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I deleted Facebook years ago, but so many of my friends have persisted or increased their usage. I think instead of scaring people about privacy you have to fi

I deleted Facebook years ago, but so many of my friends have persisted or increased their usage. I think instead of scaring people about privacy you have to first understand and appreciate the value people get out of Facebook. For me, it's that I can quickly "feel" connected to and get validation from my friends and community. Trying to scare people into giving up something they enjoy doesn't usually work. Instead, we should be helping people realize how they can build connection outside of Facebook. For me, I just gave up on the "did you see on Facebook" conversations with my friends, but not everyone is willing to just abandon a category of shared experiences with friends. The day will come when we see Facebook as a net negative, but I think it's a long way off unfortunately. The number of people leaving Facebook has to increase to a critical mass where "did you see on Facebook" conversations become un-cool.

anonu 8y ago
Call me old school... But what about meeting a friend for a coffee or dinner? And then getting validation that way? Rhetorical questions probably. Because Facebook has reduced all that friction. Being connected and getting validation gives you that same dopamine hit you get from connecting with someone in person...multiple times over.. and you can do it from your smartphone
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  As the world becomes increasingly unbound from geography more people are going to have friends outside of the "lets meet for coffee" radius. I think it's arrogant to the extreme to suggest that people should go back to giving up on their connections just because you've made a judgement about a company's business model or privacy tradeoffs.
  - drdeadringer 8y ago
    To be fair, would you like to have coffee with a friend as a minder sits with you?
  - zaphod4prez 8y ago
    You think it's arrogant in the extreme to argue that we should boycott a company because of its immoral actions? That seems like a very reasonable, non-intrusive thing to do. Further, you assume that "leave Facebook" and "leave social media" mean "give up on your connections [with people far away]". That seems quite silly to me-- I've found that Facebook helps me maintain a few sort of distant-friend/acquaintance connections that I care about, while all my close friends who live far away connect with me by phone. Group text chats or email exchanges are also fun ways to connect that are just as good at doing their job as facebook is.
  - anonu 8y ago
    I'm not suggesting people give up on connections. I'm suggesting that there are better ways to interact with people than on Facebook. They don't necessarily need to be face to face interactions. There are more substantive methods of communication that can leverage technology, without having big brother pick apart your likes and dislikes and advertise to you.
dwild 8y ago
For me Facebook is good for that: Organize/Being part of an events I hate having to contact a dozen people individually to organize an event. It's even harder to do when it's impromptu and details may change quickly. It's not rare that we may organize a party a few day earlier and it would be clearly impossible to gather people opinions that quickly without a single tool. I remember once on a Friday I was bored with a friend and we decided to organize a small gathering between friends, we didn't even had somewhere to do it at that point, we just invited a bunch of people, at the end we were about 8 that was able to do it, one of them could host it at his house and that was it. A party that was organized in a few hours. Facebook doesn't seems a negative for me.

anonu 8y ago

Call me old school... But what about meeting a friend for a coffee or dinner? And then getting validation that way? Rhetorical questions probably. Because Facebook has reduced all that friction. Being connected and getting validation gives you that same dopamine hit you get from connecting with someone in person...multiple times over.. and you can do it from your smartphone

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
As the world becomes increasingly unbound from geography more people are going to have friends outside of the "lets meet for coffee" radius. I think it's arrogant to the extreme to suggest that people should go back to giving up on their connections just because you've made a judgement about a company's business model or privacy tradeoffs.
- drdeadringer 8y ago
  To be fair, would you like to have coffee with a friend as a minder sits with you?
- zaphod4prez 8y ago
  You think it's arrogant in the extreme to argue that we should boycott a company because of its immoral actions? That seems like a very reasonable, non-intrusive thing to do. Further, you assume that "leave Facebook" and "leave social media" mean "give up on your connections [with people far away]". That seems quite silly to me-- I've found that Facebook helps me maintain a few sort of distant-friend/acquaintance connections that I care about, while all my close friends who live far away connect with me by phone. Group text chats or email exchanges are also fun ways to connect that are just as good at doing their job as facebook is.
- anonu 8y ago
  I'm not suggesting people give up on connections. I'm suggesting that there are better ways to interact with people than on Facebook. They don't necessarily need to be face to face interactions. There are more substantive methods of communication that can leverage technology, without having big brother pick apart your likes and dislikes and advertise to you.

dwild 8y ago

For me Facebook is good for that: Organize/Being part of an events I hate having to contact a dozen people individually to organize an event. It's even harder to do when it's impromptu and details may change quickly. It's not rare that we may organize a party a few day earlier and it would be clearly impossible to gather people opinions that quickly without a single tool. I remember once on a Friday I was bored with a friend and we decided to organize a small gathering between friends, we didn't even had somewhere to do it at that point, we just invited a bunch of people, at the end we were about 8 that was able to do it, one of them could host it at his house and that was it. A party that was organized in a few hours. Facebook doesn't seems a negative for me.