Okay, this thread is going to prove what a dinosaur I really am, but somebody explain Facebook to me.
Today on the bus, there was a guy on his cellphone going on and on about some argument his sisters got into on Facebook.
“No, go to that page and see! She blocked her from her page! I mean they got into this big fight on Facebook, and she blocked her!! Go and see!!” This guy was acting like this was his biggest family crisis ever.
I guess I’m the last to grow up without social media, so I must admit, I just don’t get Facebook. I have a page on it, something I had to open for some online college courses. But I’ve never used it even while taking the courses. I never had to, and I didn’t really understand why the school made me open one in the first place.
Is it just a computer network where people swap photos and gossip? Who the fuck cares? Isn’t gossip better in person or on the phone where you don’t have to type everything out? And photos? I thought everybody groaned and rolled their eyes when grandma got the photo album out.
So what else does it do? And why is everyone so addicted to it? My phone is constantly giving me messages that “My friends have posted 84 updates on Facebook.” Honestly, I never go there. Should I? What the fuck am I not getting?
First, not everything will appeals to everybody and that doesn’t make it bad or stupid.
I like Facebook because I can keep up with friends and family who live across the country and around the world. I can see my little niece’s violin recital or her halloween costume. They can easily see photos of my daughter’s recent high school graduation. I don’t have to email bomb 100s of people with photos- whoever cares can look and if they don’t care they can scroll past.
I can keep up with friends I genuinely care about but don’t have time to write emails or call on a regular basis. I am happy they took a nice vacation or got a dog or whatever. It’s fun. I can interact with online friends in another capacity other than message boards I belong to and get to know them a little bit better. I can follow political causes, TV shows, local stores and restaurants, and see what’s new on my time and when I feel like it, without having to get a newsletter or spammy emails.
It works for me and my family and friends. If it doesn’t fill some need/niche in your life, that’s cool too.
I’m surprised somewhere else didn’t take its place. When Google+ first came out, I was really impressed with it, and almost gave up Facebook for it. But nobody else wanted to use it.
Gossip in person might be better but it’s hard to gossip in person with fifteen of your old college friends scattered across the nation at 11am on a Thursday.
As far as I can tell, the one and only advantage that Facebook has over message boards such as this one, blogging environments such as wordpress and livejournal, and other places that people can post and read other folks’ posts, is that it’s where the people are.
The software is awful compared to vBulletin. But I go there because it’s where other people go to post.
As for the family crisis, well, it’s not facebook that is important here, it’s the fact that it’s family. Most people have a facebook account now, and for them, it’s part of the default social expectation. You invite your friends and family to your page, where you are sharing your thoughts, and images of the things you love, etc. It can be a relatively intimate thing. Blocking a close friend or family member is tantamount to pointedly not inviting someone to Thanksgiving dinner. So, yeah, it is a relatively big deal. It probably happens more than real-life snubs, because it’s easier to do from behind the computer.
I moved away from the town I grew up and went to high school in and never thought I’d ever hear from anyone from those days again. I also never thought I’d hear from old army buds. FB helped me reconnect with lots of those people, and it’s pretty cool. I almost never use email anymore. I’ve also made lots of game friends from around the country and world, and I think it’s great to have that sort of connection with my fellow earthlings. I don’t see how I would have otherwise.
As for the family drama stuff, I don’t know. Some families are just drama prone I guess. Sometimes it’s amusing to watch, but easy to ignore if you’re not into drama.
I like how idiots will post photo and video evidence of their crimes on FB and get themselves busted. That’s doing a service to society I think.
You’ve pretty much got what Facebook is. It seems like you don’t like it.
I tried MySpace. When everyone left it for Facebook, I was pretty glad that no one expected me to pay attention to MySpace anymore, so I didn’t set up a Facebook account. I’m pretty happy with that situation.
Right, if you’re not interested in a certain social media platform, then you don’t need to use it, just like if you’re not interested in a movie, band, or book, don’t watch, listen, or read it. You’ll be happier than if you are trying to use it and constantly getting annoyed or frustrated.
I like it because it’s a good way to keep up with people. I definitely have friends that would have drifted away that I can keep up with easier because of Facebook. Or I have friends that I see in real life, but I see different things on Facebook that I can talk to them about there or in real life.
Also, I don’t just use it for people I know, but for bands and companies and other things I like and want to keep track of. I’ve liked a lot of bands on Facebook, and I’ll see when they post a new touring schedule and that they are coming to Houston. I’ve liked some of my favorite restaurants in the area, and I’ll see when they have special events that I might like to go to.
Also, if you are getting lots of notifications for what your friends are posting, you can modify those notifications.
It’s also easier to find people and connect with them on Facebook. If I’m at a party with my friend Sarah, and I meet her friend Beth and we talk for a while and hit it off, I can find Beth on Facebook, either by her full name if I know it, or by looking up Sarah’s friends and finding Beth that way, and I can send her a friend request. If she posts a bunch of annoying political posts, or a bunch of posts about boyfriend drama I can hide her. But if posts about movies she watched and liked, or concerts or other events she’s going to, then we can talk on Facebook, or talk about that stuff next time I see her in person, or I could maybe invite her to whatever event we’re both interested in.
Just recently I went to a cool party put on by a new artist space that had free drinks and a demolition room where you could hit the walls with sledgehammers, and I found out about it because someone that I was Facebook friends had marked that they were interested in it. It’s something I probably never would have found out about otherwise. This might not be the way that everyone uses Facebook but it’s useful for me.
FaceBook is just a tool for mass communication. The core genius of it is really the News Feed.
You could send a mass email to all your friends, but they may not read it. Plus, if it is a minor thought or opinion, it comes across as a bit self-important to direct email everyone your minor observations.
Or you could start your own blog and post your own material. But let’s face it, your audience is going to be limited to the few people who really care what you and only you have to say.
Facebook provides a brilliant middle ground. You post your thoughts and opinions and news that you want to share publicly and your posts are integrated into all your friends’ “news feeds”. So each person is seeing a customized blog of all their friends’ observations and news and photos. If a friend is constantly cluttering up your feed with posts you don’t care to read, you can “hide” them. The end result is a nice stream of activity from people you care about.
And no one has to know you took a quick look at the photo album and passed on to something else instead of having to ask Grandma politely if Aunt Vicky had eaten something disagreeable or if she always looks like she’s got a lemon wedged in her windpipe.
If you think of FB as replacing human contact, then it can be a bad thing. Unless you’re miles away from your friends and family who can’t spend all day on the phone anyway. If you think about it as a supplement, then it can be a very pleasant thing. I’ve posted a question or thought that drew comments from a cousin, a person I haven’t seen since high school in the 70’s, a college roommate, a friend who moved cross country in the 90’s, and my co-worker I see every day. Under what other circumstances would I get those reactions from that cross section of people I know.
I have some pretty hard and fast rules. I don’t post anything publicly that my boss or my grandmother couldn’t read. And I never, ever under any circumstances discuss politics or respond to posts that require me to paste something to my own feed. I like a peaceful life.
I throw out a few lines a couple of times a week to say “Hey, I’m still alive and kicking, but there is absolutely nothing happening in my life that would be of enough interest to merit a phone call.”
I liken Facebook to a television full of your friends’ and family members’ lives. You can just scroll through like flipping through channels and see what so-and-so is up to these days, just like you could see what Kramer or Opie or Weezy were up to. It can be totally passive, like watching TV or you can interact a bit if you want, which makes it more fun than just watching.
I think a lot of the value of Facebook depends on the value of your friends list. If you are only friends with people you enjoy hearing from and keeping up with, then Facebook is an amazing and addicting tool. It’s been life-changing for me, I’d say.
If you friend/follow people that you don’t like, and they keep posting stuff that you don’t like, then it’s going to be no surprise that you don’t like Facebook. Why would you??
I keep my Facebook friend list full of people who I know will appreciate things I post. I do check myself sometimes and avoid posting some things, but for the most part, it’s me. I am not friends with my grandma or some of my other relatives because I don’t want to edit myself on their behalf. My younger cousin isn’t friends with me, I assume for the same reason.
I have made and kept several friends since joining Facebook (friends of friends, from parties, like Sam Lowry has), and connected more solidly with past friends and done more things “in real life” and “offline” with people I know all because of Facebook.
I think it’s a great platform for sharing because it’s not all about one person, it’s a little bit about all the people you know (or choose to know). A blog is a lot about one person. A message board is a little bit about a bunch of people you don’t know. Even Twitter is frustrating, to me, compared to Facebook because it’s a lot of random talking with very little back-and-forth (or it ends at one back-and-forth).
Anyway, Facebook can be great if you make it great. If you go in hating it, it probably won’t get better from there.
And if you don’t care about other people, then it’s not the place for you.
I would like to ask why this is so? Why would they cripple a search for particular interests? Is is supermarket philosophy ie maybe you’ll see something else while you’re searching for what you actually want? Or see an advert you might click on while you’re scrolling through all the results?
And how is that any diferent from posting on a message board? People here swap gossip and link to photos. Only they do so with complete strangers rather than people they know in person. It’s just another medium, rather than a telephone. People probably thought the same thing about phones when they were invented. (“Just go to their homes!”)
I can’t exactly go to visit family members who lives in Wisconsin or Connecticut. And some people do like seeing photos, old or new. Or for example, my cousin in Connecticut lost her house in a fire a few years ago and they’re building a new one. It’s cool to see how it’s coming along.
Use it or don’t, but I’m so tired of these, “y u do hoomans lyke this?”