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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

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.
    - da02 14y ago
      I see what you mean. Thanks for elaborating. Good luck to you and your friends.
- kellishaver 14y ago
  My own experiences with Facebook have been pretty disappointing. I ended up reconnecting with old friends I'd lost touch with over the years, only to find out that with the exception of exactly one of them, they all had political, religious, and social views vastly different than my own. A large number of them also apparently spend what I would consider a very unhealthy amount of time on Facebook posting angry, racist messages that just seem to continually make them angrier and more racist as they feed off of one another. I've lost a lot of respect for a lot of people because of the things they put on Facebook. It's like, they log on to the site and all filters go off. I've found that with the exception of 2 or 3 people who only seem to communicate with the outside world via their Facebook account, everyone that I follow whom I genuinely want to keep up with are ones I was already talking to through other channels. Myself and most of my friends use Skype quite extensively for keeping in touch. Others email and use Google Talk.
  - krenoten 14y ago
    To be honest - it is actually somewhat important for racist people to be able to communicate in the open like that. You don't want to sweep your problems under the carpet and pretend they don't exist. Facebook has shown a lot of people just how far from dead racism really is. I don't use FB at all anymore, I have a deactivated account that I will log into once every year and a half or so when I need somebody's phone number and I don't have their email address. There really is a lot of value in how connected the network is, but to be honest I find my life to be infinitely more satisfying when I'm not spending most of it comparing myself to others. If I want to communicate, I like to maximize bandwidth, and use phone if I can't video chat or be in person. I hate texting because of how little communication happens compared with a phone call. So many misunderstandings happen when you strip out the vocal layer and limit the text length so drastically.
  - jff 14y ago
    > My own experiences with Facebook have been pretty disappointing. I ended up reconnecting with old friends I'd lost touch with over the years, only to find out that with the exception of exactly one of them, they all had political, religious, and social views vastly different than my own. "I used to like that guy, until I found out he thinks things what are different from things I think" (racists are still terrible OK)
- kennu 14y ago
  It sounds like a sad life, if you are supposed to live it by some specific rules that make it possible to get a public sector job later on. I think if this is the situation, it is the public sector that needs fixing, not peoples' lives or Facebook.
  - krenoten 14y ago
    You are absolutely free to share anything you want with whomever you choose. Just make sure you properly define who all that is and use basic crypto to keep out the unintended. It's not the public sector job so much as the ability to participate in politics to seek change without giving a checkmate to any potential adversary who has police friends that can view any content.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Considering that Michelle Bachmann is in Congress, In think his whole "FB pics kill your career" thing is overstated.
- jff 14y ago
  I use Facebook, somehow I managed to get a federal job, even after multiple background checks of varying thoroughness. The big thing a lot of these checks look for is how susceptible you might be to outside pressure. Who cares if you got drunk a lot in college? What they really want to know is if you have a mistress or some other secret that could be used as blackmail.
enraged_camel 14y ago
>>micro-blogging a.k.a. "listening to the sound of my own voice" But you set up the argument incorrectly. It's not a matter of whether or not one gets utility from Facebook. It's a matter of whether that utility is worth the cost. I would posit (although cannot prove) that most Facebook users are not aware of what the platform is costing them in terms of time and attention (not to mention things that they say that make them ineligible for a lot of jobs). They are only aware of the benefits they are getting.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  This is directed at you, but not exclusively. > "a.k.a. "listening to the sound of my own voice"" Why do we have to shit all over people like that? People writing crap onto a website where other people seem to respond positively to it: listening to the sound of one's own voice. Why is it that every time some group of people are having fun, we need to stomp on their sandcastle and call them names? I can see the second part of your argument (though IMO it's massively overblown), but that first part is just mean-spirited and unnecessary.
  - baddox 14y ago
    > Why is it that every time some group of people are having fun, we need to stomp on their sandcastle and call them names? Because, obviously, all social interactions that existed 10 years ago were perfectly natural and acceptable, but new types of social interactions that the youngsters are using are evil and bad and evidence of the speedy decline of civilization.
    - alan_cx 14y ago
      That's a silly cheap point that helps no one. I would suggest its because facebook isn't regarded as really being "social". Social used to mean actually meeting people, now it means clicking a box. "Social" has been redefined to a point many people cannot accept its new meaning.
      - 14y ago
lkozma 14y ago
You are right, but there might be initial utility to a lot of people and still have net negative effect over long time. Think of Tesco or Wal-Mart opening up in your neighbourhood. Initially it is good for everyone, then the mom&pop shops close down, then downtown loses its vitality, etc. etc. Similarly, I don't mind Facebook doing whatever they do and being useful to a lot of people. What saddens me is how other (often superior) options become slowly unavailable.
- tomasien 14y ago
  The only option that was worth anything that I've seen that seems to have disappeared for my generation due to technology is the what I call "the meeting place". This is where, due to the lack of constant connectivity, people would designate a place that you just would go, no matter what, at certain times. Think the Pool Hall in "Dazed and Confused" or the bar in "Cheers" for a couple pop culture examples. From both pop culture references and anecdotal evidence I've collected, it seems the "if nothing else is going on we always meet at x place" used to be more common than it is now. Now everyone wants to know who's going to be there, when, etc. before they decide whether to go.
kamjam 14y ago
I agree with you. I am now living in Canada, having moved from the UK. Facebook makes it much more practical for me to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe. Sure there is skype or email, or I could start a blog or whatever. But latter 2 just take too much time, and the last one is a one way process. People get to spend small amounts of time, or nearly nothing if they are just uploading a picture from their phone. Some/most of the time, these pictures would most likely not get shared, it may just be my nieces playing in the park, hardly breaking news worth emailing me about. With this in mind, the only benefit of the group I can think of was that it helped gather “background information.” The problem I see with a lot of people, esp in North America (or this may just be my personal experience) is they add EVERYBODY to Facebook. Just met you, "hey, you on Facebook?" whereas I only have people that I know: family, friends, ex-collegues, old school friends. If you have 800 "friends" on Facebook then you're going to be inundated with garbage. You also have the option of "spring cleaning" your friends list. Haven't spoken to you in a long time, unfriend. I don't understand this thing where you add strangers to your social circle, there's a lot of personal information on there.
mamoswined 14y ago
That's why I haven't quit facebook- I have 3 groups I'm part of that are a big part of my life. One of them is responsible for at least half my "real life" social life. I think on some level you have to ask why these groups led me to real social fulfillment, but other facebook groups like the ones the author here talks about don't. Maybe there is a Dunbar's number, a number of people above which social cohesion breaks down. But my own impression is that you have to recognize that facebook is a tool and there is still a need for human social leaders, what seems to be a rare breed, to coalesce around. These people have to be good at bringing people together, at planning events, at creating environments where social ties flourish. In each of my successful groups, one or two people have stepped up to organize interesting conversations and face to face events. Without such people, my favorite groups would probably have died the same death as Richie's college group.

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.
  - da02 14y ago
    I see what you mean. Thanks for elaborating. Good luck to you and your friends.
kellishaver 14y ago
My own experiences with Facebook have been pretty disappointing. I ended up reconnecting with old friends I'd lost touch with over the years, only to find out that with the exception of exactly one of them, they all had political, religious, and social views vastly different than my own. A large number of them also apparently spend what I would consider a very unhealthy amount of time on Facebook posting angry, racist messages that just seem to continually make them angrier and more racist as they feed off of one another. I've lost a lot of respect for a lot of people because of the things they put on Facebook. It's like, they log on to the site and all filters go off. I've found that with the exception of 2 or 3 people who only seem to communicate with the outside world via their Facebook account, everyone that I follow whom I genuinely want to keep up with are ones I was already talking to through other channels. Myself and most of my friends use Skype quite extensively for keeping in touch. Others email and use Google Talk.
- krenoten 14y ago
  To be honest - it is actually somewhat important for racist people to be able to communicate in the open like that. You don't want to sweep your problems under the carpet and pretend they don't exist. Facebook has shown a lot of people just how far from dead racism really is. I don't use FB at all anymore, I have a deactivated account that I will log into once every year and a half or so when I need somebody's phone number and I don't have their email address. There really is a lot of value in how connected the network is, but to be honest I find my life to be infinitely more satisfying when I'm not spending most of it comparing myself to others. If I want to communicate, I like to maximize bandwidth, and use phone if I can't video chat or be in person. I hate texting because of how little communication happens compared with a phone call. So many misunderstandings happen when you strip out the vocal layer and limit the text length so drastically.
- jff 14y ago
  > My own experiences with Facebook have been pretty disappointing. I ended up reconnecting with old friends I'd lost touch with over the years, only to find out that with the exception of exactly one of them, they all had political, religious, and social views vastly different than my own. "I used to like that guy, until I found out he thinks things what are different from things I think" (racists are still terrible OK)
kennu 14y ago
It sounds like a sad life, if you are supposed to live it by some specific rules that make it possible to get a public sector job later on. I think if this is the situation, it is the public sector that needs fixing, not peoples' lives or Facebook.
- krenoten 14y ago
  You are absolutely free to share anything you want with whomever you choose. Just make sure you properly define who all that is and use basic crypto to keep out the unintended. It's not the public sector job so much as the ability to participate in politics to seek change without giving a checkmate to any potential adversary who has police friends that can view any content.
Evbn 14y ago
Considering that Michelle Bachmann is in Congress, In think his whole "FB pics kill your career" thing is overstated.
jff 14y ago
I use Facebook, somehow I managed to get a federal job, even after multiple background checks of varying thoroughness. The big thing a lot of these checks look for is how susceptible you might be to outside pressure. Who cares if you got drunk a lot in college? What they really want to know is if you have a mistress or some other secret that could be used as blackmail.

enraged_camel 14y ago

>>micro-blogging a.k.a. "listening to the sound of my own voice" But you set up the argument incorrectly. It's not a matter of whether or not one gets utility from Facebook. It's a matter of whether that utility is worth the cost. I would posit (although cannot prove) that most Facebook users are not aware of what the platform is costing them in terms of time and attention (not to mention things that they say that make them ineligible for a lot of jobs). They are only aware of the benefits they are getting.

potatolicious 14y ago
This is directed at you, but not exclusively. > "a.k.a. "listening to the sound of my own voice"" Why do we have to shit all over people like that? People writing crap onto a website where other people seem to respond positively to it: listening to the sound of one's own voice. Why is it that every time some group of people are having fun, we need to stomp on their sandcastle and call them names? I can see the second part of your argument (though IMO it's massively overblown), but that first part is just mean-spirited and unnecessary.
- baddox 14y ago
  > Why is it that every time some group of people are having fun, we need to stomp on their sandcastle and call them names? Because, obviously, all social interactions that existed 10 years ago were perfectly natural and acceptable, but new types of social interactions that the youngsters are using are evil and bad and evidence of the speedy decline of civilization.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    That's a silly cheap point that helps no one. I would suggest its because facebook isn't regarded as really being "social". Social used to mean actually meeting people, now it means clicking a box. "Social" has been redefined to a point many people cannot accept its new meaning.
    - 14y ago

lkozma 14y ago

You are right, but there might be initial utility to a lot of people and still have net negative effect over long time. Think of Tesco or Wal-Mart opening up in your neighbourhood. Initially it is good for everyone, then the mom&pop shops close down, then downtown loses its vitality, etc. etc. Similarly, I don't mind Facebook doing whatever they do and being useful to a lot of people. What saddens me is how other (often superior) options become slowly unavailable.

tomasien 14y ago
The only option that was worth anything that I've seen that seems to have disappeared for my generation due to technology is the what I call "the meeting place". This is where, due to the lack of constant connectivity, people would designate a place that you just would go, no matter what, at certain times. Think the Pool Hall in "Dazed and Confused" or the bar in "Cheers" for a couple pop culture examples. From both pop culture references and anecdotal evidence I've collected, it seems the "if nothing else is going on we always meet at x place" used to be more common than it is now. Now everyone wants to know who's going to be there, when, etc. before they decide whether to go.

kamjam 14y ago

I agree with you. I am now living in Canada, having moved from the UK. Facebook makes it much more practical for me to keep in touch with friends and family across the globe. Sure there is skype or email, or I could start a blog or whatever. But latter 2 just take too much time, and the last one is a one way process. People get to spend small amounts of time, or nearly nothing if they are just uploading a picture from their phone. Some/most of the time, these pictures would most likely not get shared, it may just be my nieces playing in the park, hardly breaking news worth emailing me about. With this in mind, the only benefit of the group I can think of was that it helped gather “background information.” The problem I see with a lot of people, esp in North America (or this may just be my personal experience) is they add EVERYBODY to Facebook. Just met you, "hey, you on Facebook?" whereas I only have people that I know: family, friends, ex-collegues, old school friends. If you have 800 "friends" on Facebook then you're going to be inundated with garbage. You also have the option of "spring cleaning" your friends list. Haven't spoken to you in a long time, unfriend. I don't understand this thing where you add strangers to your social circle, there's a lot of personal information on there.

mamoswined 14y ago

That's why I haven't quit facebook- I have 3 groups I'm part of that are a big part of my life. One of them is responsible for at least half my "real life" social life. I think on some level you have to ask why these groups led me to real social fulfillment, but other facebook groups like the ones the author here talks about don't. Maybe there is a Dunbar's number, a number of people above which social cohesion breaks down. But my own impression is that you have to recognize that facebook is a tool and there is still a need for human social leaders, what seems to be a rare breed, to coalesce around. These people have to be good at bringing people together, at planning events, at creating environments where social ties flourish. In each of my successful groups, one or two people have stepped up to organize interesting conversations and face to face events. Without such people, my favorite groups would probably have died the same death as Richie's college group.