Facebook is bad for you: Get a life • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#31

Post by jere » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

aylons wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums or even in Hacker News? Of course people will talk about things they know (and I come here to see these), but I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough, or that I can't keep with the technology and knowledge. Or worse: that I can't even get a good grasp of established tech, or that I am not smart enough. At deeper levels, this probably relate to…

Nope. I feel like that every single day.

But it's not necessarily a feeling you want to get rid of. If you're not surrounding yourself with daily reminders about what you don't know, what are you learning?

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#32

Post by mtrn » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:03 PM UTC

aylons wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums or even in Hacker News? Of course people will talk about things they know (and I come here to see these), but I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough, or that I can't keep with the technology and knowledge. Or worse: that I can't even get a good grasp of established tech, or that I am not smart enough. At deeper levels, this probably relate to…

HN, proggit, /. are filters with more less connected (and great) communities. I often use HN/proggit search to just get a feeling for some tech, how people talk about it - it's very useful for me, more than FB.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#33

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #15

tokenizer wrote: post #8

I don't have a facebook account, and I find the idea of using it for keeping in touch with past acquaintances not very alluring and frankly a diatribe. You're not supposed to focus so much on other people's lives. Instead of people growing into better people through self defined improvement, people now seek gratification through others and their acknowledgment. Instead of going to a concert with a few choice friends…

"""living in the experience, some just anxiously try to record the moment, which has ironically been lost with the vision of the future""" Louis CK illustrated something close : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpAwhSSe7F0

That's why I practically stopped taking photos on vacations. I discovered I am replacing actual experiences with attempt to record the experience for some future myself, thus sacrificing my present enjoyment for the shadow of future recollection of the enjoyment that I didn't actually have because I was too busy trying to record it.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#34

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

chatman wrote: post #3

Dr. Stallman also reminds us that Facebook is bad. It doesn't respect the users and their freedom against mass surveillance. http://stallman.org/facebook.html

By now, it is pretty clear there's no freedom from mass surveillance, at least if you're living in the US and using telephones or the internet. So singling out facebook is useless - for any site, if they have any info on you, assume the government has it, and they don't need court order for it either, and they won't allow the site to tell you about it.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#35

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:12 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #33

agumonkey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""living in the experience, some just anxiously try to record the moment, which has ironically been lost with the vision of the future""" Louis CK illustrated something close : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpAwhSSe7F0

That's why I practically stopped taking photos on vacations. I discovered I am replacing actual experiences with attempt to record the experience for some future myself, thus sacrificing my present enjoyment for the shadow of future recollection of the enjoyment that I didn't actually have because I was too busy trying to record it.

Yeah, a bad analogy would be throwing a party vs being invited. All in all it feels very weird how this 'data' era is twisting our conception of 'existing'. It seems like a gigantic ball of noise, no signal. Too much content of lowered moments. Very unsettling. Slightly digressing, I'm also having a non-digital reaction. I used to love the unaltered quality of digital data versus fragile analogical mediums. But now I'm far more interested by used objects. We used to see them as flawed or tainted, and with the experience of perfect digital duplicates, I sense a loss of memory (no pun intended). Our perfect bits have no past, no history. An old photo I sense the effect of time. A book with notes on the margin. What was negative has positive value now. And reflecting on how I felt reassured about digital before, I'd say it was an immature fear, a paranoid need to keep things "perfect". Which goes back to what the previous post said, instead of stressing over saving something, enjoy it fully and let it live or die.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#36

Post by zxcvvcxz » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

Alright, here are my honest gripes with facebook:

- Professional contacts. I can't share anything I consider "funny" (in the stupid, I'm-in-my-early-20s way) with friends because I have investors and recruiters and these other professional fucks ready to judge me.

- I'm tired of seeing your achievements. God damn just wait until I get some, okay? I don't care if you just started med school and are posting pics of your doctor ceremony thing. I'm busy making crappy Android apps and trying to quit pornography... Can't exactly brag about that.

- If I post something not cool or impressive, it dilutes my "brand". My reputation is important for getting laid. Therefore I don't post anything and keep my best photos up.

- Speaking of getting laid, too much girl drama whenever I add them on facebook. I don't want you posting a photo of us together, because that sends the signal to other girls that I'm not available when I would definitely consider myself so. I also don't want pics of me and a bunch of my guy friends, because that's "gay" for not having girls in the group.

- Constant reputation management. If I post anything, I need to be vigilant for a few days to make sure no stupid highschool friends post anything.

- Fuck you for backpacking through Europe and taking photos of everything.

- The chat generally only allows for simple and content-lacking conversations (because that's what state your brain is in as you browse FB). Doesn't anyone sit down once in a while and write out emails to those important to them?

- Real-time status updates. "I don't want to see this" is my favorite feature of FB.

- Feeling bad for less socially popular people. When the post an update and aren't getting any likes, I really want to click "like" to make them feel better, but then I remember that I'd look uncool for associating with them.

- Advertisements. I almost feel sorry for FB, because unlike Google (who knows what I'm looking for), they don't have much to work with aside from looking at people instagramming their food or sharing links from news sites such as this one. As a result, their ads always suck. I actually don't mind well-targeted ads that I receive in my gmail inbox.

In short, I hate everything about FB, and it makes me feel like a terrible person everytime I use it.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#37

Post by threeseed » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #20

keiferski wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I have to look up their email (jabberwocky586@yahoo.com) and deliberately send them an email length message. On Facebook, I see their real name, their photo, their about page, and various recent things about their life. If I want to talk to them, I tap the chat bar and say two words. Email is extremely cold and impersonal compared to Facebook chat. Most "normal" people don't use email outside of business or m…

Whereas to me, what you describe sounds fantastically superficial and impersonal, whereas in sending a personal eMail I've had to actually, deliberately think about my interaction with them. I suppose context goes a long way.

And yet to me it does sound more personal. Because by adding someone on Facebook you have opened up your life to them on a semi-permanent basis.

With email there is the assumption that the relationship will be more intermittent and flippant.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#38

Post by MarcScott » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

aylons wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums or even in Hacker News? Of course people will talk about things they know (and I come here to see these), but I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough, or that I can't keep with the technology and knowledge. Or worse: that I can't even get a good grasp of established tech, or that I am not smart enough. At deeper levels, this probably relate to…

If I understand 25% of the links on the front page of HN (excluding links to the mainstream press) on any given day then I feel like a success. Each time I come here it feels like a learning journey. That's why I keep coming back.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#39

Post by junto » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:20 PM UTC

blah32497 wrote: post #28

tokenizer wrote: post #8

I don't have a facebook account, and I find the idea of using it for keeping in touch with past acquaintances not very alluring and frankly a diatribe. You're not supposed to focus so much on other people's lives. Instead of people growing into better people through self defined improvement, people now seek gratification through others and their acknowledgment. Instead of going to a concert with a few choice friends…

I didn't have a facebook account for a very long time, and now I do and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. Yes, old acquaintances posting about minutia of there lives is of no value and can be down right irritating. But the single most important function facebook provides is it turns acquaintances into friends. You can add people on Facebook that you've only meet once or twice before. You don't need t…

I'm similar to you. I had an account for a long time, then "deleted it" a couple of months ago.

My entire problem with Facebook has been based around invasions to my privacy. As the years went on, I realised that more and more of my privacy was being eroded. I realised that Facebook really didn't care. I realised that I was helping them to build one big database that was searchable and rampant for abuse by a rogue government agency.

My quitting of Facebook meant nothing really. They already had all of my data, and primarily, my contacts and a profile picture. The "deletion" of my account just meant they switched my account status from "active" to "deactivated" to "deleted".

I'm not naieve enough to believe that they really deleted all that info. I proved several times to the contrary previously through minor Facebook bugs.

At the end of the day, Facebook is company that over time more and more people won't trust. The demographics are already changing and ageing.

The key thing I have taken away from deleting my account t is much like yourself. I realised that I don't actually miss it. The people I was friends with on Facebook weren't my day to day friends. To be perfectly honest I don't have many.

Everyone on Facebook that I knew were exes. Ex work colleagues, ex girlfriends, ex friends. If they want to keep in touch then they can find other ways to contact me.

Maybe we can meet up and have a face-to-face, away from the prying eyes and ears of the snooping governments that we all live under in 2013.

One final thing. I will discourage my kids from having Facebook accounts. I hope I can teach them about their privacy, such that they don't want one in the first place.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#40

Post by threeseed » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #36

Alright, here are my honest gripes with facebook: - Professional contacts. I can't share anything I consider "funny" (in the stupid, I'm-in-my-early-20s way) with friends because I have investors and recruiters and these other professional fucks ready to judge me. - I'm tired of seeing your achievements. God damn just wait until I get some, okay? I don't care if you just started med school and are posting pics of you…

Facebook is merely a website for messaging and sharing photos. It is because of YOUR friends that you get the experience you do. So if you are having a poor experience then find better friends. Or remove them from your feed. Or setup groups so you can filter content better.

But honestly the problem quite clearly is you. The immature use of the term 'gay' to be derogatory. The fact that you dismiss the uncool people in your group because of fear of what others will think. The anger you have towards people who are merely enjoying their possibly once in a life time trip. You sound like a terrible person in spite of Facebook not because of it.