5 ms·

I didn't have a facebook account for a very long time, and now I do and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. Yes, old acquaintances posting about

I didn't have a facebook account for a very long time, and now I do and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. Yes, old acquaintances posting about minutia of there lives is of no value and can be down right irritating. But the single most important function facebook provides is it turns acquaintances into friends. You can add people on Facebook that you've only meet once or twice before. You don't need to awkwardly ask for someone number or email or on the spot make future plans to meet up. You just look them up and you're instantly connected to them. You may learn they have a hobby in common with you or that they have an event that you're welcome to come to, and through the connection provided by Facebook you can strengthen your relations with people you find interesting. For my real friends that I keep in touch with regularly facebook is more or less irrelevant - in fact most aren't even on my facebook. It's a nice platform to upload your photos to I guess, but honestly emailing a dropbox link is kinda nicer tbh.

junto 13y ago
I'm similar to you. I had an account for a long time, then "deleted it" a couple of months ago. My entire problem with Facebook has been based around invasions to my privacy. As the years went on, I realised that more and more of my privacy was being eroded. I realised that Facebook really didn't care. I realised that I was helping them to build one big database that was searchable and rampant for abuse by a rogue government agency. My quitting of Facebook meant nothing really. They already had all of my data, and primarily, my contacts and a profile picture. The "deletion" of my account just meant they switched my account status from "active" to "deactivated" to "deleted". I'm not naieve enough to believe that they really deleted all that info. I proved several times to the contrary previously through minor Facebook bugs. At the end of the day, Facebook is company that over time more and more people won't trust. The demographics are already changing and ageing. The key thing I have taken away from deleting my account t is much like yourself. I realised that I don't actually miss it. The people I was friends with on Facebook weren't my day to day friends. To be perfectly honest I don't have many. Everyone on Facebook that I knew were exes. Ex work colleagues, ex girlfriends, ex friends. If they want to keep in touch then they can find other ways to contact me. Maybe we can meet up and have a face-to-face, away from the prying eyes and ears of the snooping governments that we all live under in 2013. One final thing. I will discourage my kids from having Facebook accounts. I hope I can teach them about their privacy, such that they don't want one in the first place.
- threeseed 13y ago
  I guarentee that you discouraging your kids from having Facebook accounts (or whatever their equivalent is) will only do harm. Privacy in the modern era means being selective about the disclosure of content. It doesn't mean completely pulling away from social networks which are increasingly vital to social interaction. Plus pretty sure you don't understand modern day kids otherwise you would know that private tools e.g. Snapchat are more often the real invasion of privacy.
  - jonknee 13y ago
    > Plus pretty sure you don't understand modern day kids otherwise you would know that private tools e.g. Snapchat are more often the real invasion of privacy. How is Snapchat more an invasion of privacy than Facebook? Facebook has played fast and loose with user data at every opportunity while Snapchat is based around user data being ephemeral. Maybe I have missed the news stories of kids committing suicide because of private Snapchats, but the two companies have literally opposite goals in terms of data retention.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >I guarentee that you discouraging your kids from having Facebook accounts (or whatever their equivalent is) will only do harm. Because FB is some kind of inevitable force? I, for one, also respect parents that don't let their kids watch television crap.
- blah32497 13y ago
  A bit off-topic, but Facebook has always very intentionally been on the cutting edge of eroding privacy and frankly it doesn't really matter what you do. In 10 years people will care even less about privacy than they do now. Due to Facebook people now-a-days are sharing significantly more than they would ever have been comfortable with even 10 years ago. That trend is only going to continue. "one big database that was searchable and rampant for abuse by a rogue government agency" I think this doomsday mentality is going to eventually disappear, and the socio-economical cost of NOT being on social media is going to grow. No advanced society (past a certain GDP) has slipped back into tyranny and all the people that think Obama is going to go fascist and read about how you love tranny porn are not grounded in reality. Even if tomorrow the government had complete access to everyone's Facebook, life wouldn't change and the world would keep turning b/c ultimately the government doesn't have that much power. Even if Obama hated you personally the best he can do it get your balls fondled at the airport and maybe audit you (though if you pay your taxes, you shouldn't be concerned with that). And yeah, it's important to fight against tyranny and to for instance demand the dissolving of the TSA, but in reality the gov't doesn't care about you and as long as you aren't breaking any laws (and most people aren't) it's not really a big deal.

junto 13y ago

I'm similar to you. I had an account for a long time, then "deleted it" a couple of months ago. My entire problem with Facebook has been based around invasions to my privacy. As the years went on, I realised that more and more of my privacy was being eroded. I realised that Facebook really didn't care. I realised that I was helping them to build one big database that was searchable and rampant for abuse by a rogue government agency. My quitting of Facebook meant nothing really. They already had all of my data, and primarily, my contacts and a profile picture. The "deletion" of my account just meant they switched my account status from "active" to "deactivated" to "deleted". I'm not naieve enough to believe that they really deleted all that info. I proved several times to the contrary previously through minor Facebook bugs. At the end of the day, Facebook is company that over time more and more people won't trust. The demographics are already changing and ageing. The key thing I have taken away from deleting my account t is much like yourself. I realised that I don't actually miss it. The people I was friends with on Facebook weren't my day to day friends. To be perfectly honest I don't have many. Everyone on Facebook that I knew were exes. Ex work colleagues, ex girlfriends, ex friends. If they want to keep in touch then they can find other ways to contact me. Maybe we can meet up and have a face-to-face, away from the prying eyes and ears of the snooping governments that we all live under in 2013. One final thing. I will discourage my kids from having Facebook accounts. I hope I can teach them about their privacy, such that they don't want one in the first place.

threeseed 13y ago
I guarentee that you discouraging your kids from having Facebook accounts (or whatever their equivalent is) will only do harm. Privacy in the modern era means being selective about the disclosure of content. It doesn't mean completely pulling away from social networks which are increasingly vital to social interaction. Plus pretty sure you don't understand modern day kids otherwise you would know that private tools e.g. Snapchat are more often the real invasion of privacy.
- jonknee 13y ago
  > Plus pretty sure you don't understand modern day kids otherwise you would know that private tools e.g. Snapchat are more often the real invasion of privacy. How is Snapchat more an invasion of privacy than Facebook? Facebook has played fast and loose with user data at every opportunity while Snapchat is based around user data being ephemeral. Maybe I have missed the news stories of kids committing suicide because of private Snapchats, but the two companies have literally opposite goals in terms of data retention.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >I guarentee that you discouraging your kids from having Facebook accounts (or whatever their equivalent is) will only do harm. Because FB is some kind of inevitable force? I, for one, also respect parents that don't let their kids watch television crap.
blah32497 13y ago
A bit off-topic, but Facebook has always very intentionally been on the cutting edge of eroding privacy and frankly it doesn't really matter what you do. In 10 years people will care even less about privacy than they do now. Due to Facebook people now-a-days are sharing significantly more than they would ever have been comfortable with even 10 years ago. That trend is only going to continue. "one big database that was searchable and rampant for abuse by a rogue government agency" I think this doomsday mentality is going to eventually disappear, and the socio-economical cost of NOT being on social media is going to grow. No advanced society (past a certain GDP) has slipped back into tyranny and all the people that think Obama is going to go fascist and read about how you love tranny porn are not grounded in reality. Even if tomorrow the government had complete access to everyone's Facebook, life wouldn't change and the world would keep turning b/c ultimately the government doesn't have that much power. Even if Obama hated you personally the best he can do it get your balls fondled at the airport and maybe audit you (though if you pay your taxes, you shouldn't be concerned with that). And yeah, it's important to fight against tyranny and to for instance demand the dissolving of the TSA, but in reality the gov't doesn't care about you and as long as you aren't breaking any laws (and most people aren't) it's not really a big deal.