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But why? Why can't people use email anymore? This is a genuine question! I rarely feel like I would need something other than email for anything, so I don't und

But why? Why can't people use email anymore? This is a genuine question! I rarely feel like I would need something other than email for anything, so I don't understand how facebook replaced that?

Volpe 13y ago
Depending on your friends, facebook offers various advantages. You can see what they've been doing", see if they are online, send a simple 'hey' that wouldn't really be written if you were to use email. People do use email still... But pretending facebook doesn't offer any value is an exercise in reality distortion.
amirmc 13y ago
FB gives you a great way to stay peripherally involved in people's lives. It allows you to have numerous but low-cost touch points such that when you next have a chance to properly catch-up you already know what the major events have been. It's the complete opposite of email where I think "I'll wait until I have something proper to say" and then never send anything. On FB, it's totally normal to leave one-line comments. Having said this, I barely use FB anymore (due to privacy concerns). Edit: I should also add that I've never used email in the social way that people seem to refer to. I really don't understand how that would be possible. FB allowed new types of social exchanges that didn't exist before (for me, at least).
- TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
  I think I start to get it, thank you. So facebook basically replaces blogs/microblogging and photo sharing websites? i.e. blogs for the passive or peripheral involvement. Regarding your second point, mailing lists and group emails combined with personal emails are a good medium of social interaction IMO.
  - rahoulb 13y ago
    It's more like having RSS feeds in your reader for blogs that are rarely updated and you may have forgotten about (although not quite as you have to actively mark feeds as read). An email (whether direct or via a mailing list) is an interruption (at least to me), whereas a Facebook post just drops off the bottom of the page if I ignore it. EDIT: Sorry, that was poorly worded. The discovery side of it is more like an RSS reader (or maybe a group email). But the key distinction (for me at least) is that I can be totally passive - I don't even need to mark things as read - or I can engage.
    - amirmc 13y ago
      Moreoever, it's socially acceptable to be passive whereas ignoring an email (even a group email) is considered more like wilfully ignoring them (e.g cold-shoulder, blanking, etc)
  - jtolle 13y ago
    Isn't there an old saw about every big "Web 2.0" business being something that took what people were already doing but made it "social"? So Facebook made blogging social, Twitter made texting social, etc. 10+ years ago I knew a bunch of people who had personal blogs, but of course most of them were filled with "sorry for the lack of posts recently" type posts. I'm not on Facebook, but I understand why it's popular. The more people who might be reading, the more reason there is to post stuff. So it makes sense that everyone winds up in the same network.
rahoulb 13y ago
For me, it's not about the direct messaging - it's the feed. Someone on the other side of the world posts a photo of something they've been doing, I comment on it and we have a conversation. For this to happen without the likes of Facebook, they would have to explicitly share that photo with me, something that may or may not be likely depending upon what the photo is about, what their perception of my interests are and whether they think I want to be bothered with it.
megablast 13y ago
They can, but they do not. Why send an email to each person, when you can just post baby pictures or what you are doing to everyone on your feed? Then you don't have to worry about missing someone.
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  You could just as well use an address book group to send email to everyone or to a specific group. But I worry much more about spamming people with stuff they're not interested in than missing someone.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    Sharing on Facebook is a passive thing. You put a picture on your profile and your friends decide if it's worth their time to look at further. You never explicitly told them to look at it, you merely gave them the opportunity. It's like hanging a picture on the wall of your home. Email is a very explicit share. You are telling someone to look at this, because you sent it to them. This is much more personal. There's a social stigma in over-emailing, as much as there is a social stigma in not reading the emails a friend sends you. Emailing pictures is more like calling a friend. Yeah it's nice to hear their voice directly, but what if they don't want to hear what you have to say at this moment?
    - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
      Email has changed. I don't reply to every link or picture people send me, nor do I expect a reply on each and every email I send. There are certainly different social assumptions between email and Facebook, but the differences have long started to blur, depending on what context we're talking about (e.g work vs friends, etc.)
    - TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
      I agree with fauigerzigerk. I would say that email can, at this point, be used to "bump" stuff, to inform people, etc. without commitment or expectancy of an answer. At least, that's the way I use it.

But why? Why can't people use email anymore? This is a genuine question! I rarely feel like I would need something other than email for anything, so I don't understand how facebook replaced that?

Volpe 13y ago

Depending on your friends, facebook offers various advantages. You can see what they've been doing", see if they are online, send a simple 'hey' that wouldn't really be written if you were to use email. People do use email still... But pretending facebook doesn't offer any value is an exercise in reality distortion.

amirmc 13y ago

FB gives you a great way to stay peripherally involved in people's lives. It allows you to have numerous but low-cost touch points such that when you next have a chance to properly catch-up you already know what the major events have been. It's the complete opposite of email where I think "I'll wait until I have something proper to say" and then never send anything. On FB, it's totally normal to leave one-line comments. Having said this, I barely use FB anymore (due to privacy concerns). Edit: I should also add that I've never used email in the social way that people seem to refer to. I really don't understand how that would be possible. FB allowed new types of social exchanges that didn't exist before (for me, at least).

TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
I think I start to get it, thank you. So facebook basically replaces blogs/microblogging and photo sharing websites? i.e. blogs for the passive or peripheral involvement. Regarding your second point, mailing lists and group emails combined with personal emails are a good medium of social interaction IMO.
- rahoulb 13y ago
  It's more like having RSS feeds in your reader for blogs that are rarely updated and you may have forgotten about (although not quite as you have to actively mark feeds as read). An email (whether direct or via a mailing list) is an interruption (at least to me), whereas a Facebook post just drops off the bottom of the page if I ignore it. EDIT: Sorry, that was poorly worded. The discovery side of it is more like an RSS reader (or maybe a group email). But the key distinction (for me at least) is that I can be totally passive - I don't even need to mark things as read - or I can engage.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    Moreoever, it's socially acceptable to be passive whereas ignoring an email (even a group email) is considered more like wilfully ignoring them (e.g cold-shoulder, blanking, etc)
- jtolle 13y ago
  Isn't there an old saw about every big "Web 2.0" business being something that took what people were already doing but made it "social"? So Facebook made blogging social, Twitter made texting social, etc. 10+ years ago I knew a bunch of people who had personal blogs, but of course most of them were filled with "sorry for the lack of posts recently" type posts. I'm not on Facebook, but I understand why it's popular. The more people who might be reading, the more reason there is to post stuff. So it makes sense that everyone winds up in the same network.

rahoulb 13y ago

For me, it's not about the direct messaging - it's the feed. Someone on the other side of the world posts a photo of something they've been doing, I comment on it and we have a conversation. For this to happen without the likes of Facebook, they would have to explicitly share that photo with me, something that may or may not be likely depending upon what the photo is about, what their perception of my interests are and whether they think I want to be bothered with it.

megablast 13y ago

They can, but they do not. Why send an email to each person, when you can just post baby pictures or what you are doing to everyone on your feed? Then you don't have to worry about missing someone.

fauigerzigerk 13y ago
You could just as well use an address book group to send email to everyone or to a specific group. But I worry much more about spamming people with stuff they're not interested in than missing someone.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Sharing on Facebook is a passive thing. You put a picture on your profile and your friends decide if it's worth their time to look at further. You never explicitly told them to look at it, you merely gave them the opportunity. It's like hanging a picture on the wall of your home. Email is a very explicit share. You are telling someone to look at this, because you sent it to them. This is much more personal. There's a social stigma in over-emailing, as much as there is a social stigma in not reading the emails a friend sends you. Emailing pictures is more like calling a friend. Yeah it's nice to hear their voice directly, but what if they don't want to hear what you have to say at this moment?
  - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
    Email has changed. I don't reply to every link or picture people send me, nor do I expect a reply on each and every email I send. There are certainly different social assumptions between email and Facebook, but the differences have long started to blur, depending on what context we're talking about (e.g work vs friends, etc.)
  - TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
    I agree with fauigerzigerk. I would say that email can, at this point, be used to "bump" stuff, to inform people, etc. without commitment or expectancy of an answer. At least, that's the way I use it.