7 ms·

People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Googl

by graue 13y ago

People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. I see the same Hacker News as everyone else who visits HN. But Facebook isn't like that. Your Facebook timeline is based entirely on your friends and how you interact with Facebook. And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. It just ain't so. This may be a pat little summary of why using Facebook is unrewarding for the author, but to generalize that to a "failed" experiment for everyone, would require talking to other humans about how they experience Facebook — i.e., doing actual research. (Even then, the conclusion would only hold, at best, for the types of humans with whom the author has spoken.) And as usual for these rants, there's no evidence this research has been done. This piece of writing, therefore, does not contribute meaningfully to the discussion around Facebook.

onedev 13y ago
I completely agree with you. I think you've hit the nail on the head exactly.
ianstormtaylor 13y ago
Completely agree. Most every point he makes doesn't apply to my use of Facebook. The one that is interesting is his comparison to Google and SEO. In Google's world there are three players: (1) the searchers, (2) the advertisers and (3) the black hats who try to game the system. Unfortunately for Facebook, (2) and (3) are the same, so the people they make money from are also the people who are degrading the system. They don't have Google's luxury of cracking down hard on (3) because that's who their income comes from, which ends up sucking for the rest of us.
- taproot 13y ago
  Muddling the term black hat and "black hat seo" on the internet, hn no less. You certainly have the balls I lack.
- thenomad 13y ago
  Also the content creators on whose sites ads are placed (and to whose sites the search results point), surely?
dclowd9901 13y ago
> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. Moreover, if my news feed of middle-Americans-quite-pleased-to-share-indiscriminately is any indication, Facebook is what most people need. MOST PEOPLE. This whole elitist attitude in the tech community is breeding "innovators" who don't have the first clue what the world really wants or needs.
SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
Yep - this is an old thing, it applies to twitter, LiveJournal or to any other social network where you pick who you read. It's more about your choices than anything else: If you don't like the content you're reading, read different people. However ... Facebook is probably the only social network where I feel a high level of obligation to add people like Aunt Jemima, and Bill who I went to college with, years ago. It's "for" keeping in touch - i.e that's how most people use it. It's the fallback social network for contacts who don't fit into other, targeted social networks.
- curiousdannii 13y ago
  But that obligation doesn't mean anything about what you read. Add them and ignore them if you want.
femto 13y ago
> I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. Not for much longer [1,2]. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/how-google-is-mapping-out-our-lives-20130529-2nb0j.html http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/how-goo... [2] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419020,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419020,00.asp
samikc 13y ago
Agree to what you say. Facebook is great in some cases, like finding your old buddy from college or school. I use FB to find them, but after that I get their email ids and from then on its email communication. So for me FB is the place to find people. But FB is not for getting news about the topics I like; because, IMHO like the OP, Facebook news feed is broken for this purpose. Yes it is broken if you like to get news and information related to your interests. The prime reason, which I have discovered over the years of using FB, is I like things which my friends do not like a lot and vice-versa. I cannot blame Facebook for this. So when they like something which I do not, I still get the news in the feed. The same thing is happening in Twitter. I felt that it would be better if we can follow information we like rather than the people we like. This way we will be able to get the information that we want/like rather than the noise. A critical step towards this is tags and if we can follow a tag it would be better [1]. [1] Disclaimer: I have created a website to do just that. Link is https://www.scoopspot.com/ https://www.scoopspot.com/ .
- kalleboo 13y ago
  I think Facebook is getting into "follow information" as well. Recently I've started getting items in my newsfeed from pages I've never visited or liked, with the header "<page> posted about <topic from my profile>"
- scholia 13y ago
  I agree, but people have always followed the information they want. Online, that's as old as Usenet, and it continued through topics on CompuServe and AOL. It continues today through specialised forums and bulletin boards, especially the forums on subject-based websites. Good ones include AV Forums, Hydrogen Audio, DPReview, Doom9 etc. Anyone who thinks Facebook is, or is meant to be, a substitute for Doom9 is extremely dim. A lot of Facebook is social grooming and phatic communication http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/phaticterm.htm http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/phaticterm.htm
hkmurakami 13y ago
I'm not a heavy FB user, but having lived in various places around the world, it's one of the few ways I can passively keep in touch with what my dear friends have been up to half way around the globe. That is real value that Facebook does deliver, something I must admit despite my wide ranged mistrust and distaste for various other aspects of the service.
- taproot 13y ago
  And that thin veil is held together by its complicated breakups, baby pictures and cat memes. If it wasnt that everyone enjoyed sharing these things id hate to think what might happen. Im in the same boat as you here. And it worries me. Imagine if we had to go back to the old days of using msn status updates and actually having to gasp converse with one another in order to get our fill of socal interaction.
  - spinchange 13y ago
    Imagine gasp coming to point in life where your children & those of friends and loved ones make up some of most meaningful "content" there is.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    Have never seen a single baby picture or cat meme or anything like it on Facebook. And several of my friends have kids. There is a temptation when people comment on Facebook to extrapolate their experience with the vast array of different societies, social norms, perspectives, ages, interests, backgrounds, maturities etc.
    - taproot 13y ago
      You guys. Almost had me goin for a second.
  - Semaphor 13y ago
    One baby picture so far on FB and that was in a private message. The only source of memes is Mr. Takei. We have evening planning chats with people from (guesstimate) 10-15 different countries (all living in our town in Germany), groups for special topics. Conversing gasp with people who moved back to their home country is another regular activity. And it's all held together by an interface that makes it really easy even for the most non-tech people. So right now the first few stories in my news feed only has 3 posts I find interesting. And? I look at my feed every now and then and if often there is nothing interesting it doesn't hinder me. Some stuff is really interesting and helps me break out of the internet bubble I'm in bust mostly facebook is groups and chat for me. And that's why I love it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nextw33k 13y ago
I feel that you are missing his point. There is a trend towards emotional populist content on social networks. It's interesting to you because it's your friends and it feels personal. However in a broader context its creating a society that is inward looking (walled garden of your friends) and concerned with re-enforcing social norms (the like button). How does this activity improve us as a society? Where is the creativity and freedom?
- icebraining 13y ago
  A single social networks doesn't have to be everything and all-encompassing to be useful; the place where you organize a family lunch is usually not the same where you run a LAN party or perform body painting. I do wish that social network wasn't Facebook, though.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Your comment is fair, but I think you've imagined a creative, free society where the walled garden didn't exist - where it never existed in actuality. People have always been insular and self-contained within their circles. Said circles form early in life and change very slowly. Even when you move people around geographically, they quickly fall back into the same closed circles. In these circles they reinforce whatever social memes have developed - inside jokes, similar views, etc. Very few people in the world (though they do exist) actually continually meet new people outside of their existing groups. So sure, Facebook doesn't improve us as a society, nor is it a magical bastion of creativity and freedom - but life never was, and Facebook hasn't made it worse. Facebook is merely a magnification of who you are. If you were prone to sharing stupid motivational pictures, now your'e sharing a lot of them. If you surrounded yourself with constantly insightful, smart people, now you get to talk to a lot more of them, a lot more frequently. Facebook is what you make of it. I have a habit of squelching friends who don't post meaningful things. Click on the top right corner of their post and you can adjust their weighting in your feed - I have many people who essentially no longer contribute to my feed, and that's fine. Looking at my front page right now, nearly all of the information is stuff I actually care about.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > There is a trend towards emotional populist content on the internet. Fixed that for you.
foobarbazqux 13y ago
> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. On the other hand, technical people are like rats. They're the first to pile on to fresh meat (there was even a prominent website by this name...), and they're the first to flee when the place is burning down.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  Having an original opinion is a dangerous thing...mmm, boy. Fitting in with your surroundings is still a function of the lizard brain, is it not?
- threeseed 13y ago
  Your argument made sense in the years past where there only were technical people on the internet. But now it is less so. People are comfortable making their own choices on the internet and don't need the recommendations or advice of technical people like they did it in the past. Look at the success of Pinterest or Instagram for example. Neither grew because of technical people.
  - sergiosgc 13y ago
    Pinterest and Instagram grew out from the base of early smartphone adopters. These is as techy a group as you can find...
    - moheeb 13y ago
      Early smartphones mostly came out in the mid 2000s...way before Instagram or Pinterest.
      - sergiosgc 13y ago
        Dating the smartphone revolution at anytime before the first iPhone is disingenuous and you know it. Even then, the bulk of Internet-using smartphone users were tech heads.
myoffe 13y ago
I Agree. The difference between a blogger and a researcher is that the former can say what the heck he wants on the internet and state it as an objective and universal truth. While a researcher, on the other hand, must back his claims with some evidence. So this post should just be downvoted. Another guy with an opinion on the internet, nothing to get too excited about. It seems that the more controversy you create, the more popular you get on HN, regardless of whatever you have any ground to your claims.
alphang 13y ago
I agree that his piece isn't well-researched, and the title is sensationalist, but I share most of his experiences and sentiments. I hope a more quantitative research around this area does emerge though.
calinet6 13y ago
Brilliant. This is a perfect analysis of this article. People are using Facebook because they want to, not because some weird social power is forcing them to. My friends love it, my parents love it, heck my grandma thinks it's absolutely magical. We get to share things and communicate with family in a way we've never been able to ever. It's not replacing the deep connections and interpersonal relationships—you need to actually meet up with someone and talk to them in person or on the phone for that. But we already have ways to do that! The annoying people on Facebook are the ones who don't like it, like the author of this article. They're the ones that just post "Dang Facebook sucks more every day" or useless stuff like that and never actually use it for its capabilities. They expect Facebook to do their social for them, when it's really just a tool that you have to use optimistically.
- alphang 13y ago
  Funny you should mention 'forcing them to': "I'll wake up in the morning and go on Facebook just ... because," Casey says. "It's not like I want to or I don't. I just go on it. I'm, like, forced to. I don't know why. I need to. Facebook takes up my whole life." http://kottke.org/13/05/wanting-to-be-liked http://kottke.org/13/05/wanting-to-be-liked
  - antoko 13y ago
    replace "facebook" with "HN" in the quote above... How many of us could have said that? Are we forced to be here?
    - xtracto 13y ago
      And Reddit, and Slashdot and WoW and usenet... Aren't there studies that find there is an element of addiction to browsing the internet?
      - jamesjguthrie 13y ago
        "Withdrawal symptoms: If the person stops using the Internet, they experience unpleasant feelings or physical effects." It's a bit like having a drug addiction really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder
papsosouid 13y ago
>(it's always a man) Oh right, I forgot that having both an opinion and a penis is a crime. How does being a man have anything to do with it at all? Plenty of non-technical people have come to very similar conclusions, some of them have even been women. You are seeing what you want to see.
smith7018 13y ago
Thank you. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only person out there who has used the "unfriend" button before. I've deleted hundreds of people; many of whom I only met for one night 5 years ago or didn't even talk to way back in high school. Now, my Facebook feed has content that only features people I care to hear from and "interest pages," which is sorta meh. It's really not this social media wasteland I keep reading about?
- saraid216 13y ago
  I never friended people I didn't wish to hear from to begin with. I've only ever unfriended one person, and I've never broken the 200-friend threshold, so I can't claim to have unfriended hundreds.
  - smith7018 13y ago
    Well, congratulations on Facebooking more intelligently than most, I guess?
deluko 13y ago
People also love Yahoo Mail (and loved the previous, more-horrendous version, too). Doesn't mean it couldn't be better.
mike_herrera 13y ago
> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. ... > And as usual for these rants, there's no evidence this research has been done. This piece of writing, therefore, does not contribute meaningfully to the discussion around Facebook. Too harsh. I agree that there is not enough rigor to speculate on the universal experience, but this absolutely has value in the larger Facebook discussion. The increasing frequency of these anecdotal experiences is a hint that there exists a segment of frustrated users. It would be a mistake to summarily ignore their frustration due to the presentation of the argument.
- onedev 13y ago
  You have to remember Facebook's scale. These "increasingly common" anecdotes are from the same demographic of people. Facebook is used by 1.15 BILLION people. Think about that for a second. It's an absolutely staggering number and they're adding MILLIONS of new users every single day. Do you think the people in Africa, South America, Iceland, and even China, are going to have the same experiences as the person writing this article?
wavefunction 13y ago
Soon, you will not see the same Google Maps as everyone else: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/06/01/the-new-google-maps-is-a-social-network-in-disguise/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/06/01/the-new... So, enjoy your once democratic access to information.

by graue 13y ago

onedev 13y ago

I completely agree with you. I think you've hit the nail on the head exactly.

ianstormtaylor 13y ago

Completely agree. Most every point he makes doesn't apply to my use of Facebook. The one that is interesting is his comparison to Google and SEO. In Google's world there are three players: (1) the searchers, (2) the advertisers and (3) the black hats who try to game the system. Unfortunately for Facebook, (2) and (3) are the same, so the people they make money from are also the people who are degrading the system. They don't have Google's luxury of cracking down hard on (3) because that's who their income comes from, which ends up sucking for the rest of us.

taproot 13y ago
Muddling the term black hat and "black hat seo" on the internet, hn no less. You certainly have the balls I lack.
thenomad 13y ago
Also the content creators on whose sites ads are placed (and to whose sites the search results point), surely?

dclowd9901 13y ago

> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. Moreover, if my news feed of middle-Americans-quite-pleased-to-share-indiscriminately is any indication, Facebook is what most people need. MOST PEOPLE. This whole elitist attitude in the tech community is breeding "innovators" who don't have the first clue what the world really wants or needs.

SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago

Yep - this is an old thing, it applies to twitter, LiveJournal or to any other social network where you pick who you read. It's more about your choices than anything else: If you don't like the content you're reading, read different people. However ... Facebook is probably the only social network where I feel a high level of obligation to add people like Aunt Jemima, and Bill who I went to college with, years ago. It's "for" keeping in touch - i.e that's how most people use it. It's the fallback social network for contacts who don't fit into other, targeted social networks.

curiousdannii 13y ago
But that obligation doesn't mean anything about what you read. Add them and ignore them if you want.

femto 13y ago

> I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. Not for much longer [1,2]. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/how-google-is-mapping-out-our-lives-20130529-2nb0j.html http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/how-goo... [2] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419020,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419020,00.asp

samikc 13y ago

Agree to what you say. Facebook is great in some cases, like finding your old buddy from college or school. I use FB to find them, but after that I get their email ids and from then on its email communication. So for me FB is the place to find people. But FB is not for getting news about the topics I like; because, IMHO like the OP, Facebook news feed is broken for this purpose. Yes it is broken if you like to get news and information related to your interests. The prime reason, which I have discovered over the years of using FB, is I like things which my friends do not like a lot and vice-versa. I cannot blame Facebook for this. So when they like something which I do not, I still get the news in the feed. The same thing is happening in Twitter. I felt that it would be better if we can follow information we like rather than the people we like. This way we will be able to get the information that we want/like rather than the noise. A critical step towards this is tags and if we can follow a tag it would be better [1]. [1] Disclaimer: I have created a website to do just that. Link is https://www.scoopspot.com/ https://www.scoopspot.com/ .

kalleboo 13y ago
I think Facebook is getting into "follow information" as well. Recently I've started getting items in my newsfeed from pages I've never visited or liked, with the header "<page> posted about <topic from my profile>"
scholia 13y ago
I agree, but people have always followed the information they want. Online, that's as old as Usenet, and it continued through topics on CompuServe and AOL. It continues today through specialised forums and bulletin boards, especially the forums on subject-based websites. Good ones include AV Forums, Hydrogen Audio, DPReview, Doom9 etc. Anyone who thinks Facebook is, or is meant to be, a substitute for Doom9 is extremely dim. A lot of Facebook is social grooming and phatic communication http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/phaticterm.htm http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/phaticterm.htm

hkmurakami 13y ago

I'm not a heavy FB user, but having lived in various places around the world, it's one of the few ways I can passively keep in touch with what my dear friends have been up to half way around the globe. That is real value that Facebook does deliver, something I must admit despite my wide ranged mistrust and distaste for various other aspects of the service.

taproot 13y ago
And that thin veil is held together by its complicated breakups, baby pictures and cat memes. If it wasnt that everyone enjoyed sharing these things id hate to think what might happen. Im in the same boat as you here. And it worries me. Imagine if we had to go back to the old days of using msn status updates and actually having to gasp converse with one another in order to get our fill of socal interaction.
- spinchange 13y ago
  Imagine gasp coming to point in life where your children & those of friends and loved ones make up some of most meaningful "content" there is.
- threeseed 13y ago
  Have never seen a single baby picture or cat meme or anything like it on Facebook. And several of my friends have kids. There is a temptation when people comment on Facebook to extrapolate their experience with the vast array of different societies, social norms, perspectives, ages, interests, backgrounds, maturities etc.
  - taproot 13y ago
    You guys. Almost had me goin for a second.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  One baby picture so far on FB and that was in a private message. The only source of memes is Mr. Takei. We have evening planning chats with people from (guesstimate) 10-15 different countries (all living in our town in Germany), groups for special topics. Conversing gasp with people who moved back to their home country is another regular activity. And it's all held together by an interface that makes it really easy even for the most non-tech people. So right now the first few stories in my news feed only has 3 posts I find interesting. And? I look at my feed every now and then and if often there is nothing interesting it doesn't hinder me. Some stuff is really interesting and helps me break out of the internet bubble I'm in bust mostly facebook is groups and chat for me. And that's why I love it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nextw33k 13y ago

I feel that you are missing his point. There is a trend towards emotional populist content on social networks. It's interesting to you because it's your friends and it feels personal. However in a broader context its creating a society that is inward looking (walled garden of your friends) and concerned with re-enforcing social norms (the like button). How does this activity improve us as a society? Where is the creativity and freedom?

icebraining 13y ago
A single social networks doesn't have to be everything and all-encompassing to be useful; the place where you organize a family lunch is usually not the same where you run a LAN party or perform body painting. I do wish that social network wasn't Facebook, though.
potatolicious 13y ago
Your comment is fair, but I think you've imagined a creative, free society where the walled garden didn't exist - where it never existed in actuality. People have always been insular and self-contained within their circles. Said circles form early in life and change very slowly. Even when you move people around geographically, they quickly fall back into the same closed circles. In these circles they reinforce whatever social memes have developed - inside jokes, similar views, etc. Very few people in the world (though they do exist) actually continually meet new people outside of their existing groups. So sure, Facebook doesn't improve us as a society, nor is it a magical bastion of creativity and freedom - but life never was, and Facebook hasn't made it worse. Facebook is merely a magnification of who you are. If you were prone to sharing stupid motivational pictures, now your'e sharing a lot of them. If you surrounded yourself with constantly insightful, smart people, now you get to talk to a lot more of them, a lot more frequently. Facebook is what you make of it. I have a habit of squelching friends who don't post meaningful things. Click on the top right corner of their post and you can adjust their weighting in your feed - I have many people who essentially no longer contribute to my feed, and that's fine. Looking at my front page right now, nearly all of the information is stuff I actually care about.
saraid216 13y ago
> There is a trend towards emotional populist content on the internet. Fixed that for you.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. On the other hand, technical people are like rats. They're the first to pile on to fresh meat (there was even a prominent website by this name...), and they're the first to flee when the place is burning down.

johnjlocke 13y ago
Having an original opinion is a dangerous thing...mmm, boy. Fitting in with your surroundings is still a function of the lizard brain, is it not?
threeseed 13y ago
Your argument made sense in the years past where there only were technical people on the internet. But now it is less so. People are comfortable making their own choices on the internet and don't need the recommendations or advice of technical people like they did it in the past. Look at the success of Pinterest or Instagram for example. Neither grew because of technical people.
- sergiosgc 13y ago
  Pinterest and Instagram grew out from the base of early smartphone adopters. These is as techy a group as you can find...
  - moheeb 13y ago
    Early smartphones mostly came out in the mid 2000s...way before Instagram or Pinterest.
    - sergiosgc 13y ago
      Dating the smartphone revolution at anytime before the first iPhone is disingenuous and you know it. Even then, the bulk of Internet-using smartphone users were tech heads.

myoffe 13y ago

I Agree. The difference between a blogger and a researcher is that the former can say what the heck he wants on the internet and state it as an objective and universal truth. While a researcher, on the other hand, must back his claims with some evidence. So this post should just be downvoted. Another guy with an opinion on the internet, nothing to get too excited about. It seems that the more controversy you create, the more popular you get on HN, regardless of whatever you have any ground to your claims.

alphang 13y ago

I agree that his piece isn't well-researched, and the title is sensationalist, but I share most of his experiences and sentiments. I hope a more quantitative research around this area does emerge though.

calinet6 13y ago

Brilliant. This is a perfect analysis of this article. People are using Facebook because they want to, not because some weird social power is forcing them to. My friends love it, my parents love it, heck my grandma thinks it's absolutely magical. We get to share things and communicate with family in a way we've never been able to ever. It's not replacing the deep connections and interpersonal relationships—you need to actually meet up with someone and talk to them in person or on the phone for that. But we already have ways to do that! The annoying people on Facebook are the ones who don't like it, like the author of this article. They're the ones that just post "Dang Facebook sucks more every day" or useless stuff like that and never actually use it for its capabilities. They expect Facebook to do their social for them, when it's really just a tool that you have to use optimistically.

alphang 13y ago
Funny you should mention 'forcing them to': "I'll wake up in the morning and go on Facebook just ... because," Casey says. "It's not like I want to or I don't. I just go on it. I'm, like, forced to. I don't know why. I need to. Facebook takes up my whole life." http://kottke.org/13/05/wanting-to-be-liked http://kottke.org/13/05/wanting-to-be-liked
- antoko 13y ago
  replace "facebook" with "HN" in the quote above... How many of us could have said that? Are we forced to be here?
  - xtracto 13y ago
    And Reddit, and Slashdot and WoW and usenet... Aren't there studies that find there is an element of addiction to browsing the internet?
    - jamesjguthrie 13y ago
      "Withdrawal symptoms: If the person stops using the Internet, they experience unpleasant feelings or physical effects." It's a bit like having a drug addiction really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder

papsosouid 13y ago

>(it's always a man) Oh right, I forgot that having both an opinion and a penis is a crime. How does being a man have anything to do with it at all? Plenty of non-technical people have come to very similar conclusions, some of them have even been women. You are seeing what you want to see.

smith7018 13y ago

Thank you. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only person out there who has used the "unfriend" button before. I've deleted hundreds of people; many of whom I only met for one night 5 years ago or didn't even talk to way back in high school. Now, my Facebook feed has content that only features people I care to hear from and "interest pages," which is sorta meh. It's really not this social media wasteland I keep reading about?

saraid216 13y ago
I never friended people I didn't wish to hear from to begin with. I've only ever unfriended one person, and I've never broken the 200-friend threshold, so I can't claim to have unfriended hundreds.
- smith7018 13y ago
  Well, congratulations on Facebooking more intelligently than most, I guess?

deluko 13y ago

People also love Yahoo Mail (and loved the previous, more-horrendous version, too). Doesn't mean it couldn't be better.

mike_herrera 13y ago

> And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these posts from some techie who believes that his (it's always a man) experiences with social media are universal. ... > And as usual for these rants, there's no evidence this research has been done. This piece of writing, therefore, does not contribute meaningfully to the discussion around Facebook. Too harsh. I agree that there is not enough rigor to speculate on the universal experience, but this absolutely has value in the larger Facebook discussion. The increasing frequency of these anecdotal experiences is a hint that there exists a segment of frustrated users. It would be a mistake to summarily ignore their frustration due to the presentation of the argument.

onedev 13y ago
You have to remember Facebook's scale. These "increasingly common" anecdotes are from the same demographic of people. Facebook is used by 1.15 BILLION people. Think about that for a second. It's an absolutely staggering number and they're adding MILLIONS of new users every single day. Do you think the people in Africa, South America, Iceland, and even China, are going to have the same experiences as the person writing this article?

wavefunction 13y ago

Soon, you will not see the same Google Maps as everyone else: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/06/01/the-new-google-maps-is-a-social-network-in-disguise/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/06/01/the-new... So, enjoy your once democratic access to information.