11–20 of 48 posts
Guess it's just one more oddity of mine.
This is part of the reason that burning man is so meaningful for many people - without phones we have to connect with those around us and be present in the moment. When everyone is like that, it's amazing!
Nathan Jurgenson wrote an interesting piece about how phones are a sort of microaggression- using it is a subtle act of protest against present company. It's a kind of shield, a buffer that says "I'm afraid to fully commit." The beautiful thing about Burning Man (I'm guessing- I've never been there) is that it's a self-selecting audience. And self-selecting audiences are the easiest to work with. Think about a comedi…
What I don't get is how that's totally acceptable even to otherwise educated people. From what I can remember, reading the paper or watching TV during a conversation was considered rude and often censored, yet cellphones seem to be exceptional. I find it puzzling.
I noticed a bunch of weird things about FB-trained users:
* A few days ago, I threw a party and invited two good friends that I haven't seen in a while. Both of them were a bit pissed on me, because I'd moved to Ireland without so much as dropping by to tell them I'm leaving, but were happy to see me and had struggled to make it to the party, because they knew I'd probably be going back soon. Now, I've never even been to Ireland, let alone move there, so I was understandably dumbfounded, until I realized that the last location I'd listed on Facebook was a city in Ireland. The thought that someone would take the location I list on the Internet seriously didn't even cross my mind. Hell, when I started using the Internet, around a quarter of the other users claimed they were from Middle Earth, and I claimed I was from Coruscant!
* Facebook events. I nearly missed a friend's anniversary because he just opened a Facebook event, instead of inviting everyone over. You know, by telephone. Needless to say, I probably skipped over it in my inbox or whatever they call it.
* "Like" and "Epic". I consistently denied using the former without leaving a comment, because I think it's lazy, but the latter is, unfortunately, starting to enter my vocabulary. At first, whenever someone was saying that this or that had been epic, I was literally asking them what exactly they meant. I'm seriously alarmed by this, as our entire vocabulary is being invaded by "lazy" words that can mean pretty much anything you want them to mean. "Epic" is the new "nice". Is it sunny outside? Whoa, what a nice, warm day. Is it raining? Whoa, how nice and cozy. Is there a fucking blizzard outside? This is going to be such a nice Christmas day! Now, my jalapeno sauce was about as epic as the adventures of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk.
Needless to say, my integration in this new Interwebs-powered social network has not been without glitches...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when I used Windows I modified my hosts file to make facebook.com redirect to 127.0.0.1. That lasted for a few minutes.
I changed my password to something difficult to memorise which was stored in an online password vault. The result was it took an extra 20 seconds to login, which proved to be a very effective way to stop using facebook.
I rarely use Facebook on my phone, I don't like the interface at all. Mostly I'll just use it to share a pic, and even then I'm going through Instagram to do it.
(I personally could do it without a problem - well, if I hadn't go to my programming job, of course - take a mathematics book, pen and notebook, and learn something new.)
What about a year? How could we have lived just a couple of years ago?
I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…
WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?
Come on, 10 days without electronics? That is an amazing feat nowadays? (I personally could do it without a problem - well, if I hadn't go to my programming job, of course - take a mathematics book, pen and notebook, and learn something new.) What about a year? How could we have lived just a couple of years ago?
There were positives (I read more, went out more etc.) but they didn't last too long. The time my roommate and I would have wasted on the internet previously was now allocated to TV. Rather than only watch shows we liked we channel surfed for hours. It was kind of like being thrown back in time to how I wasted time when I was younger.
Every few months I tell myself I'll turn off the internet. I never do it.
Back when I used Windows I modified my hosts file to make facebook.com redirect to 127.0.0.1. That lasted for a few minutes.
I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…
>> "my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know" WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?
I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof)
If you only add real friends, there's too much signal and not enough noise to cover it up. This is in line with using tor and using fake locations that change frequently.
I have some interesting anecdotes to share about a somewhat opposite situation. I, uh, I just got a Facebook account. I have actively refused it for a long time, and even now I am very picky about it -- my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know, my location frequently changes and I access it only through Tor because I hate Facebook's privacy policy (or lack of thereof). That being said, I was the last i…
>> "my friends list has a bunch of people I don't even know" WHY? This is consistently one of the biggest complaints about Facebook. I can understand people who've had Facebook since it's early days having this problem but if you just opened your account why did you add people you don't know?
Edit: just to make sure I get my message across the way I want to: I do this because I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the idea, but more importantly because:
a) I hate targeted advertising. If I make a purchase decision, I want to make sure I make it based on actual information, not clever advertising. Avoiding clever advertising is a good way for me not to bump into it.
b) I really think this is wrong. I am a programmer myself, and I think platforms like Facebook are definitely not the way technology should be used. Of course, not all of my friends share the same principles, and I don't want that to be an obstacle; I found this to be a reasonable middle ground.