A friend entered a fake birthday when joining FB, thinking it was not really something FB needs to know about.
The amount of greetings and happy wishes on one random winter day greatly amused him.
Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish Happy Birthday to people I haven't spoken to in 25 years (apologies for being old). I wish it to people I don't really know (members of a creative collective I belong to). I wish it to any of my friendsters that have birthdays on the day that I happen to visit FB. It's not so random as it sounds, either, I have fewer than 200 FB friendsters. Most people think it's nice to receive birthday wishes, and if you're…
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…
Why does a nice sentiment have to have a point?
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually quite difficult to remove a friend. You have to go to their individual page, scroll down, look at a text link on the bottom left of the page, click "Yes" in the confirmation box. I wish I could just navigate through my friends list and remove friends right from there just like how I can add them to groups or lists or anything I want.
Actually, you can just hover their name anywhere on the site (including your friends list), hover the “Friends” button and click “Unfriend”. It hardly gets easier than that.
A: Anything you have to do by hand up to 400+ times is not particularly easy. It's an hour's mind-numbing work.
B: It's only easy if there's no cognitive load to unfriending someone. If you have to call them up in your mind, decide if they're still a friend... that's thought, and the emotions involved can be literally overwhelming depending on your personality.
C: Do the people you unfriend get alerted in any way? Take everything I alluded to in point B and raise it to the third power, because now every click is also a social signal...
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#24I have, and continually remove people from my friends list -- it makes no sense for them to know what is going on in my life if I barely want to speak to them in person. And wildly more important I really don't care what is going on in their lives.
I take the Larry David approach and prefer to have less friends and acquaintances
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#25I understand the authors position, but FB's value is different for lots of different people. Your journey on Facebook might be very different than mine and I don't think that means there should be a blanket statement about Facebook's value. Part of that value is that everything is inter-connected.
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, you can just hover their name anywhere on the site (including your friends list), hover the “Friends” button and click “Unfriend”. It hardly gets easier than that.
A: Anything you have to do by hand up to 400+ times is not particularly easy. It's an hour's mind-numbing work. B: It's only easy if there's no cognitive load to unfriending someone. If you have to call them up in your mind, decide if they're still a friend... that's thought, and the emotions involved can be literally overwhelming depending on your personality. C: Do the people you unfriend get alerted in any way? Ta…
A: True, but “mind-numbing” does not mean “quite difficult”. Also, if you have 400+ Facebook friends you wish you hadn’t I think it’s your fault, not Facebook’s. I don’t expect any service to provide marginal functionality like that. You do that once and from then on you think more carefully before accepting someone’s request.
B: True, but the parent was talking about UI.
C: No.
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Why does a nice sentiment have to have a point?
Could probably rephrase this, as a nice sentiment can be very nice with no point at all. But the "happy birthday!" messages on facebook, imo, have lost their meaning and relevance a long time ago. There's no thought or effort that goes into this action. In the early stages of facebook, there was still a couple more steps that had to be taken to get that message to the old acquaintance. Thus, albeit small, a little more meaning. "Oh, frank, he actually took those couple steps, thats so nice."
Now, as a society, as well as on facebook, we're a step away from automating our wishing people happy birthdays. That progression is what is slowly chipping away at that "nice sentiment." For all I know, you write heartfelt messages to old acquaintances, leaving them feeling awesome that you cared to write to them on such a day. But the vast majority don't, facebook tells them to say happy bday to these people [list of names]. Without even leaving the page, and following exactly what facebook tells you to say, you've said the most generic thing you can possibly say to someone on their birthday.And to top it off, you haven't said anything to that person since last year on that day. And again, by "you", I mean the majority of people, not you personally.
The occasional person will go the "extra mile" sticking the persons name at the end of the message, or saying something like "hope you're doing well!"..It's just an illusion that that doesn't mean much of anything. I'm not saying I hate getting 100s of "Happy bday's" from people I don't talk to or, in a lot of cases, even know. Or that people are assholes for routinely wishing every single person on their friends list a big happy birthday. But the sentiment really isn't even there anymore, to me. All facebook has done for us, as far as birthdays and keeping in touch with old acquaintances in this manner is concerned, is make the actual efforts, like phone calls and real personal messages, even more valuable.
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#28A friend entered a fake birthday when joining FB, thinking it was not really something FB needs to know about. The amount of greetings and happy wishes on one random winter day greatly amused him.
My brother entered a false day intentionally thinking that it would be it would be a good way to filter genuine from empty happy birthday wishes.
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#29A friend entered a fake birthday when joining FB, thinking it was not really something FB needs to know about. The amount of greetings and happy wishes on one random winter day greatly amused him.
My girlfriend used to change her birthday every month or two, to see who would send her birthday wishes repeatedly -- she believed that people shouldn't rely on Facebook for such information. I finally convinced her to stop after I got sick of seeing the same 50 people write on her wall every month. Luckily I was in on this and put her birthday into Google Calendar...
Re: Facebook, It's Like Instagram for Birthdays
#30A friend entered a fake birthday when joining FB, thinking it was not really something FB needs to know about. The amount of greetings and happy wishes on one random winter day greatly amused him.
My brother entered a false day intentionally thinking that it would be it would be a good way to filter genuine from empty happy birthday wishes.
I deleted facebook 3 years ago, so I actually get real live phone calls from people who actually know. =pp