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There is another perspective regarding "deleting FB is not viable option". When you encounter a case in your real life, when you are unable to stop using "somet

by _o_ 8y ago

There is another perspective regarding "deleting FB is not viable option". When you encounter a case in your real life, when you are unable to stop using "something" even if it clearly hurts you, it is typically called addiction. Maybe it ia time that people revise if it is really not a viable choice. Let me give you my example, I am not a FB user. Never was. Do I have problem finding events? Do I have less real friends? Is my quality of life any worse becoase of that? I have hard time going to all events that interest me, I am forced to prioritise meeting my real friends due to lack of time, I still chat with them using email, sms, phone, messanging. I dont see anything that FB could change here to better, only to worse, by alienating those real life friendships that I am having now (by adding endless noise of social network - I am having over 400 phone numbers in my phone, I don't want to get all the possible news about their life, it is impossible to handle). Social networks don't help you having real friends, for those you need to keep feal life contacts, they help you to loose them, by giving you fake feeling that you have "bytefriends" and dispersing your attention from those you care the most to buch of insignificant acquaintances.

watwut 8y ago
It is cool that your life is so highly social, but mine never was. At times I was extremely socially isolated and Facebook actually did helped a lot. I do have and often had problem finding events, my childhood friends left the town or are busy etc etc. I cant feasibly go to events and prioritizing real life meetings/parties without prioritizing away job, my kids and learning of new stuff. Not everyone is like you. Not everyone has tons of free time when he can move anywhere freely, not everyone makes friends super easily and have large amount of acquaintances wherever he goes. And not everyone has tons of people around who happen to share similar interests or personalities. It was like that during college, but as I grown older it was increasingly less so. And I guess I am not alone, because this forum has highly upvoted "it is hard to make friends or not be lonely" article highly upvoted approximately once a month. To me, Facebook did a lot of service that I could not replace by phone or message.
- _o_ 8y ago
  But there is still the same problem, for you it is the same as it was before, you have a large amount of contacts, same as my phonebook. With age come lots of work, having a family makes it even worse and it is normal, that at the end you are having only a few of them. This is nothing special and observed over decades. But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, and since you don't have much time (and with aging you are having it even less), instead of focusing to a few people you really like, go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, it makes everyone a "phonebook" entry. At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. Same as here but with a twist - FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. It encorages you not to do anything to find friends, to bond, instead of helping people bond, it is actually preventing them - which is great for FB business, the more time you spend there, the more they earn. And to make it even worse, due to the FB it is becoming even harder to find frinds, as its users (not all) are off the grid for normal, real life, socializing. Actually you made me think about it: all of my real life friends are very modest in using FB or they don't use it at all. To me it looks like that what people like you are considering as a solution (FB) is actually a problem. (I was downvoted, I seriously don't understand why, it would be great if people who are doing it would rather write what is so wrong, I am seriously having issues understanding it)
  - mirko22 8y ago
    my opinion is that you were downvoted cos people really want to use Facebook for whatever reason and when you say they don’t need it they start shaking... so yes, it is an addiction. and also, i see internet as public space, YOU are responsible what you leave behind, if someone comes up to you in a real world and ask you your birthday how would you react? yet you do it on the internet and people will give that and their CC card number without problems and then complain... So, yeah this is not just Facebook fault...
  - watwut 8y ago
    Facebook made my life better, but that does not matter to you, because my life without Facebook would revert back to bad which you are completely cool with. That is the core of your argument. > But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, That is something you made up. You >, instead of focusing to a few people you really like, I am focusing on poeple I really like and Facebook made it easier for me to do so. > go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, That assumes many free evenings and physical proximity with similar people. That assumes that going regularly for beer as an easily available option that does not costs other things that are important - work time, children time and other duties time. > At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. That is life. That is also infinitely better then being alone. Having close friends physically present around me with a lot of time on both sides might be even better, but that is not here not there. You ignore the actual choice "shallow or nothing at all" and talk about made up choice "shallow or best friend". I guess that you have zero idea what it is like to be socially isolated. That is happy for you, but people unlike you exist. Your response to them is just a bunch of condescension. > FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. Again, you made that up. You dont know what feeling I or other people have, so you project cluelessness into them. People are not off the grid because of Facebook, people were off the grid all the time. Both those with and without Facebook, due to how life is lived. That is why it became successful in the first place, too many people found what it provides helpful. I did not downvoted you, but I guess it happened because you built your argument of projecting worst possible motivation on people who are not like you.

by _o_ 8y ago

watwut 8y ago

It is cool that your life is so highly social, but mine never was. At times I was extremely socially isolated and Facebook actually did helped a lot. I do have and often had problem finding events, my childhood friends left the town or are busy etc etc. I cant feasibly go to events and prioritizing real life meetings/parties without prioritizing away job, my kids and learning of new stuff. Not everyone is like you. Not everyone has tons of free time when he can move anywhere freely, not everyone makes friends super easily and have large amount of acquaintances wherever he goes. And not everyone has tons of people around who happen to share similar interests or personalities. It was like that during college, but as I grown older it was increasingly less so. And I guess I am not alone, because this forum has highly upvoted "it is hard to make friends or not be lonely" article highly upvoted approximately once a month. To me, Facebook did a lot of service that I could not replace by phone or message.

_o_ 8y ago
But there is still the same problem, for you it is the same as it was before, you have a large amount of contacts, same as my phonebook. With age come lots of work, having a family makes it even worse and it is normal, that at the end you are having only a few of them. This is nothing special and observed over decades. But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, and since you don't have much time (and with aging you are having it even less), instead of focusing to a few people you really like, go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, it makes everyone a "phonebook" entry. At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. Same as here but with a twist - FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. It encorages you not to do anything to find friends, to bond, instead of helping people bond, it is actually preventing them - which is great for FB business, the more time you spend there, the more they earn. And to make it even worse, due to the FB it is becoming even harder to find frinds, as its users (not all) are off the grid for normal, real life, socializing. Actually you made me think about it: all of my real life friends are very modest in using FB or they don't use it at all. To me it looks like that what people like you are considering as a solution (FB) is actually a problem. (I was downvoted, I seriously don't understand why, it would be great if people who are doing it would rather write what is so wrong, I am seriously having issues understanding it)
- mirko22 8y ago
  my opinion is that you were downvoted cos people really want to use Facebook for whatever reason and when you say they don’t need it they start shaking... so yes, it is an addiction. and also, i see internet as public space, YOU are responsible what you leave behind, if someone comes up to you in a real world and ask you your birthday how would you react? yet you do it on the internet and people will give that and their CC card number without problems and then complain... So, yeah this is not just Facebook fault...
- watwut 8y ago
  Facebook made my life better, but that does not matter to you, because my life without Facebook would revert back to bad which you are completely cool with. That is the core of your argument. > But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, That is something you made up. You >, instead of focusing to a few people you really like, I am focusing on poeple I really like and Facebook made it easier for me to do so. > go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, That assumes many free evenings and physical proximity with similar people. That assumes that going regularly for beer as an easily available option that does not costs other things that are important - work time, children time and other duties time. > At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. That is life. That is also infinitely better then being alone. Having close friends physically present around me with a lot of time on both sides might be even better, but that is not here not there. You ignore the actual choice "shallow or nothing at all" and talk about made up choice "shallow or best friend". I guess that you have zero idea what it is like to be socially isolated. That is happy for you, but people unlike you exist. Your response to them is just a bunch of condescension. > FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. Again, you made that up. You dont know what feeling I or other people have, so you project cluelessness into them. People are not off the grid because of Facebook, people were off the grid all the time. Both those with and without Facebook, due to how life is lived. That is why it became successful in the first place, too many people found what it provides helpful. I did not downvoted you, but I guess it happened because you built your argument of projecting worst possible motivation on people who are not like you.