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Facebook encourages a lower level of discourse than other message systems, somehow. I participate in a couple of groups which have come to replace older forums

Facebook encourages a lower level of discourse than other message systems, somehow. I participate in a couple of groups which have come to replace older forums running PHPbb or VBulletin type software. While the old style forums offer too many features and almost excessive permanence for discussions, Facebook offers too little in that regard. Conversations are not meant to be searchable, archived, permanent, or long or detailed. Unlike VBulletin, where it's easy to find a post you saw 3 days ago or all the posts you've made in a forum, on Facebook everything effectively disappears after a week or two. The content is still there, just very disorganized and difficult to access. Search is inconsistent and very basic for groups. Most significant is the impact this has on the discussions that take place. On the old forums, posting seemed like a bigger deal and people rarely posted one word responses or sentence fragments. The FB format seems to encourage that. Long, detailed responses about technical matters are difficult to post and read, so people don't post them as often. Discussions are often repeated because nobody can really find the last one to link to it.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ljf 9y ago
This - I think this also extends to the conversations people have 'on' facebook - even with friends. You end up liking or saying 'cool' to a post, but you don't really have any real interaction. Since I've left facebook (nearly 9 months sober) I've probably talked with fewer friends, but those friends I have spoken to, I've spoken to on a far deeper level. and many of them I now actually _speak_ to more often. Uninstalling messenger was hard at first, as some people I don't have a number for or they aren't on Whatsapp, but you either find other ways to keep in touch, or you realise that you were actually just on the periphery of each others lives, and liking that they got a new car or similar didn't actually have a positive impact on each others lives. And when you do meet again, you'll have a bunch to talk about. I've debated making a 'fake' account for facebook groups (esp local sales groups, which seem far better served on fb in my area) but so far I've come the the conclusion that I don't really need to buy more crap from strangers - I have enough of my own already.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ljf 9y ago

This - I think this also extends to the conversations people have 'on' facebook - even with friends. You end up liking or saying 'cool' to a post, but you don't really have any real interaction. Since I've left facebook (nearly 9 months sober) I've probably talked with fewer friends, but those friends I have spoken to, I've spoken to on a far deeper level. and many of them I now actually _speak_ to more often. Uninstalling messenger was hard at first, as some people I don't have a number for or they aren't on Whatsapp, but you either find other ways to keep in touch, or you realise that you were actually just on the periphery of each others lives, and liking that they got a new car or similar didn't actually have a positive impact on each others lives. And when you do meet again, you'll have a bunch to talk about. I've debated making a 'fake' account for facebook groups (esp local sales groups, which seem far better served on fb in my area) but so far I've come the the conclusion that I don't really need to buy more crap from strangers - I have enough of my own already.