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Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

economist.com

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Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#121

Post by derwiki »

aylons wrote: post #6
keiferski wrote: post #4

Well that's funny, considering that I constantly meet cool people in person and then add them on Facebook to keep in touch. The constant "Facebook is evil" makes no sense to me, as it's the easiest way to keep in touch with a wide variety of people around the world. If I deleted my Facebook, I'd lose touch with dozens of people worldwide. Could I email them? Sure, but that's broken and impersonal.

I think the problem relies on getting curated updates of other people's lives through Facebook. It gives a very biased impression on how life should be.

I just made a Chrome extension to turn off Newfeed, partially inspired by this thread: https://github.com/derwiki/NoNewsIsGoodNews

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#122

Post by westicle »

throwmeaway33 wrote: post #106
westicle wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're joking to make a point. Japan and Germany aren't "modern" societies? And now you're just shifting the goalposts. You never mentioned anything about democracy in the grandparent post. I would also note that Germany is democratic.

I guess I don't understand your argument; I said: "No advanced society (past a certain GDP) has slipped back into tyranny" I bring up Japan and Germany. I assumed you were not talking about modern Japan and Germany, and you were referring to WW2 Japan and Germany. Japan was a monarchy that turned into some kind of fascist monarchic bureaucracy and Germany was a failed state that turned fascist. Neither represent a mo…

Because unless they're democratic, they're no true Scotsman right?

I guess my problem is that whenever examples are provided which contradict the model as you proposed it you decide to "clarify" the definitions so as to exclude those examples. Maybe that's the argument you originally intended to make, but it's not actually what you said.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#123

Post by dsuth »

Theodores wrote: post #113
dsuth wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the only use for Facebook, although sadly I think a lot of people view it that way. Social media is a great way to find out about new things which have been vetted by your social network, meaning you're much more likely to enjoy them. It's like a curated stream of Things of Potential Interest that you can peruse at your leisure. The social interaction side of things can be very positive when you feel like…

I think the opposite is true. Girlfriend uses Facebook (I do not). When she says 'got to see this...' I ask if it is on Facebook, and, if so, decline being interrupted to look at whatever it is. As for 'this is really funny!' my response 'is this another Facebook joke?' is how I am able to filter out the lame humour - if it is on Facebook it is rubbish humour, simple as.

To you, perhaps, but I suspect your social circle and group/interest pages would be significantly different to your girlfriends.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#124

Post by salmonellaeater »

threeseed wrote: post #40
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 i…

I thought the list was intended as a joke, a sort of master list of things everyone complains about. It also seems like all of the gripes are basically "I want to do something and I don't want certain people to know about it." In other words, privacy. With Mark Zuckerberg running the company (with his public disdain for privacy), are any of these gripes surprising?

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#125

Post by agumonkey »

qu4z-2 wrote: post #98
agumonkey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know if this is up your alley, but have you looked into the aesthetic called 'wabi-sabi'?

Never heard the term. Very interesting, except that now I think what we call imperfection is just lack of depth in perception from us, kinda like old music theory that rejected some harmonies, with time you grow to see beauty even in the 'weird and broken'. Thanks for the link.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#126

Post by dclowd9901 »

threeseed wrote: post #40
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 i…

I suppose I'm the only one who read that diatribe with a bit of sardonic whimsy mixed into it?

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#127

Post by mccloy »

I'm no huge fan of facebook.

But I'm less a fan of 'news' articles with sensational headlines that boil down to "The way it was was good, so new stuff must be bad." It's not hard to imagine (or find) similar articles about basically anything that's new and popular, especially when it happens to be popular with 'young' people.

It seems to me that this article plays on the fact that most people prefer established norms over change, and most people glorify "how things were" in relation to "how things are". There's very little meaningful here, only link-bait.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#128

Post by [deleted] »

samstave wrote: post #120
danneu wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to be hostile. I switched the pronouns to the first-person plural.

You may not be trying to be hostile, however below are the direct bullet points you make in your post. Can you read how these would be used as descriptors to ones aversion to Facebook WITHOUT being considered "hostile" evaluations. Not to mention they are UTTER assumptions on your part as to _WHY_ someone is against Facebook. * inventory of our own self-limiting beliefs [1] * bitterness [2] * narcissism [3] * unmasks…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#129

Post by samstave »

[deleted] wrote: post #128
samstave wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not be trying to be hostile, however below are the direct bullet points you make in your post. Can you read how these would be used as descriptors to ones aversion to Facebook WITHOUT being considered "hostile" evaluations. Not to mention they are UTTER assumptions on your part as to _WHY_ someone is against Facebook. * inventory of our own self-limiting beliefs [1] * bitterness [2] * narcissism [3] * unmasks…

[deleted]

I was really trying to prevent my comment from being hostile and focus on the language of the OP....

I apologize for being hostile.

Re: Facebook is bad for you: Get a life

#130

Post by oblique63 »

samstave wrote: post #129
[deleted] wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I was really trying to prevent my comment from being hostile and focus on the language of the OP.... I apologize for being hostile.

Whoops, I deleted my comment thinking it was pointless, but glad there's some agreement.

Here's what I posted for the record:

My oh my, now that was hostile.

I'm not a facebook fan, and I tend to agree with a lot of the arguments against it, but I think the OP was pointing out a crucial component of this dynamic: Facebook can be a total amplifier to your insecurities if you let it.

I know Facebook makes me insecure, despite not being so in my 'real' day-to-day life, so I don't use it unless I need to get a hold of somebody. I don't like staring at snippets of acquaintances' idealized/polished versions of themselves because it makes me question my own path, but I find it to be too much of a chore to tweak and adjust my feed/settings to try and eliminate that feeling; especially when the benefit I'd gain isn't gonna outweigh the time I'd lose (for me). So what do I do? I step away from it, but I'm honest with myself about why I did that.

There isn't much about Facebook that's obviously or inherently bad (privacy concerns aside for a minute), but I think that has more to do with how new such networking effects are to society. Are such social networks really healthy to our psyche long term? Who knows, but that may be what we're seeing symptoms of here.

OP's right that it seems it's because of insecurities that people don't like Facebook. What isn't so clear, is whether or not that amplifying effect it can have is healthy for some people. I think some people thrive on it and others just don't, so the problem is probably trying to argue that either side is 'right'.

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