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One day we'll look back and laugh about how much we needed to check in to a black mirror every so often, like how people looked back to the 70's and 80's and la
by alaskamiller 14y ago
One day we'll look back and laugh about how much we needed to check in to a black mirror every so often, like how people looked back to the 70's and 80's and laugh how much cocaine addiction, was tolerated in social settings.
- untog 14y agoWhy do people keep talking about Facebook as if it's an exercise in ego-stroking? I don't sit there staring at my own profile page, I use it to communicate with people.
- jonnathanson 14y agoI think a lot of people miss the point of Facebook. They say it's a wide, shallow network with low-touch engagement. But that's just fine for what it is. Rather than comparing Facebook engagement to some hypothetically deeper, more ostensibly fulfilling form of social interaction, we should be comparing Facebook to not-Facebook. How many people were we keeping in touch with before we started using Facebook? How have our existing friendships deepened or shallowed because of Facebook? My guess is that, on balance, we have suffered very minimal (if any) "shallowing" of true friendships, while simultaneously we have rekindled a lot of (admittedly shallow, but nonetheless existent) secondary and tertiary friendships. Most important, we have probably increased our frequency of engagement with all friends -- close and not-so-close -- on a daily basis, and no doubt by a dramatic margin. Facebook gives people a great way to engage in social interactions at low social cost, so to speak. There's minimal risk of non-reciprocation, the way there could be with SMS or email or phone calls. Thus, the barriers to initiating social contact are drastically lowered. Frequency increases accordingly.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]