inundated with a mixture of every kind of update, a very small percentage of which I care anything about. I don't de-friend people because that is considered rude and what if I do want to reconnect with that person someday?

With Twitter there are definitely times that I get inundated with annoying tweets, but because I can quickly and easily stop following somebody, it is very simple to maintain my network and keep the information presented to me relevant.

There are definitely plenty of examples of exceptions, so you're right on with the sizable minority. People who meet friends of friends, find dates, and talk to people they never would without a social network like facebook. But I have to agree, as much as it's not necessarily designed to obstruct communication with strangers. Its just not how it is used. At least not what I've observed personally.

I love this line, "..For the most part, it's a collection of people whom you used to know, but whom you know less and less as the time goes." Because it's so true, for me. Other than the small subset of people of which I am close to. Everyone else fits this bill for me. People that at one were acquaintances or slightly more, but over time I want less and less to do with these people. I know less and less about them, despite their personal life flooding into my feed. Interesting to me, without facebook, I actually might have more interest in at least a few of their lives. "I wonder what so and so is doing, I should give them a call." With it, I know what they are up to, every day, and I'm not interested at all.

Every so often I find myself jumping into discussion, ranting, or arguing with people I have never met personally. But there is absolutely no incentive for me to go out of my way and randomly message, comment, or talk to anyone I'm not close with via facebook. I will admit that I think facebook has tried in the past to encourage some of this behavior. It's just something that I don't think they've ever been able to pull off.

It's a nice sentiment, but sometimes I wonder what is the point as well. I've often thought of deleting facebook for similar reasons. Not necessarily because a flood of emails regarding people of whom I'm not invested in decided to jump on a birthday band wagon. But I think a piece of what he's saying, is why bother. It's just a reminder that the majority of people you've told yourself you're there for(facebook that is), you know to keep up with these peoples lives, aren't really all that important to you. If it takes a flood of copy and pasted "happy bday!" messages from people who don't talk to you on days facebook doesn't tell them exactly what to say..To open peoples eyes to that... so be it.