Facebook sucks
There are plenty of people out there who think social networks are a fake form of friendship and don't foster any real companionship and ultimately just oppose it completely.
I am not one of those people.
I love social networking. I started playing Counter-Strike, an online multiplayer computer game, when I was in middle school. One of the neat features of Counter-Strike that was unique among other online games was the level of interaction between players--not just in the game, but communication. There wasn't just text communication but voice, which means there were plenty of hours of just messing around, not taking things seriously having a good time with other people. It was social in a really geeky kind of way.
Being in a Counter-Strike clan also meant being a member of forums, which were fun. They were a great way to stay in contact with people whenever they weren't directly available, and it allowed casual communication with people who otherwise were only spoken to if I needed to talk to them badly enough to warrant a phone call. I don't just call up most of my friends and start yakking with them about something I saw on television or read in the paper, but online social networking opened up that avenue and let me interact with people I might otherwise never have thought.
The prospects of social networking are pretty incredible. You can meet people, talk to people you already know, and have in-depth discussions about whatever you want. Social networks exist to put you in touch with the people that are most likely to strike up a good conversation.
Of course many of these features are things that the media and most paranoids consider to be the very worst parts of social networking, but honestly if those are the bad parts then those people shouldn't be on social networks.
As much as I hate MySpace, it was a productive form of social networking. The blog was the centerpiece of the network, and sharing thoughts and interacting with people was front and center. I've heard lots of stories about people meeting their significant other, their best friend, or even just good friends on places like MySpace and its ilk, like LiveJournal. Expression, interaction, and discussion are the centerpiece of these social networks and that's what made them great in the first place.
And then there's Facebook.
Quite simply, there's absolutely nothing to Facebook. It is the least rewarding social network, but it's so alarmingly popular it makes zero sense that it's so dull an uninvolving.
Unknown to most, there is actually an excellent group/discussion board feature on Facebook, but those are the Groups that everyone "becomes a fan of" and then just forgets about it. I'm friends with a pile of people in Facebook, but the size of my friends list is pathetic compared to some other people, who have hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook.
Problem is, that's about as deep as the rabbit hole goes. Good luck trying to interact with anyone. The centerpiece of Facebook is the status update, which is this useless feature people use to either post song lyrics, what they did yesterday, or what they're not doing right now. That's it.
Most of the people who make status updates are not even people I consider close friends. Facebook has this whole "friend everyone you ever knew" mentality, so I'm getting status updates about people haven't seen or talked to since middle school, yet the people I really care about and want to talk to are either not on Facebook, or don't make too many status updates.
Facebook has its virtues. I don't mind having a conversation with someone via wall post if it's Holly's family, my family, or my close friends. But that's it. I use Facebook to talk to people I already know and talk to in places outside of Facebook. For all its glamor and popularity as the mother of all social networks, Facebook makes it annoyingly difficult to actually say anything to anyone.
Try joining a group... Most of them are retarded jokes, like "Can this onion ring get 1,000,000 fans before Justin Bieber?" etc. There's no point to the group. In fact most groups revolve entirely around amassing membership, but their discussion boards are dead and given the name and context of most groups, there's nothing to talk about anyway. I joined the computer science group on Facebook and made a few posts in the discussion boards. Nobody has posted anything since. The threads I posted in are still sitting up at the top. There are thousands of people in this group.
Facebook is a lot like a sandwich that doesn't have any meat. It looks delicious until you bite into it and then you start feeling cheated. There's nothing rewardnig about using Facebook, it's just a cheap way to pretend like you really care about every person you ever went to school with and that you're, on the books, friends. In fact, it may be for this very reason nobody talks to each other--they hate everyone who's friended them on Facebook and instead look elsewhere for friendship.
I am not one of those people.
I love social networking. I started playing Counter-Strike, an online multiplayer computer game, when I was in middle school. One of the neat features of Counter-Strike that was unique among other online games was the level of interaction between players--not just in the game, but communication. There wasn't just text communication but voice, which means there were plenty of hours of just messing around, not taking things seriously having a good time with other people. It was social in a really geeky kind of way.
Being in a Counter-Strike clan also meant being a member of forums, which were fun. They were a great way to stay in contact with people whenever they weren't directly available, and it allowed casual communication with people who otherwise were only spoken to if I needed to talk to them badly enough to warrant a phone call. I don't just call up most of my friends and start yakking with them about something I saw on television or read in the paper, but online social networking opened up that avenue and let me interact with people I might otherwise never have thought.
The prospects of social networking are pretty incredible. You can meet people, talk to people you already know, and have in-depth discussions about whatever you want. Social networks exist to put you in touch with the people that are most likely to strike up a good conversation.
Of course many of these features are things that the media and most paranoids consider to be the very worst parts of social networking, but honestly if those are the bad parts then those people shouldn't be on social networks.
As much as I hate MySpace, it was a productive form of social networking. The blog was the centerpiece of the network, and sharing thoughts and interacting with people was front and center. I've heard lots of stories about people meeting their significant other, their best friend, or even just good friends on places like MySpace and its ilk, like LiveJournal. Expression, interaction, and discussion are the centerpiece of these social networks and that's what made them great in the first place.
And then there's Facebook.
Quite simply, there's absolutely nothing to Facebook. It is the least rewarding social network, but it's so alarmingly popular it makes zero sense that it's so dull an uninvolving.
Unknown to most, there is actually an excellent group/discussion board feature on Facebook, but those are the Groups that everyone "becomes a fan of" and then just forgets about it. I'm friends with a pile of people in Facebook, but the size of my friends list is pathetic compared to some other people, who have hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook.
Problem is, that's about as deep as the rabbit hole goes. Good luck trying to interact with anyone. The centerpiece of Facebook is the status update, which is this useless feature people use to either post song lyrics, what they did yesterday, or what they're not doing right now. That's it.
Most of the people who make status updates are not even people I consider close friends. Facebook has this whole "friend everyone you ever knew" mentality, so I'm getting status updates about people haven't seen or talked to since middle school, yet the people I really care about and want to talk to are either not on Facebook, or don't make too many status updates.
Facebook has its virtues. I don't mind having a conversation with someone via wall post if it's Holly's family, my family, or my close friends. But that's it. I use Facebook to talk to people I already know and talk to in places outside of Facebook. For all its glamor and popularity as the mother of all social networks, Facebook makes it annoyingly difficult to actually say anything to anyone.
Try joining a group... Most of them are retarded jokes, like "Can this onion ring get 1,000,000 fans before Justin Bieber?" etc. There's no point to the group. In fact most groups revolve entirely around amassing membership, but their discussion boards are dead and given the name and context of most groups, there's nothing to talk about anyway. I joined the computer science group on Facebook and made a few posts in the discussion boards. Nobody has posted anything since. The threads I posted in are still sitting up at the top. There are thousands of people in this group.
Facebook is a lot like a sandwich that doesn't have any meat. It looks delicious until you bite into it and then you start feeling cheated. There's nothing rewardnig about using Facebook, it's just a cheap way to pretend like you really care about every person you ever went to school with and that you're, on the books, friends. In fact, it may be for this very reason nobody talks to each other--they hate everyone who's friended them on Facebook and instead look elsewhere for friendship.