6 ms·

Not working for Facebook, but while their business is an advertising engine, let's not pretend they do not offer something else to their users. Social media has

by netrus 9y ago

Not working for Facebook, but while their business is an advertising engine, let's not pretend they do not offer something else to their users. Social media has changed the way our society works, how families, politics and friendships work, and Facebook played a big part in that. Maybe that's all just a byproduct, but that does not mean it is not an substantial contribution to society. Tesla is cool and does an important job, but it's not like they are the only people moving us forward.

icantdrive55 9y ago
I understand how FB changed certain societies, but what worth did it give to Americans? I'm being completely honest. I signed up years ago looking for the one who didn't want me. The perfect person I pined for in my twenties. That's the only reason. I found her, and she had 439 friends. Fishing for compliments. Just someone I didn't recognize--on so many levels. Maybe, the worth was I finally stopped thinking about her? Other than that--I'm not sure what it provides. I'm older, so maybe that's what's wrong?
bamboozled 9y ago
Just because they've changed something, doesn't mean it's positive as your making out. Secondly, I've seen engineers running around with Facebook shirts on with the slogan "Connect the world" written on them, I would find it irritating if I couldn't see the irony in it, instead I just find it funny. There is a lot of cognitive bias happening with people working there. They wave big money carrots to keep staff and I feel for some people it's a way of validating their ability, so they stay no matter what impact the product is having on society, even if they don't agree with it inside.
danieldk 9y ago
Social media has changed the way our society works, how families, politics and friendships work, and Facebook played a big part in that. The problem is that we do not know what we would have gotten instead. Before Facebook (et al.) became big, more of my regular friends/family were on Jabber/XMPP. People were creating blogs that were not locked in a silo (Wordpress and Blogger were quite usable for non-experts). Etc.
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Ah I remember the days of AIM/ICQ/LiveJournal. I actually was connected more to my friends and even made a lot of serendiptious friendships with people halfway around the world. Now with facebook, I lost touch with people who refuse to be on FB(privacy concerns). And forget about making friends with strangers on Facebook (gasp!)
- danso 9y ago
  Back before Facebook, people were using MySpace, and relatively few of my non-techie friends were using LiveJournal and Xanga to create their own independent blogs, though I imagine today's equivalent is Tumblr. Neither of those are particularly "independent". I don't think a lot of normal people would've gotten into Wordpress or Blogger, though AIM was quite popular at the time.
- danipp 9y ago
  I was just planning a road trip and googling around for blog posts. Could not find a single blog link on the first 3 pages Google returned. It was just one travel ratingsite/aggregator after another. Sad state of affairs.
  - sdoering 9y ago
    And if you would have found a blog the probability would have been high that reviews would have been bought or were at least sprinkled with affiliate links.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    Indeed. A lot of research has become impossible. We were in the market for a car. And when you want to Google technical details, you have to wade through pages of useless aggregators. Slightly offtopic: we found that checking out Geocaches in an area on the Geocaching website is a pretty good way of finding interesting spots/places. Especially highly-rated caches and Earth caches.
jacquesm 9y ago
> Social media has changed the way our society works Change is not positive per-se. It can be just as easily negative. I had a Facebook account for exactly two weeks and realized this wasn't an improvement over what I already had. I much prefer quality over quantity when it comes to personal relationships and Facebook really does not satisfy that for me. Besides them being absolutely creepy about the way they position themselves and use the mountains of data they gather about people. On top of that Zuckerberg seems a thoroughly despicable person which doesn't help in trusting the company that he leads.
- dosgonlogs 9y ago
  Eric Schmidt makes Zuckerberg look like the idealized version of Mother Teresa.
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
I would say a substantial effect, but would not consider it a "contribution". Livestreaming a murder is not progress.
dosgonlogs 9y ago
Google is just as evil as Facebook, but they are more of a Tech darling (unless you have worked at both, Facebook just completely blows Google out of the water as a nicer place to work)
ithinkinstereo 9y ago
Facebook is the new Goldman, the new McKinsey. Collectively, they're robbing the greatest minds of my generation in the pursuit of totally trivial, but profitable, goals.

by netrus 9y ago

icantdrive55 9y ago

I understand how FB changed certain societies, but what worth did it give to Americans? I'm being completely honest. I signed up years ago looking for the one who didn't want me. The perfect person I pined for in my twenties. That's the only reason. I found her, and she had 439 friends. Fishing for compliments. Just someone I didn't recognize--on so many levels. Maybe, the worth was I finally stopped thinking about her? Other than that--I'm not sure what it provides. I'm older, so maybe that's what's wrong?

bamboozled 9y ago

Just because they've changed something, doesn't mean it's positive as your making out. Secondly, I've seen engineers running around with Facebook shirts on with the slogan "Connect the world" written on them, I would find it irritating if I couldn't see the irony in it, instead I just find it funny. There is a lot of cognitive bias happening with people working there. They wave big money carrots to keep staff and I feel for some people it's a way of validating their ability, so they stay no matter what impact the product is having on society, even if they don't agree with it inside.

danieldk 9y ago

Social media has changed the way our society works, how families, politics and friendships work, and Facebook played a big part in that. The problem is that we do not know what we would have gotten instead. Before Facebook (et al.) became big, more of my regular friends/family were on Jabber/XMPP. People were creating blogs that were not locked in a silo (Wordpress and Blogger were quite usable for non-experts). Etc.

AznHisoka 9y ago
Ah I remember the days of AIM/ICQ/LiveJournal. I actually was connected more to my friends and even made a lot of serendiptious friendships with people halfway around the world. Now with facebook, I lost touch with people who refuse to be on FB(privacy concerns). And forget about making friends with strangers on Facebook (gasp!)
danso 9y ago
Back before Facebook, people were using MySpace, and relatively few of my non-techie friends were using LiveJournal and Xanga to create their own independent blogs, though I imagine today's equivalent is Tumblr. Neither of those are particularly "independent". I don't think a lot of normal people would've gotten into Wordpress or Blogger, though AIM was quite popular at the time.
danipp 9y ago
I was just planning a road trip and googling around for blog posts. Could not find a single blog link on the first 3 pages Google returned. It was just one travel ratingsite/aggregator after another. Sad state of affairs.
- sdoering 9y ago
  And if you would have found a blog the probability would have been high that reviews would have been bought or were at least sprinkled with affiliate links.
- danieldk 9y ago
  Indeed. A lot of research has become impossible. We were in the market for a car. And when you want to Google technical details, you have to wade through pages of useless aggregators. Slightly offtopic: we found that checking out Geocaches in an area on the Geocaching website is a pretty good way of finding interesting spots/places. Especially highly-rated caches and Earth caches.

jacquesm 9y ago

> Social media has changed the way our society works Change is not positive per-se. It can be just as easily negative. I had a Facebook account for exactly two weeks and realized this wasn't an improvement over what I already had. I much prefer quality over quantity when it comes to personal relationships and Facebook really does not satisfy that for me. Besides them being absolutely creepy about the way they position themselves and use the mountains of data they gather about people. On top of that Zuckerberg seems a thoroughly despicable person which doesn't help in trusting the company that he leads.

dosgonlogs 9y ago
Eric Schmidt makes Zuckerberg look like the idealized version of Mother Teresa.

gm-conspiracy 9y ago

I would say a substantial effect, but would not consider it a "contribution". Livestreaming a murder is not progress.

dosgonlogs 9y ago

Google is just as evil as Facebook, but they are more of a Tech darling (unless you have worked at both, Facebook just completely blows Google out of the water as a nicer place to work)

ithinkinstereo 9y ago

Facebook is the new Goldman, the new McKinsey. Collectively, they're robbing the greatest minds of my generation in the pursuit of totally trivial, but profitable, goals.