pulling the plug on Facebook

[crumbum]

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.

[Pat K]

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.

[ben]

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.

[<<<<<]

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?!?!

[Sarah]

Being tired of hardcore porn?

[emma]

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.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

i enjoy both, although people on facebook seem to care less about what im doing than people on myspace.

[erika]

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

[yesno]

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)

[erika]

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.

[cutout]

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.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

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. 

[ericluxury]

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.

[cutout]

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.

[Gilly]

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.