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Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

nautil.us

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Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#91

Post by freyir »

rayiner wrote: post #82
Spooky23 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is giving you the illusion of having relationships and appeals to some nostalgic programming in our brains. I have a once close friend who moved out to Oregon from the east coast. I talk to him every two years when somebody dies at home. Knowing that his kid won the pinewood derby doesn’t give us anything more in common.

What is an "illusion of a relationship?" If you think of someone and appreciate the little bit of their life story they shared on Facebook, is that an illusion? After all, that's what relationships in real life are built on as well: telling each other what happened at work, about that new restaurant you went to, the joke you heard, the stupid thing your kid did. Facebook is a pretty good vehicle for doing those thing…

> If you think of someone and appreciate the little bit of their life story they shared on Facebook, is that an illusion?

Whatever it is, it’s not a substitute for real two-way interaction. Meaningful relationships don't survive on impersonal status updates broadcast to a general audience.

If it involves communication back and forth (e.g. telling each other what happened at work) that’s something. If it’s scrolling passively through status updates or photos, or posting updates on yourself to nobody in particular, it’s junk food.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#92

Post by sp527 »

2-4-Flinching wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use a combination of Google Hangouts, email, and just plain old phone calls to keep up to date with their lives. I share photos daily, via google photos, directly to those that I want to see them. And my family, who happen to use Facebook, know to send me photos using other methods. This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively.

> This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively. If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Inconvenience is when they don't care enough to keep in contact with you. While in a perfect world everyone would accept your impose line of communication, in your case Facebook, everyones preference is different.

I’d add that the relationships where you’re willing to go the extra distance are the only ones that matter. Quality not quantity.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#93

Post by CorpOverreach »

Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

> Also if you think “hey I can’t go to church they don’t believe in XYZ”

What if that "XYZ" is the god that the church believes in? Or no god at all? I really wish there was an alternative to "go to church", because I do agree with you on the community aspect. To me it's just a shame that probably the most efficient way of connecting with people is still via religious beliefs.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#94

Post by deletefb »

freyir wrote: post #91
rayiner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is an "illusion of a relationship?" If you think of someone and appreciate the little bit of their life story they shared on Facebook, is that an illusion? After all, that's what relationships in real life are built on as well: telling each other what happened at work, about that new restaurant you went to, the joke you heard, the stupid thing your kid did. Facebook is a pretty good vehicle for doing those thing…

> If you think of someone and appreciate the little bit of their life story they shared on Facebook, is that an illusion? Whatever it is, it’s not a substitute for real two-way interaction. Meaningful relationships don't survive on impersonal status updates broadcast to a general audience. If it involves communication back and forth (e.g. telling each other what happened at work) that’s something. If it’s scrolling p…

I agree. If you just want to keep tabs on people, that’s what Christmas cards or family newsletters are for.

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#96

Post by kiriakasis »

sp527 wrote: post #92
2-4-Flinching wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively. If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Inconvenience is when they don't care enough to keep in contact with you. While in a perfect world everyone would accept your impose line of communication, in your case Facebook, everyones preference is different.

I’d add that the relationships where you’re willing to go the extra distance are the only ones that matter. Quality not quantity.

so... you could also be the one to go the extra mile and use facebook...

don't misunderstand i log in about once a month but because i have other platform (and because i'm terrible at keeping in touch), but other than political or idelogical reasons why not use it for your family convenience?

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#97

Post by kiriakasis »

2-4-Flinching wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use a combination of Google Hangouts, email, and just plain old phone calls to keep up to date with their lives. I share photos daily, via google photos, directly to those that I want to see them. And my family, who happen to use Facebook, know to send me photos using other methods. This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively.

> This seems like an inconvenience you impose on everyone else to do things Facebook handles natively. If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Inconvenience is when they don't care enough to keep in contact with you. While in a perfect world everyone would accept your impose line of communication, in your case Facebook, everyones preference is different.

So you should be available on (within many limits) all platforms. For somebody _not_ using facebook could be alienating.

Moreover there is a great difference in motivations and convenience; facebook is convenient for many people as a fact and there is nothing wrong with keeping contacts with acquaitances

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#98

Post by Top19 »

CorpOverreach wrote: post #93
Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

> Also if you think “hey I can’t go to church they don’t believe in XYZ” What if that "XYZ" is the god that the church believes in? Or no god at all? I really wish there was an alternative to "go to church", because I do agree with you on the community aspect. To me it's just a shame that probably the most efficient way of connecting with people is still via religious beliefs.

There is an old joke that Wikipedia doesn’t work in theory but it does in reality. In the same way, Church’s don’t make a lot of sense but they’ve worked for thousands of years. I kind of think of it as a thing like the family, which also doesn’t make sense in some regards, but it’s proven its “value”. I hate using that argument because you could argue for a lot of stupid things that way, but it’s one way of looking at the situation.

Also I noticed you used the word “efficient”. What if meeting people is supposed to be inefficient, what if “efficiency” in meeting people is the worst possible thing to “optimize” for. Sometimes when meeting people is slow, when you’re forced to get along because “oh man this guy goes to the same church and could tell on me if I’m rude and whatever he’s the most interesting person I’ve met so far” you force yourself to discover better understandings and deeper connections with people. Maybe that in the end is what religion is about.

EDIT: Also something beautiful about being connected to the humans of thousands of years ago and doing similar rituals as them. The connection to human ancestry, sometimes more so than god, is another beautiful thing about religion. Even among the Chinese, which is not a very theistic society, this is noted in their traditions of ancestor shrines and worship

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#99

Post by billysbeanes »

wutbrodo wrote: post #85
rayiner wrote: post #42

These articles ignore people’s real alternatives. I’m in my 30s and have a small child. While I love to fly into Chicago or New York for a night of drinking with my still-single friends, that’s not really something I get to do more than once every couple of months. Seeing my wife’s extended family (3,000 miles away in the west coast) is a once every year thing, and seeing my extended family (7,000 miles away in Asia)…

Yea, I can't really understand why all the complaints about Facebook are so maximalizing. I feel like the authors of all these hitpieces are personally unable to engage in healthy, limited usage of it, so they cast it as as some universal evil that every person is powerless to resist. I got Facebook in 2006, when it was only college kids (and some high school kids), and my usage throughout college was 99% photo shari…

> I feel like the authors of all these hitpieces are personally unable to engage in healthy, limited usage of it, so they cast it as as some universal evil that every person is powerless to resist.

I can smoke cigarettes responsibly. One every few weeks, which I have researched and believe does not negatively impact my health. In fact, it provides a moment of stress relief that outweighs possible negatives.

How do you feel about cigarette legislation? They've never pointed a gun and forced people to smoke. (Which, by the way, is an awful metric for whether something should be banned. Except for gun pointing.)

Re: Facebook Is the Junk Food of Socializing (2015)

#100

Post by babygoat »

Top19 wrote: post #87

Suggestion: go to church. It’s a built in community of people who are likely there because of ritual and tradition (am Catholic) and do not care about talking about startups or entrepreneurship (a breathtaking relief sometimes). Church and religion has gotten a lot well-justified complaints over the years, but by liberal and moderately-conservative people abandoning it in droves, it only made it more conservative and…

What if I can’t go to church because I can’t forgive them for protecting priests who raped children? How did you get past that?
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