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Goodbye Facebook

theaboutness.com

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Re: Goodbye Facebook

#81

Post by c3o »

dstein wrote: post #63

What is starting to really irk me about Facebook is how birthdays are handled. It's like the site is basically one big happy birthday wish site. Each day it's somebody else's birthday and all their friends take turns trying to write a somewhat unique birthday wish, like: Friend #1: Happy Birthday! Friend #2: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!! Friend #3: happy b-day! Friend #4: Have a wonderful birthday! And it goes on and on down…

It's not like you don't have control over your participation in this silly ritual... I think automating a meaningless post would be the wrong way to go. I try to write thoughtful, detailed birthday messages for people who really mean something to me, ignore birthday notifications of more casual friends and temporarily hide my own birthday when it's getting close to prevent the avalanche of hollow wishes.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#82

Post by kissickas »

philwelch wrote: post #55
jbondeson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're repeating the exact same thing to a dozen different friends I'm going to assume that you (or they) are not engaged by the news -- which is what I call "life trivia." Most of what I see on twitter is this trivia, "I refinished my floors," "I bought an iPad." Would you normally go out of your way to talk about this to anyone who didn't ask "What did you do this weekend?" Probably not, so why do you feel the n…

From personal experience, "I just graduated, got a new job, and moved to Seattle" and "my mom died" both count as "life trivia". Haven't really heard anyone come up with a new take on either of those subjects yet.

I still think new information can be created through conversations regarding those subjects better than it can be through facebook. Speaking with someone about your mom dying is bound to be more consoling than having someone comment "My condolences! What a great person" and- hopefully not- "4 people liked this."

Likewise, people will ask interesting questions if you tell them you're moving to a new place, maybe helpful things you wouldn't think of yourself, or just an outside perspective which would be impossible in a change as large as a career change + move. What would your facebook friends contribute? "~Seahawks, represent!~"?

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#83

Post by smoyer »

muppetman wrote: post #76
smoyer wrote: post #3

Wow ... that makes me want to sign up with Facebook just so I can join the "delete my account" club.

Thank you! Why is it suddenly such a big thing to delete your Facebook account. Every week it seems like there's another one of these on the frontpage and that means people are voting them there. I'd really like to understand why that is? Everyone commenting here and on the blog post make out like it's such a huge deal. Really? Is it? Imagine if I wrote up a big "I closed my MySpace account" post. I'd be laughed out…

I always warn my kids that sarcasm (our family's primary humor) doesn't translate to the Internet, but you obviously heard it in my voice.

I'm not a Facebook hater or a Facebook fan ... plenty of my friends are there, but there are hundreds of other ways to keep in touch with them (Jabber is everywhere). In any case, Facebook and to a large degree GMail are just not relevant for me. If they weren't there, or I felt compelled to abandon them for some reason, I wouldn't have a problem finding another way to contact them.

So let's recognize that Facebook, Google and even Microsoft are young in comparisons to the average human's life-span. And when the next big thing comes along, we'll embrace it until temporarily too.

One big caveat ... these companies build up customer good-will over longer or shorter periods of time and can persist until that reservoir is run dry. With a little care, that good-will can last a long time, so I'm not saying that Microsoft is in any danger as a company. But I do think they're past their heyday and will have to reduce their margins to keep business.

Anyway, we're so conditioned to sign-up for a service at the drop of a hat that these services become "cheap" to us. They didn't cost us anything and they don't cost much to throw away. Look at the number of people who signed up for Hipster without knowing what it is. I think everything you've written is true EXCEPT, I suspect it's more common for users to simply abandon an account without closing it. I'd love to know what Facebook's churn is.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#84

Post by ecounysis »

seanalltogether wrote: post #10

I don't believe that facebook is the technological fad that tech pundits want them to be. They have infected the infrastructure of the web in ways that livejournal and myspace never could.

I love your use of the word "infected" to describe this.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#85

Post by zipdog »

jbondeson wrote: post #46
rewind wrote: post #19

I find it humorous that there is such a need to DEFINE Facebook. It's different things to different people. We really don't need one definition of what it is or a nice tidy list of the ways people use it, what the benefits are, what the drawbacks are, etc. Every time I read about somebody complaining about Facebook, I usually just end up thinking "I don't use it (exactly) that way, so this doesn't (completely) apply…

Oddly enough I have the exact opposite take on it. My wife and I both don't have Facebook accounts, and while most of my friends also do not have accounts, many of my wife's friends do. These friends live in the same state as us, and while we don't live in the same city we still manage to get together frequently. In the last few years we have noticed quite the trend: everyone of these people on Facebook would do a do…

Interesting point. I was reading a sociologist (Simmel) talk about the rise of individualism leading to the abstraction of other people: coming to think of them as all just 'friends' rather than seperate individuals we relate to differently.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#87

Post by adrianwaj »

Sandman wrote: post #53
sudont wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so I did the same thing as you (delete facebook), but you're wrong in thinking that you're not anti-social by avoiding Facebook. Antisocial behavior is defined as " behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society " Because literally everyone else in your social circle is on Facebook, you're actually forcing them to go out of their way to interact with you, something that fits th…

Ok, I don't have a Facebook account nor have I ever had one. I never felt that I need it. My friends (those that I truly consider to be my friends) have my phone number and they can call me any time, either to ask me to meet them in person, discuss something they want to discuss with me, or just chat. So, what, I'm forcing my poor friends to, heaven forbid, go through all that trouble of dialing my number just to get…

Facebook befriending = please don't forget about me.

Real friending: Facebook befriending agnostic.

Conclusion: without FB you know who your friends are. With FB, you know who your friends are, or are not: because you are reminded every time you look. And who needs that?

Why people resent Facebook: it has mangled the definition of friend and warped the ground of relating.

My way of relating to Facebook: give it as little energy as possible (have a minimal presence.) I'm not on it to make new friends, or improve relationships: mainly to keep the status quo. It's for sharing photos, sending messages and basic interaction. It's not for deep communion.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#88

Post by jacquesm »

ergo98 wrote: post #74
kunjaan wrote: post #32

Does anyone else avoid Facebook because they themselves suck as person? I don't use FB because the activities on it are things I am better off not doing. I felt strange doing anything on it because I felt people were judging me. It was like I had developed this persona of an educated and successful and fun person when I was on it because I hadn't made any new "friends" since beginning grad school and I was so stresse…

After letting a profile languish for some time, I got pulled onto Facebook by people who insisted upon messaging me via Facebook rather than via email. I quit and deleted the account, however, when the demands of reciprocity got not only too time consuming, but too transparent and formulaic to participate in without feeling almost ridiculous. It is tangentially related to a scene from Fight Club- Narrator: When peopl…

The real life equivalent of this for me is Christmas cards.

I never send them, but I receive piles of them every year. It's really not nice of me but I stuff them in the paper bin unless they're from close family or home made and not printed.

When it's mid summer though I tend to drop in on people just to say hi and ask how they're doing, I prefer to do that than to send a Christmas card just because 'it's the social thing to do', I don't feel as though I'm obliged to return the favor and the facebook 'demands of reciprocity' I can do without just as well.

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#89

Post by drndown2007 »

philwelch wrote: post #51
jbondeson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough I have the exact opposite take on it. My wife and I both don't have Facebook accounts, and while most of my friends also do not have accounts, many of my wife's friends do. These friends live in the same state as us, and while we don't live in the same city we still manage to get together frequently. In the last few years we have noticed quite the trend: everyone of these people on Facebook would do a do…

Personally, it gets tiresome to have the exact same conversation, individually, with a dozen different friends. There's no "soul", for me, in repeating virtually the same scripted interaction over and over again when I can just inform everyone all at once and get it over with. If I'm talking to you, I want to have a conversation that actually pertains to our unique set of mutual interests. I honestly think of things…

BUT when you just throw it up on the wall, you have no idea if anyone read it. And chances are, most of them didn't (didn't check in regularly enough, or they did check in, but your post wasn't one of the top 10 that was put on their page, etc).

So did you really tell anyone?

Re: Goodbye Facebook

#90

Post by Qz »

kunjaan wrote: post #32

Does anyone else avoid Facebook because they themselves suck as person? I don't use FB because the activities on it are things I am better off not doing. I felt strange doing anything on it because I felt people were judging me. It was like I had developed this persona of an educated and successful and fun person when I was on it because I hadn't made any new "friends" since beginning grad school and I was so stresse…

I only go on facebook to confirm friend requests when people start bugging me about it in real life. I haven't deleted my account, but I might in the near future (or might not). I have never met anyone through facebook and I think that in all the time I've used it (not a lot compared to most Americans my age), I never accomplished anything productive whatsoever. I get more value out of watching re-runs of Law and Order.
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