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What? How is Facebook like an idea or an illness? The problem Facebook solves is a problem we humans have had for thousands of years: how do we stay in touch w

by rpedela 13y ago

What? How is Facebook like an idea or an illness? The problem Facebook solves is a problem we humans have had for thousands of years: how do we stay in touch with our friends and family? Facebook has made staying in touch much easier and simpler than any method before it. I don't see Facebook's demise until something else comes along to make staying in touch with friends and family even easier.

icegreentea 13y ago
shrug you can model anything as an illness if it has vaguely the same characteristics. Just needs some ability to spread via connections, and some ability to cure a node and make it immune to reinfection at the same time (for example, getting over the sickness and becoming immune, dying of smallpox, or getting bored of MySpace). I guess you could attempt to model a person's use of a social network as a result of attractors and repulsors. Attractors could be wanting to stay in touch with friends. Repulsors cold be simple apathy, or lack of novelty. When the balance of the two drops enough, you get bored of Facebook (or whatever), and stop caring about it. ...anyhow, the study uses a funky metric/proxy (google search trends...). They claim it works.
ams6110 13y ago
Humans haven't had that problem for thousands of years. For thousands of years our friends and family were mostly our neighbors if not actually living in our households. You could argue that Facebook and social media in general has perverted the notion of what a "friend" is.
- rpedela 13y ago
  Of course we have. Soldiers going off to war. Marriages between two families in different towns or countries for political or economic reasons. Moving from the country to the city in the hopes of a better life. Becoming a travelling merchant. Etc. Maybe the need was not as great as it is now, but the need certainly existed.
nubbee 13y ago
I'd argue that Facebook does not solve the problem and is just one of many solutions. As always with first new market exploiters their limitations will be features on newer, smaller, and more agile 2nd generation exploiters. You won't see a demise, or a new facebook rise up somewhere else, it will simply be subjected to fragmentation of the market.

by rpedela 13y ago

icegreentea 13y ago

shrug you can model anything as an illness if it has vaguely the same characteristics. Just needs some ability to spread via connections, and some ability to cure a node and make it immune to reinfection at the same time (for example, getting over the sickness and becoming immune, dying of smallpox, or getting bored of MySpace). I guess you could attempt to model a person's use of a social network as a result of attractors and repulsors. Attractors could be wanting to stay in touch with friends. Repulsors cold be simple apathy, or lack of novelty. When the balance of the two drops enough, you get bored of Facebook (or whatever), and stop caring about it. ...anyhow, the study uses a funky metric/proxy (google search trends...). They claim it works.

ams6110 13y ago

Humans haven't had that problem for thousands of years. For thousands of years our friends and family were mostly our neighbors if not actually living in our households. You could argue that Facebook and social media in general has perverted the notion of what a "friend" is.

rpedela 13y ago
Of course we have. Soldiers going off to war. Marriages between two families in different towns or countries for political or economic reasons. Moving from the country to the city in the hopes of a better life. Becoming a travelling merchant. Etc. Maybe the need was not as great as it is now, but the need certainly existed.

nubbee 13y ago

I'd argue that Facebook does not solve the problem and is just one of many solutions. As always with first new market exploiters their limitations will be features on newer, smaller, and more agile 2nd generation exploiters. You won't see a demise, or a new facebook rise up somewhere else, it will simply be subjected to fragmentation of the market.