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I think the point of his/her post is to show that from his/her perspective, the "connection" you get to friends and family via facebook isn't valuable. Although

by sonnyz 9y ago

I think the point of his/her post is to show that from his/her perspective, the "connection" you get to friends and family via facebook isn't valuable. Although it may be to some, it isn't to everyone. I have to agree, as someone that quit many years ago and hasn't looked back since. I still communicate with my long distance relatives, just not publicly. 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 way, I only get information/photos that is meant for me to see. Not just every day stuff that's going on in everyone's life. To me, that's not important to my relationships, and is really a waste of my time that I can be using with my family in my house. The interactions I do share, though, is extremely important to me.

rayiner 9y ago
> 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.
- 2-4-Flinching 9y ago
  > 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.
  - sp527 9y ago
    I’d add that the relationships where you’re willing to go the extra distance are the only ones that matter. Quality not quantity.
    - kiriakasis 9y ago
      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?
      - mdorazio 9y ago
        I think you've kind of missed the point the posters above are making. Facebook is impersonal. That's why it's convenient - it takes no effort whatsoever to share everything with everyone. As a result, the value of shared information to people who care about quality relationships is much lower than if two people deliberately communicate with only each other about something. Put another way, if your family/friends can't be bothered to actually communicate with you one-on-one about things in their lives because it's less convenient than posting to everyone, then those relationships must not be very valuable. To those of us who care about maintaining quality relationships, convenience is a non-factor. I would much rather have lunch with a friend a few times a year than read their stream-of-life facebook posts on any kind of regular basis, even though the former is several orders of magnitude less convenient.
  - kiriakasis 9y ago
    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
  - Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
    > If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Yes, but isn't it a bit ironic to say you don't use Facebook because it wastes your time, and then expect others to spend extra time communicating with you?
    - sonnyz 9y ago
      Maybe it is, but I'm sure that in my case, they enjoy the extra time they spend communicating with me.
- bitexploder 9y ago
  I have learned I just don't need to live social life with distant relatives and friends every day. The important things filter to the surface of your life as do the important people. I get more value out of a longer email or a 15 minute phone call than a bunch of shallow interactions on Facebook. I suspect over time we will learn that Facebook and the like is actually poor at maintaining social relationships in a meaningful way. It seems like it works but I maintain my social network dine without it. And yes I am fine having far fewer, but quality interactions. I don't think I impose any cost on my friends and family. If we can't chat once in a while via voice or video we just aren't that important....
  - rayiner 9y ago
    There isn’t some set number of relationships you can have such that you’ve got to pick out the “important” ones.
    - bitexploder 9y ago
      I think in a philosophical sense that is true. However, our wetware is just wired to keep about 100 fellow people close. More than that and relationships seem to become very superficial. Most people only maintain a very small number of close relationships. Those are the "important" ones. Importance is sort of decided naturally, though.
      - jjeaff 9y ago
        100 seems high. I have heard it's more like 12 to 15.
        arvin 9y ago
        I think bitexploder is referring to the "Dunbar's number" which is 150. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number From the wiki: Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships.

by sonnyz 9y ago

rayiner 9y ago

> 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.

2-4-Flinching 9y ago
> 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.
- sp527 9y ago
  I’d add that the relationships where you’re willing to go the extra distance are the only ones that matter. Quality not quantity.
  - kiriakasis 9y ago
    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?
    - mdorazio 9y ago
      I think you've kind of missed the point the posters above are making. Facebook is impersonal. That's why it's convenient - it takes no effort whatsoever to share everything with everyone. As a result, the value of shared information to people who care about quality relationships is much lower than if two people deliberately communicate with only each other about something. Put another way, if your family/friends can't be bothered to actually communicate with you one-on-one about things in their lives because it's less convenient than posting to everyone, then those relationships must not be very valuable. To those of us who care about maintaining quality relationships, convenience is a non-factor. I would much rather have lunch with a friend a few times a year than read their stream-of-life facebook posts on any kind of regular basis, even though the former is several orders of magnitude less convenient.
- kiriakasis 9y ago
  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
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
  > If you're important to them, then people will do whatever they need to keep in touch with you. Yes, but isn't it a bit ironic to say you don't use Facebook because it wastes your time, and then expect others to spend extra time communicating with you?
  - sonnyz 9y ago
    Maybe it is, but I'm sure that in my case, they enjoy the extra time they spend communicating with me.
bitexploder 9y ago
I have learned I just don't need to live social life with distant relatives and friends every day. The important things filter to the surface of your life as do the important people. I get more value out of a longer email or a 15 minute phone call than a bunch of shallow interactions on Facebook. I suspect over time we will learn that Facebook and the like is actually poor at maintaining social relationships in a meaningful way. It seems like it works but I maintain my social network dine without it. And yes I am fine having far fewer, but quality interactions. I don't think I impose any cost on my friends and family. If we can't chat once in a while via voice or video we just aren't that important....
- rayiner 9y ago
  There isn’t some set number of relationships you can have such that you’ve got to pick out the “important” ones.
  - bitexploder 9y ago
    I think in a philosophical sense that is true. However, our wetware is just wired to keep about 100 fellow people close. More than that and relationships seem to become very superficial. Most people only maintain a very small number of close relationships. Those are the "important" ones. Importance is sort of decided naturally, though.
    - jjeaff 9y ago
      100 seems high. I have heard it's more like 12 to 15.
      - arvin 9y ago
        I think bitexploder is referring to the "Dunbar's number" which is 150. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number From the wiki: Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships.