8 ms·

Facebook Isn't Worth It

151 points by rasca123 14y ago

brennenHN 14y ago
The problem is that it's to be removed completely from Facebook. I think about deleting my profile all the time, but there's potential for awkwardness and offense that aren't worth it. Facebook has engrained itself in our lives pretty deeply and it's going to be a huge challenge to dig it back out.
- guscost 14y ago
  It's kinda like ripping off a Band-Aid. Feels good.
  - brennenHN 14y ago
    A bandaid that covers a lot of sensitive surface area...
    - alan_cx 14y ago
      All of which thrive when its gone. So, good point!!!!!
- rjd 14y ago
  Just full your account up with junk info, use a nickname, install ghostery, and sign up with site specific auth. I'm pretty sure Fucking in Austria has an extremely high Facebook population... I know ALOT of my friends say they come from there LOL Then its nothing more than a forum with photos of your friends and family, downloaded them and untag yourself.
- biomechanica 14y ago
  I had a facebook account once. I thought that by deleting my account it would somehow limit my social life and, of course, make it a lot harder to keep my friends and family updated. I couldn't have been more wrong. Not having a facebook account (or any social media website account) forced me to be more active. It forced me to contact my friends face to face. This has HUGE advantages. This notion that facebook is integrated into our lives tightly is absolutely an illusion; one that Facebook relys on (or any site like it). Take the initiative and go out of your way to contact your friends/family "the old fasioned way". Rallying groups for a cause isn't as hard as it seems to be, either. You just have to work a bit more. So what? Our society(ies) is/are becoming so lazy it's almost unbearable. Facebook does not dictate your life in any way, shape or form. There are many people who don't use it and are just fine without it.
  - kd0amg 14y ago
    It forced me to contact my friends face to face. This has HUGE advantages. I'd much prefer to see my friends face-to-face, but I can't afford to fly very often.
    - biomechanica 14y ago
      Then use other means of contact. The point isn't to replace facebook with the same amount of convenience. The point is to disable the illusion that Facebook is necessary to keep in contact with your distant friends/family. Use a phone. Use the postal system. Yes, it's not as "instant" but it at least shows that you put in work to contact them. Or you can use open technologies like Jitsi or Ekiga to do video chat with them (if they are willing. If they aren't, then perhaps explain to them why it's important). There are options out there. Facebook isn't the ONLY technology that closes the gap.
      - taligent 14y ago
        Many of my friends don't live in the same country. So phone or video chat is impossible and using the postal system is just being stupid.
        dbaupp 14y ago
        Why is video chat impossible? International calls are the perfect use case for it. (I guess you could drop the video, and just do a VOIP phone call also.)
        taligent 14y ago
        @dbaupp .. Full time jobs + Time zones.
        deerpig 14y ago
        I live in Cambodia, work 18 hour days and between email, skype and the telephone I keep up with friends in family in North America on both coasts, in Europe, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, India and even people in my own time zone (Thailand, Laos, Singapore). I don't use facebook for any of this. It isn't difficult, and at least out here, most international calls are very cheap. And even if they were you can call through google voice or skype to mobiles and land lines at very low rates.
tomasien 14y ago
I can't even debate this blog, because if he doesn't get utility from Facebook, socially, then he doesn't get utility form it. That's factual. But I, and most of my close friends, get HUGE social utility from the platform. Some just use it for Events, some for micro-blogging, some for passively keeping in touch, some for messaging, etc. etc. But I know lots of people much better because of Facebook. And that is also factual.
- krenoten 14y ago
  Facebook yields a lot of value for a lot of people. Most of the people I am friends with use it extensively, and post things that will make it harder for them to get a public sector job that requires any kind of background check. They are pretty much all banned from politics for the content that they have shared. Not a lot of college students in the US are choosing majors that will help them get jobs, and it makes me sad that they are hurting their chances even more. They have heard from me and other people that it is important to communicate so openly only with those they trust, but I have only managed to teach a few of them how to use cryptography effectively. It is a very hard sell. Facebook is worth it for a lot of people. But it's easy to run too far against the diminishing returns that additional time on it yields, and it's easy to slam doors in your future that may otherwise have been valuable.
  - da02 14y ago
    I'm not on FB. (Seriously.) What are they sharing that is so embarassing for their future jobs? Affairs? Stripper parties? Pot smoking? Wet t-shirt contests? Watching "Mike & Molly" on CBS is telling me that in the future none of that matter. If the granny network has a show about pot-smoking and guys going down on senior citizens, then those types of photos will be considered PG-13 in the near future.
    - krenoten 14y ago
      That kind of content is televised precisely because it is a controversial spectacle that "normal" people aren't engaging in. They post photos they take at interesting parties. Pretty standard for college but enough to twist any of them into grossly irresponsible, bad people if they ever decide to try to change something controlled by a powerful entity that chooses to fight back. Yeah, Obama can say he's done cocaine and other things, but to my knowledge he told of those things to diffuse any potential ammo the other side could use against him in the presidential election - long after he had already become a very powerful man. It is my fear that many people will simply be denied entry at the gate. And I'm not expecting them to be running for office, but I am expecting a lot of them to join NGO's where they will need to take part in some level of political struggle.
BruceIV 14y ago
Perhaps the newsfeed isn't useful, but Facebook has largely replaced email for personal communication for me - you know people actually check their Facebook inbox, as opposed to their 3/6/more email inboxes, and you can easily set up mailing lists and events. The newsfeed I could probably live without, but the messaging system is a killer app because of the network effects.
msoad 14y ago
In my current life, communication that I have with my friends via Facebook is closer, faster and more reliable than anything other than in person communication. It happens very often, friend do not answer phone or text but will notice Facebook message right away. I can't even compare conversations in comments in a photo of me in hospital with anything else. My friends (who mostly didn't know each other) learned who is worried about me and arranged a visit to hospital together right under my photo in comments. People tend to abuse Facebook a lot. But if you use it as a tool it's fine.
veb 14y ago
This article sounds silly. Most of us have grown up with our parents talking to their friends in "real life". I don't know about some of you, but I definitely talk to my friends face-to-face, whenever I can... To me, the Internet and social media, are simply a change. Just like the telephone was a "change". Before then, you'd talk to people face-to-face, (or using smoke signals) so I'd imagine if we looked through some newspapers when telephones first came in, we'd probably see this exact same post.
- rgbrgb 14y ago
  I bet it was fairly rare for an adult to spend 8 hours a day on the telephone when it first came out.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    In the UK 8 mins was a family issue due to the bills.
  - corporalagumbo 14y ago
    The internet in the 2000s is a much, much richer medium than telephone calls in the 1900s. Look at us - integrating throughout or taking time from our day to discuss and debate the news here, online.
- paganel 14y ago
  > Before then, you'd talk to people face-to-face, (or using smoke signals) so I'd imagine if we looked through some newspapers when telephones first came in, we'd probably see this exact same post. That's the exact same point I was trying to make to one of my colleagues when she saying that relying on Facebook to communicate with your friends is a mistake, while phone conversations are the way to go. I was telling her that my grandma was looking at a telephone as the work of the devil, not that she was religious or anything, just that the unexpected ringing of it would stop any hardworking people from doing their job so that it would only be a waste of time and resources. My friend wasn't convinced, she was asking me "but how could your grand-mother live without a telephone?".
slajax 14y ago
14 pts and 9 comments and OPs site is down. He probably should have posted it on FB.
hexonexxon 14y ago
Facebook to me is hot garbage, cult of the celebrity trash. Nobody I know in my circle of IRL friends and family uses it anymore when you can sign up to twitter under a nym and directly ask guys like Charlie Miller questions about exploit payload delivery instead of being drowned in an avalance of spam wall posts, annoying quiz results, farm watering requests, and endless PMs from ex girlfriends or people from highschool you have no intention of talking to ever again because you didn't like them then, why would you want to be their e-friend now.
- nwh 14y ago
  I wonder if there's a market for something in-between. A Facebook-alike service with no apps, no advertising and nothing but posts containing original content (no 'share').
  - hexonexxon 14y ago
    a decentralized phone app social network would work to cut down on costs because you'd make no income :P i prefer to have a private jabber/OTR chatroom open with a bunch of friends in it to talk to each other back and forth like a slow room IRC channel all day. privacy ftw so nobody ends up fired when going on a rant about a project, their company or relationships.
    - nwh 14y ago
      > jabber/OTR That would be ideal, but I doubt the US government would allow a private communication platform to operate on a large scale. Unless it was hosted outside of the states, it would be quickly backdoored for their benefit. I've had ideas like that in the past (think Twitter crossed with GPG), but I think you'd struggle to get people adopting the platform.
  - codva 14y ago
    Diaspora? I don't remember if you could share a post of not. I tried to use it. A social network where you know exactly one person isn't so social.
- 14y ago
vbrendel 14y ago
Facebook's mission is "to make the world more open and connected", which to me does not imply replacing existing forms of communication. The only competitor to ye olde telephone machine is Skype.
kefs 14y ago
formatted google cache mirror: http://goo.gl/MWIJ8 http://goo.gl/MWIJ8
WhaleFood 14y ago
I think facebook definitely has beneficial uses (reconnecting with old friends, arranging events etc). But I feel like a lot of people are addicted to it and allow it to get in the way of having real, face-to-face interactions. Eg people who can't have a dinner conversation without looking down every 10 seconds to check their wall. It's a kinda scary trend that seems to be becoming increasingly prevalent in the younger generations.
- taligent 14y ago
  And older people could say exactly the same thing about email, IM and discussion forums like HN. I know far more people who check their email religiously than check Facebook.
  - acjohnson55 14y ago
    It's funny, but if you read the book The Information by James Gleick, you can see how people thought the exact same things about the telegraph that we do about modern communications technologies, both positive and negative.
graue 14y ago
The problem with posts like this, both pro- and anti-Facebook, is that they are just someone's experience and our experiences vary. If your personal use of Facebook had similar results to the author's, you nod your head, perhaps virtually applaud, and share the link. I know I'm tempted to do so here. But I also know that there are people who use Facebook in a way that strengthens, augments and reinforces real-life relationships. I've also read of studies that show a positive, not a negative, correlation between time spent on social media and how engaged people are with others in person. Some will say, "well, duh" to that, and will shake their heads at an article like this, which to them only shows that someone doesn't know how to use Facebook. Both experiences are valid. I follow a sociologist on Twitter who writes a lot of essays from the latter viewpoint. To him, it's a theoretical split. There is the "digital dualist" theory, that basically says online/offline is a zero sum game and social media makes friendships shallow and disposable, and there is the "augmented reality" theory that all is connected, that what we do online is real life and not something different. And he holds the latter theory to be correct while the former, he finds simplistic, sentimental and broken. (I'm thinking of @nathanjurgenson if anyone wants to follow along, have done my best to represent his views but obviously this summary is my own) I disagree with all of the above. It has become ever more clear to me that some people really do use and experience Facebook in a dualistic way while others do not. There is no one, unified, grand theory of Facebook that encompasses all experiences. Both camps would like to say, "This is how it is, period", but they are really saying, "This is how it is for me".
- bittermang 14y ago
  While I concede to your point that we should not allow isolated views of individuals to taint our overall purview of a given topic; that these are peoples opinions and that opinions are not finite or absolute. We must also realize that life is the shared experience and combined knowledge of humanity insofar. You pose that they "are just someone's experience and our experiences vary," and I would say that is the entire point of posts like these. Experiences do vary, and you cannot experience or test for them all. By sharing our experiences -- good or bad -- they present you with invaluable information. The proverbial mile in a man's shoes. A man who can feel like the Emperor has no clothes, and feels compelled to cry out against the social trend. Or a person who was empowered by social media, because of an unexpected exchange on a whim. Which brings me to my point. For the longest time, I didn't understand Twitter. There was a fundamental disconnect, and all the weird syntax and limits were off putting. Then one night, during a the intermission of a hockey game, a humorous moment happened between the analysts. In that moment, I recalled I was following Jeremy Roenick, one of the analysts involved in the exchange, on Twitter. So I pulled my phone, tweeted at him, "LOL. That was awesome." And slipped my phone back in to my pocket. Imagine my surprise when the intermission had concluded and the puck dropped for the third period when my phone buzzed. It was Jeremy Roenick on Twitter, just saying thanks. No, really, imagine my surprise. This is old hat to everyone already on the Twitter tip, but my mind had just been blown to pieces. Imagine trying to break that scenario down for anyone around the dawn of television? I used a device to talk to the man on the TV, and he talked back, in real time. Modern witchcraft. In that moment I switched from "Twitter is stupid," to, "Twitter is the single greatest thing since the last wild declaration I've made." I understood it finally, Twitter connects the world, directly. You can say that he "doesn't know how to use Facebook" and even be correct, but that doesn't matter. To him, until he gets new information or insight, his opinion and experience with the product is absolute. It happened and here's how he felt. There's valuable information about the human experience in why he feels that way, and discussion to be had about why people seem to experience this duality. And the discussion is only going to evolve and change as we both grow the web and social, as well as when more of the world's youth who have never lived without these tools continue to grow online; as more of the world's cultures begin to increase their presence online and inter-mingle. These posts, while agreeably fixated on the opinions of individuals, are part of the process for all of us as a whole. Also, ironically, the act of the post itself is sharing something socially, albeit not first party on Facebook.
nannasin28 14y ago
They are pretty much all banned from politics for the content that they have shared. Not a lot of college students in the US are choosing majors that will help them get jobs, and it makes me sad that they are hurting their chances even more. http://www.hqew.net http://www.hqew.net
dgrant 14y ago
"Facebook is making us think we know people better" Umm, who really thinks that?
- chris_wot 14y ago
  Lots and lots and lots of people. Clearly you aren't in that Facebook group.
aldous 14y ago
Well you know, I find I agree with a fair amount in this post. At the core of FB is there not a paradox - the more 'connected' we become online the less we engage in more substantive communication offline? For me, I see an abstraction that takes place; an FB profile check on a friend replaces a phone call, an FB invite replaces a more direct intimate invitation etc. Are such abstractions corrosive to relationships in the long run? I'm increasing concluding they are. Further, does a system that abstracts relationships amplify negative patterns of behaviour too, such as bullying, stalking, soap boxing and ranting polemics, obnoxious behaviour/superfluous prattle for sake of attention seeking etc? Possibly. The toxic paring of FB with the complications of adolescence seems tangible to me too; my 14 year old step sister has become a veritable celebrity at school as she uses FB as the medium with which to qualify quite natural inclinations for her age; peer recognition, kudos, etc. Robbed of context and played out in front of an goading and somewhat unsympathetic audience these natural inclinations have warped into something quite odd and unpleasant. I hope she'll look back and laugh one day but you know some kids don't pull through it: http://goo.gl/nzDb1 http://goo.gl/nzDb1 You can be mentally rather delicate in these years. As an aside, the distracting potential of FB seems glaring obvious too; I have witnessed colleagues productivity plummet when some FB scandal erupts in their digital social sphere, frustrating when this impacts the rest of the teams work day. As someone said on here before, I guess use in moderation is the key, but again, if people don't like the FB service and want to opt out all together, 'more power to them' I say. This perception of a FB profile as a necessity in the 21st century seems fanciful on one level and insidious on another.
motters 14y ago
The main thing about about Facebook, or other similar sites, is to ask yourself how much value you're getting out of it versus how much time you're spending on it. It you're spending a lot of time but not getting much value then it may not be worth it.
VeejayRampay 14y ago
I didn't have time to read the article. I'm just coming here to tell the author (if he reads this) that the typo and general design of this website/blog (or whatever it is) is absolutely stunning. One of the best-looking I've seen. Bravo.
- acjohnson55 14y ago
  I like it overall, but the callout quotes are a bit much for me.
chris_wot 14y ago
I think this is a very insightful post. But what I really want to say is that I love the seersucker web design. Killer clean, long form posts, great typography... It's awesome!
borplk 14y ago
Almost everything I ever want to say when people look at me in awe and say "You aren't on Facebook?". I just don't get any satisfaction from maintaining a list of acquaintances and classmates that I happen to know because we happened to go the same school and I have no interest in reading about their lives and stalking them and finding out who their girlfriend/boyfriends are and who their newest friend is. I like the traditional way of friendship and communication because it has a 'natural permission setting'. For example if you ask my close friends they can tell you a lot of stuff about me, but once you get a little further, they wont know that much. Facebook creates this artificial thing where you can get a lot of information about someone without them knowing and you can exchange a very small amount in return. In the traditional way, if you care enough about me to want to know if I'm single or not, you will have to ask me (explicit expression) but using Facebook you can just look it up (implicit).
- Evbn 14y ago
  You can curate your FB sharing lists to handle this, just like in real life.
rtcoms 14y ago
Ironically , the article itself accepting comments via facebook. On the topic , facebook is more of a rss feed for me than social network.
crikli 14y ago
Facebook is a tool. And like all tools, its value is defined by how you choose to use it. Two years ago it was a worthless, annoying site with news feed full of mommies talking about their kids' snot. So I engaged with the site to make it my own. Today, because of relationships sustained and informed by Facebook, I'm doing Crossfit, visiting old friends in person more frequently, sending packages to new and old friends who are deployed to Afghanistan, and joining events like Tough Mudder and GoRuck Challenges. I think often about the privacy issues, the time suck that it can be, but I also have to think about positive changes that have come about because of the way I've used this particular tool. For me FB it's a bigtime net positive.
- generalpf 14y ago
  The article is about the tendencies in communication due to Facebook. A hammer is just a tool but dammit if it doesn't result in a lot of pounding.
  - crikli 14y ago
    "The article is about the tendencies in communication due to Facebook." Yup, but my point, poorly made perhaps, is that you define your communication tendencies, and FB is just another communication tool. Not vice versa as the author intimates.
mediacrisis 14y ago
I think its a bit unfair to compare our parents generation (boomers) to ours (millennials, arguably). The first thing that comes to mind is that, at least in my social circle, no one has a land line. We move a lot. We change cell phone numbers (carrier problems, relationship issues, who knows). Its arguable that a FB presence is actually more stable than a physical presence for some social groups. Its not an all encompassing solution for human interaction by any means, but "worth it" is a very subjective term.
helloamar 14y ago
we have to abide nature's law in this also "Too Much of Anything Can Be A Bad Thing" Use it wise
k-mcgrady 14y ago
It seems the author was looking at the Facebook group the wrong way. I'm sure most people signed up to it to get questions answered and discover who their roommate was going to be. He seems disappointed that the people he talked to on it didn't become his friends. The group served it's purpose - to make friends you converse with people in person when you get to college. The author seems to have unrealistic expectations of social media.
Shorel 14y ago
Nothing in this post seems specific to Facebook. I have observed something similar with IRC channels 15 years ago. Basically he is complaining about human nature in a cyberspace enabled world.

151 points by rasca123 14y ago

The problem is that it's to be removed completely from Facebook. I think about deleting my profile all the time, but there's potential for awkwardness and offense that aren't worth it. Facebook has engrained itself in our lives pretty deeply and it's going to be a huge challenge to dig it back out.

guscost 14y ago
It's kinda like ripping off a Band-Aid. Feels good.
- brennenHN 14y ago
  A bandaid that covers a lot of sensitive surface area...
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    All of which thrive when its gone. So, good point!!!!!
rjd 14y ago
Just full your account up with junk info, use a nickname, install ghostery, and sign up with site specific auth. I'm pretty sure Fucking in Austria has an extremely high Facebook population... I know ALOT of my friends say they come from there LOL Then its nothing more than a forum with photos of your friends and family, downloaded them and untag yourself.
biomechanica 14y ago
I had a facebook account once. I thought that by deleting my account it would somehow limit my social life and, of course, make it a lot harder to keep my friends and family updated. I couldn't have been more wrong. Not having a facebook account (or any social media website account) forced me to be more active. It forced me to contact my friends face to face. This has HUGE advantages. This notion that facebook is integrated into our lives tightly is absolutely an illusion; one that Facebook relys on (or any site like it). Take the initiative and go out of your way to contact your friends/family "the old fasioned way". Rallying groups for a cause isn't as hard as it seems to be, either. You just have to work a bit more. So what? Our society(ies) is/are becoming so lazy it's almost unbearable. Facebook does not dictate your life in any way, shape or form. There are many people who don't use it and are just fine without it.
- kd0amg 14y ago
  It forced me to contact my friends face to face. This has HUGE advantages. I'd much prefer to see my friends face-to-face, but I can't afford to fly very often.
  - biomechanica 14y ago
    Then use other means of contact. The point isn't to replace facebook with the same amount of convenience. The point is to disable the illusion that Facebook is necessary to keep in contact with your distant friends/family. Use a phone. Use the postal system. Yes, it's not as "instant" but it at least shows that you put in work to contact them. Or you can use open technologies like Jitsi or Ekiga to do video chat with them (if they are willing. If they aren't, then perhaps explain to them why it's important). There are options out there. Facebook isn't the ONLY technology that closes the gap.
    - taligent 14y ago
      Many of my friends don't live in the same country. So phone or video chat is impossible and using the postal system is just being stupid.
      - dbaupp 14y ago
        Why is video chat impossible? International calls are the perfect use case for it. (I guess you could drop the video, and just do a VOIP phone call also.)
      - taligent 14y ago
        @dbaupp .. Full time jobs + Time zones.
        deerpig 14y ago
        I live in Cambodia, work 18 hour days and between email, skype and the telephone I keep up with friends in family in North America on both coasts, in Europe, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, India and even people in my own time zone (Thailand, Laos, Singapore). I don't use facebook for any of this. It isn't difficult, and at least out here, most international calls are very cheap. And even if they were you can call through google voice or skype to mobiles and land lines at very low rates.

tomasien 14y ago

I can't even debate this blog, because if he doesn't get utility from Facebook, socially, then he doesn't get utility form it. That's factual. But I, and most of my close friends, get HUGE social utility from the platform. Some just use it for Events, some for micro-blogging, some for passively keeping in touch, some for messaging, etc. etc. But I know lots of people much better because of Facebook. And that is also factual.

krenoten 14y ago
Facebook yields a lot of value for a lot of people. Most of the people I am friends with use it extensively, and post things that will make it harder for them to get a public sector job that requires any kind of background check. They are pretty much all banned from politics for the content that they have shared. Not a lot of college students in the US are choosing majors that will help them get jobs, and it makes me sad that they are hurting their chances even more. They have heard from me and other people that it is important to communicate so openly only with those they trust, but I have only managed to teach a few of them how to use cryptography effectively. It is a very hard sell. Facebook is worth it for a lot of people. But it's easy to run too far against the diminishing returns that additional time on it yields, and it's easy to slam doors in your future that may otherwise have been valuable.
- da02 14y ago
  I'm not on FB. (Seriously.) What are they sharing that is so embarassing for their future jobs? Affairs? Stripper parties? Pot smoking? Wet t-shirt contests? Watching "Mike & Molly" on CBS is telling me that in the future none of that matter. If the granny network has a show about pot-smoking and guys going down on senior citizens, then those types of photos will be considered PG-13 in the near future.
  - krenoten 14y ago
    That kind of content is televised precisely because it is a controversial spectacle that "normal" people aren't engaging in. They post photos they take at interesting parties. Pretty standard for college but enough to twist any of them into grossly irresponsible, bad people if they ever decide to try to change something controlled by a powerful entity that chooses to fight back. Yeah, Obama can say he's done cocaine and other things, but to my knowledge he told of those things to diffuse any potential ammo the other side could use against him in the presidential election - long after he had already become a very powerful man. It is my fear that many people will simply be denied entry at the gate. And I'm not expecting them to be running for office, but I am expecting a lot of them to join NGO's where they will need to take part in some level of political struggle.

BruceIV 14y ago

Perhaps the newsfeed isn't useful, but Facebook has largely replaced email for personal communication for me - you know people actually check their Facebook inbox, as opposed to their 3/6/more email inboxes, and you can easily set up mailing lists and events. The newsfeed I could probably live without, but the messaging system is a killer app because of the network effects.

msoad 14y ago

In my current life, communication that I have with my friends via Facebook is closer, faster and more reliable than anything other than in person communication. It happens very often, friend do not answer phone or text but will notice Facebook message right away. I can't even compare conversations in comments in a photo of me in hospital with anything else. My friends (who mostly didn't know each other) learned who is worried about me and arranged a visit to hospital together right under my photo in comments. People tend to abuse Facebook a lot. But if you use it as a tool it's fine.

veb 14y ago

This article sounds silly. Most of us have grown up with our parents talking to their friends in "real life". I don't know about some of you, but I definitely talk to my friends face-to-face, whenever I can... To me, the Internet and social media, are simply a change. Just like the telephone was a "change". Before then, you'd talk to people face-to-face, (or using smoke signals) so I'd imagine if we looked through some newspapers when telephones first came in, we'd probably see this exact same post.

rgbrgb 14y ago
I bet it was fairly rare for an adult to spend 8 hours a day on the telephone when it first came out.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  In the UK 8 mins was a family issue due to the bills.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  The internet in the 2000s is a much, much richer medium than telephone calls in the 1900s. Look at us - integrating throughout or taking time from our day to discuss and debate the news here, online.
paganel 14y ago
> Before then, you'd talk to people face-to-face, (or using smoke signals) so I'd imagine if we looked through some newspapers when telephones first came in, we'd probably see this exact same post. That's the exact same point I was trying to make to one of my colleagues when she saying that relying on Facebook to communicate with your friends is a mistake, while phone conversations are the way to go. I was telling her that my grandma was looking at a telephone as the work of the devil, not that she was religious or anything, just that the unexpected ringing of it would stop any hardworking people from doing their job so that it would only be a waste of time and resources. My friend wasn't convinced, she was asking me "but how could your grand-mother live without a telephone?".

slajax 14y ago

14 pts and 9 comments and OPs site is down. He probably should have posted it on FB.

hexonexxon 14y ago

Facebook to me is hot garbage, cult of the celebrity trash. Nobody I know in my circle of IRL friends and family uses it anymore when you can sign up to twitter under a nym and directly ask guys like Charlie Miller questions about exploit payload delivery instead of being drowned in an avalance of spam wall posts, annoying quiz results, farm watering requests, and endless PMs from ex girlfriends or people from highschool you have no intention of talking to ever again because you didn't like them then, why would you want to be their e-friend now.

nwh 14y ago
I wonder if there's a market for something in-between. A Facebook-alike service with no apps, no advertising and nothing but posts containing original content (no 'share').
- hexonexxon 14y ago
  a decentralized phone app social network would work to cut down on costs because you'd make no income :P i prefer to have a private jabber/OTR chatroom open with a bunch of friends in it to talk to each other back and forth like a slow room IRC channel all day. privacy ftw so nobody ends up fired when going on a rant about a project, their company or relationships.
  - nwh 14y ago
    > jabber/OTR That would be ideal, but I doubt the US government would allow a private communication platform to operate on a large scale. Unless it was hosted outside of the states, it would be quickly backdoored for their benefit. I've had ideas like that in the past (think Twitter crossed with GPG), but I think you'd struggle to get people adopting the platform.
- codva 14y ago
  Diaspora? I don't remember if you could share a post of not. I tried to use it. A social network where you know exactly one person isn't so social.
14y ago

vbrendel 14y ago

Facebook's mission is "to make the world more open and connected", which to me does not imply replacing existing forms of communication. The only competitor to ye olde telephone machine is Skype.

kefs 14y ago

formatted google cache mirror: http://goo.gl/MWIJ8 http://goo.gl/MWIJ8

WhaleFood 14y ago

I think facebook definitely has beneficial uses (reconnecting with old friends, arranging events etc). But I feel like a lot of people are addicted to it and allow it to get in the way of having real, face-to-face interactions. Eg people who can't have a dinner conversation without looking down every 10 seconds to check their wall. It's a kinda scary trend that seems to be becoming increasingly prevalent in the younger generations.

taligent 14y ago
And older people could say exactly the same thing about email, IM and discussion forums like HN. I know far more people who check their email religiously than check Facebook.
- acjohnson55 14y ago
  It's funny, but if you read the book The Information by James Gleick, you can see how people thought the exact same things about the telegraph that we do about modern communications technologies, both positive and negative.

graue 14y ago

The problem with posts like this, both pro- and anti-Facebook, is that they are just someone's experience and our experiences vary. If your personal use of Facebook had similar results to the author's, you nod your head, perhaps virtually applaud, and share the link. I know I'm tempted to do so here. But I also know that there are people who use Facebook in a way that strengthens, augments and reinforces real-life relationships. I've also read of studies that show a positive, not a negative, correlation between time spent on social media and how engaged people are with others in person. Some will say, "well, duh" to that, and will shake their heads at an article like this, which to them only shows that someone doesn't know how to use Facebook. Both experiences are valid. I follow a sociologist on Twitter who writes a lot of essays from the latter viewpoint. To him, it's a theoretical split. There is the "digital dualist" theory, that basically says online/offline is a zero sum game and social media makes friendships shallow and disposable, and there is the "augmented reality" theory that all is connected, that what we do online is real life and not something different. And he holds the latter theory to be correct while the former, he finds simplistic, sentimental and broken. (I'm thinking of @nathanjurgenson if anyone wants to follow along, have done my best to represent his views but obviously this summary is my own) I disagree with all of the above. It has become ever more clear to me that some people really do use and experience Facebook in a dualistic way while others do not. There is no one, unified, grand theory of Facebook that encompasses all experiences. Both camps would like to say, "This is how it is, period", but they are really saying, "This is how it is for me".

bittermang 14y ago
While I concede to your point that we should not allow isolated views of individuals to taint our overall purview of a given topic; that these are peoples opinions and that opinions are not finite or absolute. We must also realize that life is the shared experience and combined knowledge of humanity insofar. You pose that they "are just someone's experience and our experiences vary," and I would say that is the entire point of posts like these. Experiences do vary, and you cannot experience or test for them all. By sharing our experiences -- good or bad -- they present you with invaluable information. The proverbial mile in a man's shoes. A man who can feel like the Emperor has no clothes, and feels compelled to cry out against the social trend. Or a person who was empowered by social media, because of an unexpected exchange on a whim. Which brings me to my point. For the longest time, I didn't understand Twitter. There was a fundamental disconnect, and all the weird syntax and limits were off putting. Then one night, during a the intermission of a hockey game, a humorous moment happened between the analysts. In that moment, I recalled I was following Jeremy Roenick, one of the analysts involved in the exchange, on Twitter. So I pulled my phone, tweeted at him, "LOL. That was awesome." And slipped my phone back in to my pocket. Imagine my surprise when the intermission had concluded and the puck dropped for the third period when my phone buzzed. It was Jeremy Roenick on Twitter, just saying thanks. No, really, imagine my surprise. This is old hat to everyone already on the Twitter tip, but my mind had just been blown to pieces. Imagine trying to break that scenario down for anyone around the dawn of television? I used a device to talk to the man on the TV, and he talked back, in real time. Modern witchcraft. In that moment I switched from "Twitter is stupid," to, "Twitter is the single greatest thing since the last wild declaration I've made." I understood it finally, Twitter connects the world, directly. You can say that he "doesn't know how to use Facebook" and even be correct, but that doesn't matter. To him, until he gets new information or insight, his opinion and experience with the product is absolute. It happened and here's how he felt. There's valuable information about the human experience in why he feels that way, and discussion to be had about why people seem to experience this duality. And the discussion is only going to evolve and change as we both grow the web and social, as well as when more of the world's youth who have never lived without these tools continue to grow online; as more of the world's cultures begin to increase their presence online and inter-mingle. These posts, while agreeably fixated on the opinions of individuals, are part of the process for all of us as a whole. Also, ironically, the act of the post itself is sharing something socially, albeit not first party on Facebook.

nannasin28 14y ago

They are pretty much all banned from politics for the content that they have shared. Not a lot of college students in the US are choosing majors that will help them get jobs, and it makes me sad that they are hurting their chances even more. http://www.hqew.net http://www.hqew.net

dgrant 14y ago

"Facebook is making us think we know people better" Umm, who really thinks that?

chris_wot 14y ago
Lots and lots and lots of people. Clearly you aren't in that Facebook group.

aldous 14y ago

Well you know, I find I agree with a fair amount in this post. At the core of FB is there not a paradox - the more 'connected' we become online the less we engage in more substantive communication offline? For me, I see an abstraction that takes place; an FB profile check on a friend replaces a phone call, an FB invite replaces a more direct intimate invitation etc. Are such abstractions corrosive to relationships in the long run? I'm increasing concluding they are. Further, does a system that abstracts relationships amplify negative patterns of behaviour too, such as bullying, stalking, soap boxing and ranting polemics, obnoxious behaviour/superfluous prattle for sake of attention seeking etc? Possibly. The toxic paring of FB with the complications of adolescence seems tangible to me too; my 14 year old step sister has become a veritable celebrity at school as she uses FB as the medium with which to qualify quite natural inclinations for her age; peer recognition, kudos, etc. Robbed of context and played out in front of an goading and somewhat unsympathetic audience these natural inclinations have warped into something quite odd and unpleasant. I hope she'll look back and laugh one day but you know some kids don't pull through it: http://goo.gl/nzDb1 http://goo.gl/nzDb1 You can be mentally rather delicate in these years. As an aside, the distracting potential of FB seems glaring obvious too; I have witnessed colleagues productivity plummet when some FB scandal erupts in their digital social sphere, frustrating when this impacts the rest of the teams work day. As someone said on here before, I guess use in moderation is the key, but again, if people don't like the FB service and want to opt out all together, 'more power to them' I say. This perception of a FB profile as a necessity in the 21st century seems fanciful on one level and insidious on another.

motters 14y ago

The main thing about about Facebook, or other similar sites, is to ask yourself how much value you're getting out of it versus how much time you're spending on it. It you're spending a lot of time but not getting much value then it may not be worth it.

VeejayRampay 14y ago

I didn't have time to read the article. I'm just coming here to tell the author (if he reads this) that the typo and general design of this website/blog (or whatever it is) is absolutely stunning. One of the best-looking I've seen. Bravo.

acjohnson55 14y ago
I like it overall, but the callout quotes are a bit much for me.

chris_wot 14y ago

I think this is a very insightful post. But what I really want to say is that I love the seersucker web design. Killer clean, long form posts, great typography... It's awesome!

borplk 14y ago

Almost everything I ever want to say when people look at me in awe and say "You aren't on Facebook?". I just don't get any satisfaction from maintaining a list of acquaintances and classmates that I happen to know because we happened to go the same school and I have no interest in reading about their lives and stalking them and finding out who their girlfriend/boyfriends are and who their newest friend is. I like the traditional way of friendship and communication because it has a 'natural permission setting'. For example if you ask my close friends they can tell you a lot of stuff about me, but once you get a little further, they wont know that much. Facebook creates this artificial thing where you can get a lot of information about someone without them knowing and you can exchange a very small amount in return. In the traditional way, if you care enough about me to want to know if I'm single or not, you will have to ask me (explicit expression) but using Facebook you can just look it up (implicit).

Evbn 14y ago
You can curate your FB sharing lists to handle this, just like in real life.

rtcoms 14y ago

Ironically , the article itself accepting comments via facebook. On the topic , facebook is more of a rss feed for me than social network.

crikli 14y ago

Facebook is a tool. And like all tools, its value is defined by how you choose to use it. Two years ago it was a worthless, annoying site with news feed full of mommies talking about their kids' snot. So I engaged with the site to make it my own. Today, because of relationships sustained and informed by Facebook, I'm doing Crossfit, visiting old friends in person more frequently, sending packages to new and old friends who are deployed to Afghanistan, and joining events like Tough Mudder and GoRuck Challenges. I think often about the privacy issues, the time suck that it can be, but I also have to think about positive changes that have come about because of the way I've used this particular tool. For me FB it's a bigtime net positive.

generalpf 14y ago
The article is about the tendencies in communication due to Facebook. A hammer is just a tool but dammit if it doesn't result in a lot of pounding.
- crikli 14y ago
  "The article is about the tendencies in communication due to Facebook." Yup, but my point, poorly made perhaps, is that you define your communication tendencies, and FB is just another communication tool. Not vice versa as the author intimates.

mediacrisis 14y ago

I think its a bit unfair to compare our parents generation (boomers) to ours (millennials, arguably). The first thing that comes to mind is that, at least in my social circle, no one has a land line. We move a lot. We change cell phone numbers (carrier problems, relationship issues, who knows). Its arguable that a FB presence is actually more stable than a physical presence for some social groups. Its not an all encompassing solution for human interaction by any means, but "worth it" is a very subjective term.

helloamar 14y ago

we have to abide nature's law in this also "Too Much of Anything Can Be A Bad Thing" Use it wise

k-mcgrady 14y ago

It seems the author was looking at the Facebook group the wrong way. I'm sure most people signed up to it to get questions answered and discover who their roommate was going to be. He seems disappointed that the people he talked to on it didn't become his friends. The group served it's purpose - to make friends you converse with people in person when you get to college. The author seems to have unrealistic expectations of social media.

Shorel 14y ago

Nothing in this post seems specific to Facebook. I have observed something similar with IRC channels 15 years ago. Basically he is complaining about human nature in a cyberspace enabled world.