Is Facebook losing its shiny?
I noticed something interesting today.. someone commented about how they tried Facebook and they are annoyed beyond reason by it. Which is why I don't have mine either. Well, that and the fact that my sister got all pissy when I defriended her rather than put up with what she was posting publicly to me. But anyway.
The comments on that post are almost unanimously in agreement with the OP: too many people trying to friend you that you don't want (like the people in high school you couldn't wait to get away from? Now they can find you again! Whee!) and you can't speak your mind because there are friends and family that you don't want to reveal things to but you can't choose who sees what, the public wall fills up with dumbass games people are playing that you have no interest in (and that are basically phishing scams disguised as games), etc etc.
I think maybe Facebook's popularity is peaking. I think the backlash is beginning. There is such a thing as TMI and people are realizing it. There's a whole range of showing yourself between a full covering burka and bare ass nekkid. You shouldn't have to choose between one or the other.
Yeah, Livejournal is full of stupid and fail and so on, too... but THAT'S WHAT FILTERS ARE FOR. That's why there are customizable friend lists that you can sort things. Or lock it all. Share only what you want. It's not an all or nothing proposition. There are people who have friended me and I look at their journal and I'm just not interested in friending back... people I've friended that I want to read, who have not responded (and I understand that friending does not mean I'm their friend, it just means I want to read their stuff). I've defriended people who fill up the bullshit meter. It's no big deal. I choose what I want to read.
With Facebook, you have to READ IT ALL RIGHT NOW! OR ELSE! AND DON'T THINK ABOUT UNFRIENDING ME BECAUSE I'LL KNOW AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY! BECAUSE BEING FRIENDED ON FACEBOOK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACTUALLY COMMUNICATING!
(also the reason I have a Twitter account but don't use it. It's just not that useful to me. If I don't care what I'm doing right this moment, why the hell would you? It ain't so important it can't wait till I get to a computer, where I can edit, rethink, and pause before hitting send... otherwise there would be a lot more on this LJ with the tag "ignore me please")
Note: apparently there are ways now to do some bare-bones filtering on Facebook now, but no one I've spoken to has successfully figured out how to implement it. A good system is not one that you have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out. If you don't know how to do something, can't find the information that will tell you how, and if no one you know knows how it works either, there's a problem.
So I don't miss Facebook and I don't regret my decision to get rid of it. After all, all it would do is remind me day after day after day that my relatives prefer to tell me how many imaginary gold coins their farms are making for them, than to actually talk to me. Like I need that reminder.
The comments on that post are almost unanimously in agreement with the OP: too many people trying to friend you that you don't want (like the people in high school you couldn't wait to get away from? Now they can find you again! Whee!) and you can't speak your mind because there are friends and family that you don't want to reveal things to but you can't choose who sees what, the public wall fills up with dumbass games people are playing that you have no interest in (and that are basically phishing scams disguised as games), etc etc.
I think maybe Facebook's popularity is peaking. I think the backlash is beginning. There is such a thing as TMI and people are realizing it. There's a whole range of showing yourself between a full covering burka and bare ass nekkid. You shouldn't have to choose between one or the other.
Yeah, Livejournal is full of stupid and fail and so on, too... but THAT'S WHAT FILTERS ARE FOR. That's why there are customizable friend lists that you can sort things. Or lock it all. Share only what you want. It's not an all or nothing proposition. There are people who have friended me and I look at their journal and I'm just not interested in friending back... people I've friended that I want to read, who have not responded (and I understand that friending does not mean I'm their friend, it just means I want to read their stuff). I've defriended people who fill up the bullshit meter. It's no big deal. I choose what I want to read.
With Facebook, you have to READ IT ALL RIGHT NOW! OR ELSE! AND DON'T THINK ABOUT UNFRIENDING ME BECAUSE I'LL KNOW AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY! BECAUSE BEING FRIENDED ON FACEBOOK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACTUALLY COMMUNICATING!
(also the reason I have a Twitter account but don't use it. It's just not that useful to me. If I don't care what I'm doing right this moment, why the hell would you? It ain't so important it can't wait till I get to a computer, where I can edit, rethink, and pause before hitting send... otherwise there would be a lot more on this LJ with the tag "ignore me please")
Note: apparently there are ways now to do some bare-bones filtering on Facebook now, but no one I've spoken to has successfully figured out how to implement it. A good system is not one that you have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out. If you don't know how to do something, can't find the information that will tell you how, and if no one you know knows how it works either, there's a problem.
So I don't miss Facebook and I don't regret my decision to get rid of it. After all, all it would do is remind me day after day after day that my relatives prefer to tell me how many imaginary gold coins their farms are making for them, than to actually talk to me. Like I need that reminder.