5 ms·

Could I ask a simple question, not because I want to mock people or anything, but because I've been experiencing a similar phenomenon lately. Why does facebook

Could I ask a simple question, not because I want to mock people or anything, but because I've been experiencing a similar phenomenon lately. Why does facebook make you hate people you know? I do generally find that most people I'm not actively great friends with at the moment tend to annoy the shit out of me with either bragging, illogical nonsense about things like politics, or just passive-aggressive teenager posts. I see friends post good content sometime, but honestly it seems more and more rare. I'm not sure if people are worse at posting or if its that these type of posts have worn on me and I've gotten more and more annoyed by them over time. What has it been like for everyone else?

seiji 14y ago
You know that Adams quote about the universe being bigger than you can impossibly imagine? Like, really, really big? Well, people are like that. Our brains kinda blur the world together and, without realizing it, our brains map other people onto our own experiences so we think people are kinda like us. Except they really aren't. Really, really, really aren't. In every day interactions, we gloss over, ignore, and excuse little things that don't gel with us (without even knowing we do it). But being presented with their innermost inconsistent idiocracy in writing, in our face, and in our pockets -- it's too much. We start to realize they aren't us. They are them. Them ain't us. And we can't stand it. It's the same reason sharing an office with someone possessing your exact anti-personality will enrage you daily. It's the same reason visiting a highly population dense foreign land where people live by their own customs will begin grating on you quickly. "Stop exploding fireworks on my front door you irredeemable kids! I don't care if it is your yearly festival of annoying neighbors into threatening you with axes!" Two solutions: get much better (more complete, more self-actualized, more authentic) friends or tune them out. They're the same they've always been, but being exposed to every one of their inner most thoughts will drive you batshit insane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mending_Wall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mending_Wall
- Tuvaloon 14y ago
  >Two solutions: get much better (more complete, more self-actualized, more authentic) Reading your whole post, I think you mean 'more exactly like your favorite part of yourself', but otherwise, spot on. On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities.
  - seiji 14y ago
    Let's say the spectrum is something like: [90s Valley Girl] ... [Richard Dawkins] (people are one-dimensional in this example) I'm sure people cluster around ranges on the line. The stereotypical self-obsesed pinhead probably wants more people to reinforce his or her introspection and less talk about the world. They want celebrities, gossip, sales at stores, and shoes, shoes, shoes. The other end of the line probably doesn't want those things.
  - graue 14y ago
    > On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities. What I find really interesting is that this communication model is a totally novel one. Clay Shirky observed[1] that before the internet, all communication mediated by technology was either one-to-one (telephone, telegraph) or one-to-many (newspaper publishing). Only now with Facebook can we type up casual remarks that are instantly seen by potentially 100 or more of our real-world acquaintances. I can't think of any form of offline conversation that's analogous. This is exciting to me because it suggests that how Facebook works is not the final form of online communication. There's still plenty of room to discover new forms of interaction that more closely model what humans find comfortable. Maybe the secret groups discussed in the OP (which I'd never heard of until now) are an example of that. [1] http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  Brilliant response, ty.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "we think people are kinda like us. Except they really aren't. Really, really, really aren't." I think the opposite is more likely to be problematic. People who aren't like myself are more interesting.
robbiep 14y ago
It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. I think on some level the narcissism that Facebook encourages (look at me, I was here! My new shoes! A car we rented in Vegas! Look how drunk we are! On a plane to Hawaii!) especially for those that are not our close friends (and there's various debate about what our cortex is designed to handle in terms of social group siZe, and we all exceed it on Facebook) triggers jealousy, or perhaps just disgust at what we consider an over share. However for people closer in our social scene, we don't experience the same level of turn-off, especially if we were involved in some of their activities etx. That being said in my feed I rarely get people posting links or political issues, it is mostly banter between friends and photos which reflects my social circles really. I don't know if I like the twitter-ification that is being suggested as something 'better', but personally I dislike the 140chr soundbite because I think it kind of encourages dumbing down of issues and in many ways for social activities is even more narcissistic. But this is just my take on it, clearly millions of people think differently. Which brings up another point- if so many of us dislike these services, why do we continue to use them? I don't even know where to start on that one.
- graue 14y ago
  The culture of Twitter is different, though. It isn't just Facebook with every update cut off at 140 characters. Many have noted that on Twitter there's a widely held expectation that you'll at least try to be witty. (You can't spell "Twitter" without "wit".) I'm no sociologist, but if I had to guess, there are probably two core reasons for the different culture: 1. Pseudonyms (or first-names only) are allowed and widely used. So there's less expectation that your Twitter social life has to match your offline social life. 2. The asymmetric follow model. You can follow someone without them following you. You can unfollow someone and then change your mind and follow again without them even noticing. Combined, the dynamic of Twitter is that you follow based on interest, whereas on Facebook you friend based on acquaintanceship. That produces a pressure to be interesting. I'm not a particularly heavy user of either Twitter or Facebook, so please weigh in if anyone thinks I got this wrong. But this is why they feel different to me.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
neumann_alfred 14y ago
Why does facebook make you hate people you know? No, but it makes me despise people I used to know from my youth/school, because apart from one person who became a reporter in Africa with a strong eye for justice, ALL OF US have become such mediocre, boring squares. I now understand where the spineless adults I used to wonder about come from, and that is depressing. They're us! D:
nnq 14y ago
Because Fb encourages behavior that gets "likes" and you dont have a "dislike" button to compensate. Let me explain: there is a class of behaviors that get quite a lot of "likes" but would also get even more "dislikes" if there was a "dislike" button. But these behaviors don't get negative feedback on Fb, but instead they get encouraged, even if less than others (and "less positive feedback" is not the same as "negative feedback"!). This brings the worst out of some people and makes them act stupid or childish on Fb even if they are not like this in real life! (I actually observed this change to worse in myself when I was an active Fb user, but only in retrospective, after giving up Fb for a time) Having a "dislike" button (but having it anonymously to prevent retaliation) would really change the dynamics, but it would also probably "prune" the network a bit, resulting in a less connected network and less engagement from each user, and I guess the Fb's "masterminds" thought of this and will not add such a feature because a "pruned" network is bad for their "business". Fb the way it is now distorts and influences interpersonal relationships in a bad way, and this is why I use it with moderation (or mostly for business or advertising-like activities), reserving meaningful social interaction for other channels.
- unconed 14y ago
  If you read through Facebook's guidelines for developers, there is a subtle but consistent undertone: don't do anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Basically, they want Facebook to be a completely positive experience which strokes your ego to boost. No dislikes, no exposure to people you don't like. It's designed to be the ideal filter bubble.
  - nnq 14y ago
    That's the problem: their mindset is excellent for accelerated growth, but not for "healthy" social interaction. I hope they get over this "growth" phase or that their competitors get more traction (though they'll have to use the same "growth accelerating" tactics with their side effects). People need negative experiences too! Negative experiences make "good" people and keep people "good"! (if not overdosing them) "Goodness" is relative, but any sub-group can choose its definition of good/bad by liking/disliking certain things. You can't have constructive or productive interaction without negative feedback, and even Fb knows this: as I last heard Fb engineers of some groups have a star rating and dislike buttons on their profiles to receive and give feedback about their work. And social interaction that's constructive or "productive", even just at an emotional level is the only one that should be encouraged! Anything else is basically informational masturbation, and you do get "blind" from too much of it...
primitur 14y ago
In my case the personal answer is that there is simply nothing productive, at all, about using Facebook. It is indeed a total waste of time - for everyone. I've yet to see anyone actually get any work done while facebook.com is up on the screen. Perhaps some small businesses use it to communicate with their customers - I don't know, because I personally cannot ever associate Facebook with "service I want to use". Facebook is a service I _have_ to use, only because my friends and associates don't know how to use email properly. Sad but true fact: everything I get from Facebook, I also get from my Email system - its just that, well, some people just cannot learn to use Email effectively, but certainly logging onto Facebook and dynamically updating the web page in front of them, for some reason, is 'easier'. Personally I think Facebook - and similar services - are a manifestation of Mob Think, and little else. Its an 'associative' function, building associations. Unfortunately, association is not the only form of reason - differentiation, identification too - and where these "beams get crossed" is where Facebook tries to sit. If Facebook died, all I would have to do is send an email to the important folks in my life informing them "Please use email. This is the cc:, this is what its for. This is the bcc:, this is what its for. Here is how to add an X-header in case there is something special we need. Also, GPG." Probably it would cost me a week of question-answering, but I'd sure love to be rid of Facebook forever, personally. People are noisy, especially when they 'think' that folks are listening. Facebook is a proxy for friends who don't normally pay as much attention as we'd all like, and the sad fact of the matter is that most of us don't ever get as much attention as we need from our social sphere ..
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Facebook had to overcome a pretty steep disadvantage to beet e-mail. The main difference I see is that in e-mail, everything you see (in theory) needs your attention, whereas in facebook, nothing you see needs you attention, but everything is avalable when you want to give your attention. Unlike e-mail, people can join the conversation without an explicit invitation.
  - primitur 14y ago
    Are you sure you haven't got that around the wrong way? If I check Facebook right now, I will have missed everything that happened in between now and the last time .. unless I scroll and scroll and scroll. But if I check email right now, I can come back and see the same emails that I haven't read yet, a week later, sitting in the same approximate location. Also, umm .. really, this: "Unlike e-mail, people can join the conversation without an explicit invitation." .. just doesn't seem quite right. Ever been on a proper listserv? Actually, your observation - and don't take it wrong, but I think you got it .. not .. quite .. right - is fascinating. You actually have it completely inverted, in my opinion - is this because you learned to use Facebook before you learned to (properly) use email? Not trying to be offensive, but this inversion seems pretty obtuse ..
HannibalLecter 14y ago
>Why does facebook make you hate people you know? When you go to a party or social gathering, you expect that you will need to behave in a social way. Because you expect it, you are not harmed by this in any way and you open your arms and ideas to those around you. Facebook hits you in the face every second with every flaw of a person. You see a father torn down by his daughter. You see a friend cheating or being too flirty with a married so-and-so... etc. The party is temporary. Facebook lingers. "Fish and house guests stink after three days," and on Facebook everyone is always hanging around. They never leave!

seiji 14y ago

You know that Adams quote about the universe being bigger than you can impossibly imagine? Like, really, really big? Well, people are like that. Our brains kinda blur the world together and, without realizing it, our brains map other people onto our own experiences so we think people are kinda like us. Except they really aren't. Really, really, really aren't. In every day interactions, we gloss over, ignore, and excuse little things that don't gel with us (without even knowing we do it). But being presented with their innermost inconsistent idiocracy in writing, in our face, and in our pockets -- it's too much. We start to realize they aren't us. They are them. Them ain't us. And we can't stand it. It's the same reason sharing an office with someone possessing your exact anti-personality will enrage you daily. It's the same reason visiting a highly population dense foreign land where people live by their own customs will begin grating on you quickly. "Stop exploding fireworks on my front door you irredeemable kids! I don't care if it is your yearly festival of annoying neighbors into threatening you with axes!" Two solutions: get much better (more complete, more self-actualized, more authentic) friends or tune them out. They're the same they've always been, but being exposed to every one of their inner most thoughts will drive you batshit insane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mending_Wall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mending_Wall

Tuvaloon 14y ago
>Two solutions: get much better (more complete, more self-actualized, more authentic) Reading your whole post, I think you mean 'more exactly like your favorite part of yourself', but otherwise, spot on. On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities.
- seiji 14y ago
  Let's say the spectrum is something like: [90s Valley Girl] ... [Richard Dawkins] (people are one-dimensional in this example) I'm sure people cluster around ranges on the line. The stereotypical self-obsesed pinhead probably wants more people to reinforce his or her introspection and less talk about the world. They want celebrities, gossip, sales at stores, and shoes, shoes, shoes. The other end of the line probably doesn't want those things.
- graue 14y ago
  > On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities. What I find really interesting is that this communication model is a totally novel one. Clay Shirky observed[1] that before the internet, all communication mediated by technology was either one-to-one (telephone, telegraph) or one-to-many (newspaper publishing). Only now with Facebook can we type up casual remarks that are instantly seen by potentially 100 or more of our real-world acquaintances. I can't think of any form of offline conversation that's analogous. This is exciting to me because it suggests that how Facebook works is not the final form of online communication. There's still plenty of room to discover new forms of interaction that more closely model what humans find comfortable. Maybe the secret groups discussed in the OP (which I'd never heard of until now) are an example of that. [1] http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Brilliant response, ty.
illuminate 14y ago
"we think people are kinda like us. Except they really aren't. Really, really, really aren't." I think the opposite is more likely to be problematic. People who aren't like myself are more interesting.

robbiep 14y ago

It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. I think on some level the narcissism that Facebook encourages (look at me, I was here! My new shoes! A car we rented in Vegas! Look how drunk we are! On a plane to Hawaii!) especially for those that are not our close friends (and there's various debate about what our cortex is designed to handle in terms of social group siZe, and we all exceed it on Facebook) triggers jealousy, or perhaps just disgust at what we consider an over share. However for people closer in our social scene, we don't experience the same level of turn-off, especially if we were involved in some of their activities etx. That being said in my feed I rarely get people posting links or political issues, it is mostly banter between friends and photos which reflects my social circles really. I don't know if I like the twitter-ification that is being suggested as something 'better', but personally I dislike the 140chr soundbite because I think it kind of encourages dumbing down of issues and in many ways for social activities is even more narcissistic. But this is just my take on it, clearly millions of people think differently. Which brings up another point- if so many of us dislike these services, why do we continue to use them? I don't even know where to start on that one.

graue 14y ago
The culture of Twitter is different, though. It isn't just Facebook with every update cut off at 140 characters. Many have noted that on Twitter there's a widely held expectation that you'll at least try to be witty. (You can't spell "Twitter" without "wit".) I'm no sociologist, but if I had to guess, there are probably two core reasons for the different culture: 1. Pseudonyms (or first-names only) are allowed and widely used. So there's less expectation that your Twitter social life has to match your offline social life. 2. The asymmetric follow model. You can follow someone without them following you. You can unfollow someone and then change your mind and follow again without them even noticing. Combined, the dynamic of Twitter is that you follow based on interest, whereas on Facebook you friend based on acquaintanceship. That produces a pressure to be interesting. I'm not a particularly heavy user of either Twitter or Facebook, so please weigh in if anyone thinks I got this wrong. But this is why they feel different to me.
- tedunangst 14y ago

neumann_alfred 14y ago

Why does facebook make you hate people you know? No, but it makes me despise people I used to know from my youth/school, because apart from one person who became a reporter in Africa with a strong eye for justice, ALL OF US have become such mediocre, boring squares. I now understand where the spineless adults I used to wonder about come from, and that is depressing. They're us! D:

nnq 14y ago

Because Fb encourages behavior that gets "likes" and you dont have a "dislike" button to compensate. Let me explain: there is a class of behaviors that get quite a lot of "likes" but would also get even more "dislikes" if there was a "dislike" button. But these behaviors don't get negative feedback on Fb, but instead they get encouraged, even if less than others (and "less positive feedback" is not the same as "negative feedback"!). This brings the worst out of some people and makes them act stupid or childish on Fb even if they are not like this in real life! (I actually observed this change to worse in myself when I was an active Fb user, but only in retrospective, after giving up Fb for a time) Having a "dislike" button (but having it anonymously to prevent retaliation) would really change the dynamics, but it would also probably "prune" the network a bit, resulting in a less connected network and less engagement from each user, and I guess the Fb's "masterminds" thought of this and will not add such a feature because a "pruned" network is bad for their "business". Fb the way it is now distorts and influences interpersonal relationships in a bad way, and this is why I use it with moderation (or mostly for business or advertising-like activities), reserving meaningful social interaction for other channels.

unconed 14y ago
If you read through Facebook's guidelines for developers, there is a subtle but consistent undertone: don't do anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Basically, they want Facebook to be a completely positive experience which strokes your ego to boost. No dislikes, no exposure to people you don't like. It's designed to be the ideal filter bubble.
- nnq 14y ago
  That's the problem: their mindset is excellent for accelerated growth, but not for "healthy" social interaction. I hope they get over this "growth" phase or that their competitors get more traction (though they'll have to use the same "growth accelerating" tactics with their side effects). People need negative experiences too! Negative experiences make "good" people and keep people "good"! (if not overdosing them) "Goodness" is relative, but any sub-group can choose its definition of good/bad by liking/disliking certain things. You can't have constructive or productive interaction without negative feedback, and even Fb knows this: as I last heard Fb engineers of some groups have a star rating and dislike buttons on their profiles to receive and give feedback about their work. And social interaction that's constructive or "productive", even just at an emotional level is the only one that should be encouraged! Anything else is basically informational masturbation, and you do get "blind" from too much of it...

primitur 14y ago

In my case the personal answer is that there is simply nothing productive, at all, about using Facebook. It is indeed a total waste of time - for everyone. I've yet to see anyone actually get any work done while facebook.com is up on the screen. Perhaps some small businesses use it to communicate with their customers - I don't know, because I personally cannot ever associate Facebook with "service I want to use". Facebook is a service I _have_ to use, only because my friends and associates don't know how to use email properly. Sad but true fact: everything I get from Facebook, I also get from my Email system - its just that, well, some people just cannot learn to use Email effectively, but certainly logging onto Facebook and dynamically updating the web page in front of them, for some reason, is 'easier'. Personally I think Facebook - and similar services - are a manifestation of Mob Think, and little else. Its an 'associative' function, building associations. Unfortunately, association is not the only form of reason - differentiation, identification too - and where these "beams get crossed" is where Facebook tries to sit. If Facebook died, all I would have to do is send an email to the important folks in my life informing them "Please use email. This is the cc:, this is what its for. This is the bcc:, this is what its for. Here is how to add an X-header in case there is something special we need. Also, GPG." Probably it would cost me a week of question-answering, but I'd sure love to be rid of Facebook forever, personally. People are noisy, especially when they 'think' that folks are listening. Facebook is a proxy for friends who don't normally pay as much attention as we'd all like, and the sad fact of the matter is that most of us don't ever get as much attention as we need from our social sphere ..

gizmo686 14y ago
Facebook had to overcome a pretty steep disadvantage to beet e-mail. The main difference I see is that in e-mail, everything you see (in theory) needs your attention, whereas in facebook, nothing you see needs you attention, but everything is avalable when you want to give your attention. Unlike e-mail, people can join the conversation without an explicit invitation.
- primitur 14y ago
  Are you sure you haven't got that around the wrong way? If I check Facebook right now, I will have missed everything that happened in between now and the last time .. unless I scroll and scroll and scroll. But if I check email right now, I can come back and see the same emails that I haven't read yet, a week later, sitting in the same approximate location. Also, umm .. really, this: "Unlike e-mail, people can join the conversation without an explicit invitation." .. just doesn't seem quite right. Ever been on a proper listserv? Actually, your observation - and don't take it wrong, but I think you got it .. not .. quite .. right - is fascinating. You actually have it completely inverted, in my opinion - is this because you learned to use Facebook before you learned to (properly) use email? Not trying to be offensive, but this inversion seems pretty obtuse ..

HannibalLecter 14y ago

>Why does facebook make you hate people you know? When you go to a party or social gathering, you expect that you will need to behave in a social way. Because you expect it, you are not harmed by this in any way and you open your arms and ideas to those around you. Facebook hits you in the face every second with every flaw of a person. You see a father torn down by his daughter. You see a friend cheating or being too flirty with a married so-and-so... etc. The party is temporary. Facebook lingers. "Fish and house guests stink after three days," and on Facebook everyone is always hanging around. They never leave!