What do you think of Facebook?

I am torn on the issue now. I like a lot of people who are way into Facebook, so please don't get offended by this post. Different strokes for different folks. I am just going to say what my strokes are and get an idea of what others here think. I sure as Hell don't want to leave this post on Facebook. If Facebook is your life, don't read this. I am in a state of nausea right now, and I am in a mood to go off and get feedback so maybe my nausea will go away and I will keep my account. Maybe.

At first, I thought Facebook was the coolest thing ever. I was able to find long lost friends, and long lost friends were able to find me. I am talking about friends from different eras of my life, different cities, different walks of life. I found a place to connect with all of them. I could see recent pictures of them, and we could even have internet conversations in groups. It was like a whole bunch of reunions of different types all at once, and I thought it was so awesome. However, I feel like I have said the hellos I wanted to say, seen the pictures I wanted to see, and done the catching up I wanted to do. Now it disturbs me.

What do I not like about it? Let's see, where do I start? I don't care about what everybody is doing every second, especially the majority of people on my list, people I sort of knew at one time and who just wanted to get their numbers up so they can look like they know SO many people. It's so fake. And what do they say? "Bob just bought shoes." "Melanie is worried about what to cook for dinner." "Al is in a lazy mood." I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!!!!!!!!! STOP TELLING ME THAT!!!!!!! Also, when people want to ask me stuff like what I am doing that weekend or when I can visit them, why in the Hell do they post it on my page where everybody and their mother can read it on their home pages instead of sending me a private message? Would they yell across a bar to ask people that stuff? Then I am put on the spot to answer some little question with everybody listening? It seems like a begging for attention or something. Also, people can post pictures of you without your consent. I can go to the site, and there I am doing something I don't want the world to know about. It seems like every picture of me somebody somebody else has is one where I am wasted out of my mind. I feel rude deleting them, but I keep needing to do it. For a while, my set of pictures made me look like I am Otis the town drunk every day of my life. I'm sure people I haven't seen since high school got the right impression seeing that. It's because alcohol and cameras seem to always be in the same places. And call me a Scrooge, but I don't care about looking at other people's kids' pictures every time I go to the site. Sorry. They're not my kids! Any way, you get the idea.

But like I said, the reunion possibility nature of the site is incredible, and also it's really cool to see posts of stuff like old swim teams in my city and elementary school photographs I never saw and so forth. There are also cool groups dedicated to places from my past, and lots of people who were there, both when I was there and when I wasn't, talk about them. Then again, I have read plenty.

So, what do you think of Facebook?

I've had a Facebook account for over a year, and I just now started "using" it, within the past couple of days.

I look at it like this:

People post their little momentary updates "Bob just got new shoes", because some people care about getting feedback on every little stupid thing that they do. That's their prerogative. Either read it or don't. It doesn't really matter in the long run. I do feel like the whole "posting other people's pictures without their consent" is a bit infringing, but such is the nature of the internet. The best you can do is ask them to take the pics down, or remove them yourself. My stance is not to take sites like Facebook and MySpace too seriously. It shows you how people like to fish for attention, sure, but ultimately, it is what you make of it. I log on, here and there, to keep touch with people that I find worth keeping in touch with. That's it. That's all. There's really nothing much more to it than that, for me.

The reasons you listed are not reasons to hate Facebook. The reasons you listed are reasons to dislike your friends. Your friends have always been that way, expecting commentary for every witty remark and un/interesting food item they eat--Facebook merely provides a staple means to express how they are.

The reasons to stem Facebook mostly stem from its batshit sinister advertising methods, and annoying applications (which are often meshed into one).

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Originally Posted by Oneironaut

I've had a Facebook account for over a year, and I just now started "using" it, within the past couple of days.

I look at it like this:

People post their little momentary updates "Bob just got new shoes", because some people care about getting feedback on every little stupid thing that they do. That's their prerogative. Either read it or don't. It doesn't really matter in the long run. I do feel like the whole "posting other people's pictures without their consent" is a bit infringing, but such is the nature of the internet. The best you can do is ask them to take the pics down, or remove them yourself. My stance is not to take sites like Facebook and MySpace too seriously. It shows you how people like to fish for attention, sure, but ultimately, it is what you make of it. I log on, here and there, to keep touch with people that I find worth keeping in touch with. That's it. That's all. There's really nothing much more to it than that, for me.

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That sounds like a good approach. I have tried to see it that way, but I have had a few experiences that made me sort of ill. Some of the stuff that has appeared on my wall, and therefore our mutual friends' home pages, has been fucked up. It's not the biggest deal ever, though. However, I can see where something could be in the future. I really got that impression after three different people at different times left posts about smart ass comments I have made about religion. Not the place for that sort of thing.

I want to clarify that I do like and respect a lot of the people I described. It's just that what they do is not for me. Also, I see room for good comedy in making fun of Facebook. I think even people who love the site would agree.

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Originally Posted by Abra

The reasons you listed are not reasons to hate Facebook. The reasons you listed are reasons to dislike your friends. Your friends have always been that way, expecting commentary for every witty remark and un/interesting food item they eat--Facebook merely provides a staple means to express how they are.

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Like I said, a big chunk of them are not even my friends. They are people I talked to twice and stuff.

I agree with the OP. The little updates are annoying. I don't think I've written on my own wall ever. I just use it as a MSN type program to talk to some friends. It's also nice when hot chicks from your old highschool add you and you can creep their photo albums :)

I never sign on to Facebook. My sister's practically addicted to it, but I just don't get much fun out of it as her. I update maybe every 2 weeks. xD

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Also, when people want to ask me stuff like what I am doing that weekend or when I can visit them, why in the Hell do they post it on my page where everybody and their mother can read it on their home pages instead of sending me a private message?

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Thank you for addressing the issue. Abra did make it clear that Facebook
only provides the means to do so, and that it's your friends/acquaintances
that choose to use either wall posts or PMs. I've expressed my irritation on
this before to others that use the site, often regarding issues that the whole
world doesn't need to know about.

The status update tool, however, does provide a very easy means of sharing
good videos/music to all friends on your list. I've gotten a few good songs
from others that have wanted to share their little discoveries. I agree that
the "Im still awake lol" posts are ridiculous, but it doesn't kill to read past
them. I believe that the status update feature is also useful for transmitting
convenient news.

Also, your friends may be posting pictures of their children to show other
closer friends of their own, and so on. It's not something that needs to be
shared exclusively to other individuals, so mass uploading into an album is
only another convenience the site has to offer.

I use facebook alot, but not a means to communicate and stay in touch with everybody. Sure it's a plus I can do that, but mostly it's just a way for me to entertain myself (I play alot of FB apps).

I've been weary of ppl stealing my pics and claiming it as their own (have seen it happened multiple times already), so I just change my privacy setting and have limited pics of me viewable to the whole public.

As for the news feed, you can hide them. But yeah, I do agree it can go over the top sometimes. (I'd probably be one of the FBers that would annoy you. My status changes a few times per week at most).

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Originally Posted by TamiDoll

(I'd probably be one of the FBers that would annoy you. My status changes a few times per week at most).

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Well, that's not seven times a day. Also, some of the posts are really interesting. I've gotten involved in a lot of fun dialogues started by statuses.

I use facebook regularly, and I do keep in touch with people. I don't see the random updates as pleas for attention. I see them as the "long distance networking" equivalent of "casual conversation." Cause you don't always talk about ground-breaking shit when you're with your friends at a bar, right? Well, you don't have to talk about ground-breaking shit on facebook either. But hey, those non-ground-breaking conversations are too pointless to have in private, so why not have them in public, and have other people jump in if they want to.

The thing I can't stand is Apps. Why do I have to share my personal information with some entity I don't know if I want to use an app that DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW that information?

So yeah, the things I really can't stand about facebook are:

1) Pointless apps, being invited to pointless apps, and having to release private information to the few apps I might be interested in, even though they've got no business knowing that stuff. And while I'm at it: Fuck Farmville! I don't give a flying tit about the fact that my friend albert grew a field of carrots.

2) The "poke" functionality. Write something, you lazy bum!

3) The fact that I bet the software devs at facebook are totally miserable. The quality of the infrastructure has clearly been going down, with all the outages and brownouts going on as of late. At the same time, they've been doing crazy feature creep and releasing new things before noticing whether the old things were even working at all. I bet the engineers they have working there are thinking, "god danm it, those business assholes better stop, so we can fix our crumbling infrastructure."

.....

But in spite of all that, I think facebook is, overall, pretty awesome. :)

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Well, that's not seven times a day. Also, some of the posts are really interesting. I've gotten involved in a lot of fun dialogues started by statuses.

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Likewise. xD And I stumble upon some pretty interesting links in statuses and pictures FB friends have posted/uploaded. Just gotta weed out the good from the bad.

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Originally Posted by Replicon

Fuck Farmville! I don't give a flying tit about the fact that my friend albert grew a field of carrots.

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aahaha.

yeah facebook can be handy, but you could also go nuts with it.
it's nice to use the im thing to have a quick chat with someone if necessary, the status update can potentially be used for interesting/funny things to share, and it's a good way to get contact information... but otherwise i'd much rather use email or text someone.

i really only have people 'friended' who i actually want to hang out with or try to keep in touch with over a long distance. i can easily 'de-friend' that girlfriend of a friend who i don't ever talk to... no big deal.

but yeah, facebook is another bastard child of the information age, i suppose. and it makes teenage girls seem really unintelligent.

Lol @ the Farmville comment. I only publish app newsfeed when I know the majority of my FB friends will be interested (since they play that app also). But if it's an app rarely any of my friends play, I don't publish it. Don't see the point.

I've got one word: Ugh.
I got tired of it very quickly. Sure, there were some nice pictures, but people kept talking to me. And I had to reply. Not my thing.

I still like Facebook, but most of my friends are actually...well, friends, even if we haven't kept in touch. They're people I know and like, or did at one time, and even if some have taken a sad, needy turn while others are obnoxiously successful and/or fulfilled, I'm happy enough with the glancing contact. It's also been very handy for organizing social events, impromptu or otherwise, and passing news around within and among different circles. Also, like any online community with or without the flesh connection, it kicks out a lot of interesting information if you learn to distinguish the signal from the noise (which sometimes means using the ignore button, more often with apps than with people).

I see Facebook from two (very) different angles. For one, it is a very powerful networking tool, both in finding old friends and in making yourself accessible for them to find, as well as serving as a nice way for future employers to get an idea of what you're like and see current information relating to your work status and history. Among those of us who make their living in various areas of web technologies, this is pretty common.

But at the same time, I see Facebook as a very personal thing, a place where you can share something with a tight-knit group of friends all at once, things you might not want the world at large to know. It is an excellent way of staying in touch with close friends and family that may not necessarily live close. You can share pictures, links, videos, and conversation amongst a group of friends and family, get their feedback on things via comments on your status, and cut up and have fun.

Balancing these two, I think, is the key. I wish it was possible to create groups, then exclude those in said group from receiving your updates or being shown on your wall. There may in fact already be such a feature. Personally, I do use Facebook, and try to do so often. I tend to remember to update and check Facebook every day for a week or two, then slack off for the same; wash, rinse, repeat. The same goes for Twitter (whole 'nother list of pros and cons there), though I really should be updating that more often.