4 ms·
Are you in school or training? And/or do you work with members of your social circle? And/or does family live close? If any of these are true, I can see how Fac
by GarrisonPrime 7y ago
Are you in school or training? And/or do you work with members of your social circle? And/or does family live close? If any of these are true, I can see how Facebook offers little value.
But the older you get, the fewer people you tend to have around. My social life is easily 30 times harder to maintain now than it was when I was in college. Work was also an easy place to find friends and kindred spirits. At first. But now, more and more, my coworkers are younger than me and even if we enjoy each other’s company there is simply less and less we have in common.
Family starts dying off, or gradually moves over time to where everyone is scattered across the globe. Same with friends. Or they get married, have kids, get busy with careers, etc.
New friends and family enter ones life of course, but they come fewer and farther between, and never feel quite as deep as those early life relationships.
Many other platforms offer a way to stay connected, of course. But many of them are either too superficial to feel worthwhile, or have too few people on them, or have too much friction to be consistently used.
I agree most of what is on Facebook is rather irrelevant, and I basically ignore 99% of what people post. But for those of us whose social lives have been scattered to the wind, nothing else out there comes close to Facebook’s utility.
- ablation 7y agoI don't have Facebook, and all of these needs for connectivity are taken care of by WhatsApp group chats, essentially. It feels far more intimate and immediate than Facebook ever did too.
- zepto 7y agoWhatsApp is Facebook
- ablation 7y agoYes, I'm aware who owns WhatsApp. I was talking about the functionality aspect, I apologise if that wasn't clear enough in my initial post. I don't miss any functionality that Facebook offers because WhatsApp effectively does away with things I don't care about by providing me with highly curated groups of conversation and sharing, without the cruft. I am fully aware it's a part of the Facebook ecosystem.
- acheron 7y ago"I don't use Facebook, I use [thing that is also Facebook]" is not a hugely compelling argument. While "buy out your competitors" is not exactly a supergenius-level strategy, it is amazing how well it's worked out for FB.
- ablation 7y agoI was talking about the functionality aspect, I apologise if that wasn't clear enough in my initial post. I don't miss any functionality that Facebook offers because WhatsApp effectively does away with things I don't care about by providing me with highly curated groups of conversation and sharing, without the cruft. I am fully aware it's a part of the Facebook ecosystem.
- marssaxman 7y agoHow does one discover such WhatsApp group chats? In my very limited experience, it is just like other messaging apps; I can't quite imagine how you would use it as a social network. Am I missing something?
- ablation 7y agoI don't discover new ones, unless I'm invited to one or I create one. All the people I know who I used to communicate with and share content on Facebook are on WhatsApp. If I'm interested in wider discussions with people I don't "know" in the traditional sense, there's forums, etc. Nothing I got from the Facebook experience I can't get anywhere else, I'm finding. Maybe I was using Facebook wrong, but I didn't add anyone on there as a friend that I didn't know offline.
- aerovistae 7y agoI use WhatsApp this way. It's not a matter of discovery-- it's a matter of creating a group with your existing friends and then keeping in touch with them day-to-day through sharing things in the group chat. It's identical to a facebook feed....except it's a tiny one with only the people YOU chose to include, and doesn't get polluted with any external content.
- stallmanite 7y agoI do similarly with sms/iMessage. It’s actually a great way to keep in touch and seems more “real” than Facebook because it’s me directly and specifically communicating with my friends and the public “performative” aspect is absent.