FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: cutout on November 29, 2008, 12:24:04 AM
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Has Facebook gotten weird enough for any of you that you've deactivated your account?
Or have you ever felt like you were 'done' -- you caught up with every old friend you've ever made, saw all their family photos, realized you didn't want to stay in touch with any of them and felt weird about sharing information with them regarding your current life... I'm suddenly getting befriended by people who were total bullies and made my life hell back in school. I'm morbidly curious to see what's become of everyone, but also aware how artificial and banal and it is.
I know I'm not saying anything new here. Social networking just never fails to be weird to me. It's also weird to know that kids now in middle school will never know of life without it.
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I find Facebook really useful in college, where it's everyone's day-to-day method of communication and also the most efficient way to keep up with friends from home, but I can definitely understand getting frustrated with it in a different situation.
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Couple months ago. I think it's annoying.
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I find Facebook really useful in college, where it's everyone's day-to-day method of communication
Yeah, I should've pointed out for context -- I'm 33yo and only joined Facebook this year. I live in a small town where I see my current friends face-to-face constantly, thus FB isn't as useful. I'm mainly still there because old high school people keep joining and I can't look away. My hometown was pop. 5,000 and I haven't returned since high school. The nostalgia/novelty is interesting and there are good memories - but certain people really bring back very bad memories, like whiplash. I no longer want to post links and updates, knowing they're reading.
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I think it's great. I have friends all over the world, and it's an easy way to keep in touch with people. Also, I changed my last name a couple of years ago, and thus I don't get a lot of friend requests from old school mates who I don't wanna keep in touch with these days anyway. Which is good.
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I've finally started really liking Facebook lately, so much so I am ready to leave Myspace. It's a grown-up social networking site, just in time for our new grown-up President. FOT friendly in other words, get with the program kids.
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I feel the same way about facebook and the like as I would about everyone in the world suddenly developing telepathic abilities. It'd be great at first, but eventually it would spell our outright dissolution as a society. If we all knew enough despicable things about each other, it would be enough make everyone want to start a war!
Of course, as a promotional tool it's great, but if you have nothing to promote and aren't involved with a group that depends on social networking to operate (school, work, criminal organization, etc.), seriously, what are you doing there? I truly believe 95% of all social networking accounts could be permanently deleted with absolutely no repercussions to the world at large. If you need to know what I'm having for lunch, pick up the phone. I'll tell you. If you don't have my phone number, why the hell do you want to know that?! Why the hell do you want to know that, even if you DO have my number? Will you stop calling me and asking me what I'm having for lunch already? I really never should have given you my number. Jesus.
PS: No offense to those of you who like it. I'm a crank! Go in peace and network your hearts out. I'll be here training carrier pigeons to mail things for me.
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Erech Overaker became a fan of Regular Joe's crankiness.
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I love Facebook because I hate the telephone. There are too many special people I lost contact with and Facebook has been amazing at rekindling those relationship not just by keeping up with each other by status updates but by keeping that little bit of contact so we can meet once a year or so. If Facebook wasn't there I think those meet ups wouldn't happen. Of course, the argument is if you need something like Facebook to meet up the relationship isn't that great anyway, but for me it works. Life is busy, and you lose touch with people you really love and I'm glad that Facebook has made it possible to at least keep some connection.
A lot of people I friend I don't talk to for more than a 15 minute catch up but I love those 15 minutes.
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Yeah, Gilly said it better.
Also, Facebook is the first social networking site I've used outside of message boards like this one.
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I've never signed up for Facebook but I've been thinking about it lately because some family members that I only see a couple of times a year are on there and it might be a good way to keep up because, like Gilly, I hate talking on the phone.
I used to have a MySpace account but deleted it a few months ago. I initially signed up as a way to keep up with my favorite bands, who either don't have a "regular" website or never update it, but I soon realized that if they don't update their regular website, they're not going to update their MySpace page either, and all of the friend requests from girls in bikinis with only 1 friend started to get irritating.
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I like Facebook just fine, but I never update my status or do much beyond arrange social events and respond to invitations. My personal correspondance is still all by email. No one is forcing you to include any real personal info on your Facebook account beyond your area of residence, your age and your name -- if you want it to be a simple tool for managing your real-world social life, and not a whole other life of its own, it's not too hard to keep it as such.
Then again, I never had a Myspace account or Friendster either, so I don't think I'm naturally inclined toward social networking overload.
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I was tempted to open an account after having gone through the same crap with Friendster and MySpace, but I quickly realized that when I did open a Facebook account, within 5 minutes I had requests from people in high school that I didn't like and didn't want to know at all. It's like Gmail chat - I'm always invisible, and the people who really know me know what that means.
I think the trick is what Tom and PFT were saying - lean and mean. Only the people who would know that "I want to kill everyone" doesn't really mean that. That being said, I already keep in touch with those 15 people enough.
Also, the status updates? Inside jokes broadcasted to everyone. And mostly terrible.
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If it weren't for Facebook, we wouldn't have the H-Man's status updates to cool down The Kid.
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If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't know first-hand about Kim Kelly's daily shenanigans.
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If it weren't for Facebook, I wouldn't know that the guy who used to smack the back of my head on the school bus is now married to the girl who once screamed 'Nerd!' at me from her driveway.
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I signed up for a Facebook account in college at the behest of a girlfriend, never updated it, left it sitting around for about 3 or 4 years and then pulled the plug on it.
I never really saw the point, since I don't find it difficult keeping up with my friends the old fashioned ways (talking to them on the telephone in realtime, emailing them, and socializing with them). The only things that Facebook seems to offer that those things don't are 1.) being able to look at album after album of photos of my friends in bars, and 2.) being able to look at lists of my friends' favorite movies at any hour of the day or night, neither of which I really need to do.
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i've been on face book for about a month after hating any sort of internet connection site for years and years, and it's fun - ideal for older folks who for whatever reason are trying to reconnect or seeing what's going on with people they've known. I'm pretty sure in another few months I will get sick of it but who knows.
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I have a hard time seeing Facebook as grown up when every time I log in I have invitations to pick virtual flowers using the flower picker application or something. At least over at Myspace you've got hardcore porn. And what is more adult than hardcore porn, I ask you?!?!
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Being tired of hardcore porn?
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What I like about facebook is how it's turned the word "friend" into a verb. You think I am being sarcastic; I am not. For serious.
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i enjoy both, although people on facebook seem to care less about what im doing than people on myspace.
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I think people might be overthinking these social networking sites. They're either fun, or they're not. I think they're fun. Some people don't agree. Those people should not be on them. End of story :)
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I have to overthink things because of my addictive and procrastinating personality. A lot of those sites are primo time-wasters. I'm trying to limit my Internet time-wasting to this site, my newsreader, and. You know.
(clown fetish sites)
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Nah, you don't have to overthink it. If you're wasting your time with it, and you don't like it, then by all means get rid of it.
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They're either fun, or they're not.
I'd say that's underthinking it. All friendship networks have complications, online and off.
Yes, FB is fun and sometimes useful, but it's obviously trickier once your groups of friends get too large/too disparate/too impersonal. There's etiquette involved when people who were, say, assholes to you 20 years ago ask to be your friend. If you accept their request, you're now including them in your current life of pictures/links/updates--you're implicitly opening yourself up to a non-"friend". But if you ignore their request, you then feel kind of petty for not being able to ignore the past. Not to mention, sometimes re-connecting has positive therapeutic results.
None of this has convinced me to quit FB. The other 50% of the time, it's fun and useful. I'm just bemoaning that life is a minefield and you can't always step around it.
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I'm just bemoaning that life is a minefield and you can't always step around it.
this is true. and its usually because of people.
answer: get rid of the people.
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I see no point in pulling the plug on Facebook since you can just let it lay there. It will die its own death.
Here is the thing I don't understand. I decided to subscribe to Paul F Tompkins and John Hodgman's twitters and I looked around that site. That shit seems pretty overwhelming. I don't understand why the current trend in social networking is so based on wasting so much time. How the hell do people do it and I still don't understand why. I do sometimes have the vague feeling that not participating means I am missing out on something.
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Some finer points about Twitter by Tim O'Reilly -
http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/11/why-i-like-twitter.html
I find it somewhat useful b/c I only befriend/follow other web designers and they often post bits about their process or links to cool stuff. I don't follow anyone who posts about being bored or what they just ate. I use Twhirl to configure it all and get updates throughout the day that are moderately useful and less time-consuming than reading blogs. I guess it's all in how you use it.
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I love reading people's status updates on Facebook no matter what they are about. I just don't have any friends that use Twitter so I don't either.
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I have this odd assortment of coworkers, high school acquaintances, cousins and Chris L on my facebook. I have no idea what to do with it. I guess you just let it languish.
I only signed up because Scharpling was on there and then he booted me to minimize the same type of awkwardness he must experience on there.
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I had a Facebook account and was fine letting it languish, then at my former job everyone got all Web 2.0 and started making us join Facebook groups and friend each other and I just bailed on the thing. Killed it. I was on Friendster when that started and MySpace too and thought those were OK in their time. I love Twitter in all of its stupid silliness. Social networking is whatever, but having a boss control my use of a thing like Facebook -- ugh. Now that I'm not at that job, I've been considering making another profile and making it just for me. But I still have that bad association with it.
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I had a Facebook account and was fine letting it languish, then at my former job everyone got all Web 2.0 and started making us join Facebook groups and friend each other and I just bailed on the thing. Killed it. I was on Friendster when that started and MySpace too and thought those were OK in their time. I love Twitter in all of its stupid silliness. Social networking is whatever, but having a boss control my use of a thing like Facebook -- ugh. Now that I'm not at that job, I've been considering making another profile and making it just for me. But I still have that bad association with it.
I'd throw Facebook down the drain under those circumstances as well.
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I had a Facebook account and was fine letting it languish, then at my former job everyone got all Web 2.0 and started making us join Facebook groups and friend each other and I just bailed on the thing. Killed it. I was on Friendster when that started and MySpace too and thought those were OK in their time. I love Twitter in all of its stupid silliness. Social networking is whatever, but having a boss control my use of a thing like Facebook -- ugh. Now that I'm not at that job, I've been considering making another profile and making it just for me. But I still have that bad association with it.
What the hell kind of employer would make people do that? I'm having a hard time picturing this. I'd consider that crossing the line.
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Michael Scott? (Or David Brent for those who hate our freedoms)
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I had a Facebook account and was fine letting it languish, then at my former job everyone got all Web 2.0 and started making us join Facebook groups and friend each other and I just bailed on the thing. Killed it. I was on Friendster when that started and MySpace too and thought those were OK in their time. I love Twitter in all of its stupid silliness. Social networking is whatever, but having a boss control my use of a thing like Facebook -- ugh. Now that I'm not at that job, I've been considering making another profile and making it just for me. But I still have that bad association with it.
What the hell kind of employer would make people do that? I'm having a hard time picturing this. I'd consider that crossing the line.
Let your boss go on LinkedIn and leave the other sites to us slobs. Nothing takes the fun out of the internet like knowing that your boss sees everything you put on it.
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http://tech.msn.com/news/articlecnet.aspx?cp-documentid=16121364>1=40000
the day this happens, im pulling the plug on FB.
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http://tech.msn.com/news/articlecnet.aspx?cp-documentid=16121364>1=40000
the day this happens, im pulling the plug on FB.
I wonder if they're served to you in the form of a Facebook application.
"Fannie Mae would like to serve you legal documents"
"Allowing Fannie Mae access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work."
"Allow!"
-Put a box in my profile
-Put a link to Fannie Mae on my profile
-Receive email updates from Fannie Mae
-Feature my profile on the Fannie Mae site
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or the Chase Bank "SUPER POKE!"
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i'll never pull the plug, now that i am the owner of a delightful piece of joe paterno flair.
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The legal document thing doesn't really make sense. As long as your account is private there's no way you could be served. I guess it's worth for lawyers and collectors to check but it's not like it's going to effect anybody who doesn't leave their account open for anyone to see.
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I'm in the mixed feelings camp as far as facebook goes. I am fond of wasting time online, and I got a facebook account in November, but within a month or so I started getting sick of it. I haven't pulled the plug, but I have been tempted.
Is there a forum thread yet for FOTs on twitter? I've found and am now following a handful that I've gleaned from Tom's list of followers, but a one-stop listing here (again, let me know if it already exists) might be helpful.
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start it, Tim K. And thanks for following. And also, I love facebook, but I'm a narcissistic actor type who loves talking about himself and posting a gajillion photos. But I don't do apps.
I'm on twitter mainly as a follower because I got no juice over there.
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I'm already sick of Twitter. Record time for me to realize that some new social networking thingy adds zero value to my life.
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i like twitter for reading everyone else's business (go, martin!) but i dont get to log on til the end of the day and then ive got three pages worth of tweets to read.
i still dont know what happened with Tom's leg.
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Methinks Garage Band were the ones that made moi a Facebook account, which I surfed into, but I’ve never liked Facebook.
Wikipedia, moi trustith not 'Them'.....either.
Stay on groovin' safari,
:o Tor :o
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i like twitter for reading everyone else's business (go, martin!) but i dont get to log on til the end of the day and then ive got three pages worth of tweets to read.
Trying to constantly play "catch up" with all your followers tweets is a surefire way to get sick of Twitter and cast it off as a waste of time.
Twitter isn't a surrogate message board, and it's intentionally not designed for extended conversation threads, so there's no point in trying to "keep up" with anything. If you look at Twitter as a firehose from which you selectively take short drinks from every once in a while, it becomes less of a chore, and more of a fun diversion...kinda like opening up fortune cookies periodically throughout the day.
If you really wanna play the catch-up game, then use a dedicated Twitter program, instead of the website. TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/), in particular, lets you create selected groups of people (or even search terms) whose Tweets you are primarily interested in, and lets you tune out everything else. This has come in super handy for following Fuel Dump. Check it out:
(http://img.skitch.com/20090204-nf1c5tnygd6ipycp4tncifr8gf.jpg)
The 4th column only shows tweets from people I'm following who are Friends of Tom, and the 3rd column only shows Tweets that contain "@scharpling" and the hashtag "#FD" (some false positives slip through that one, unfortunately). I realize that following someone who likes Gary Cherone is probably on the level of Fight Club fandom, though.
The good stuff on Twitter also generally makes it onto Favrd.com, via Twitter's "Favorites" function (the little star you can click on when you hover over a Tweet in the web interface), so if you just want to see stuff that people thought good/funny enough to Favorite, Favrd is the place to do it. (i.e. http://textism.com/favrd/person/scharpling).
And of course, you do know that you can read Twitter on your mobile phone, using any number of freely available mobile Twitter clients and/or optimized web interfaces?