I really don’t care if any given person likes or dislikes facebook. But it’s a website. It’s not holding anyone hostage. It hasn’t run over any pets. Making it a part of your life is a completely voluntary action. And if the OP is part of a club where every other member wants the club to be a part of facebook, then either he is a part of that or he begs off. It’s extremely jerkish to actively work against the desires of everyone else like that.
And there are far more threads here where people get together to bitch, not even about actual things facebook has done but about the fact that it exists than threads where people evangelize it.
Was he actively working against everyone else? I just thought he was bitching. I must have missed that part. (No sarcasm, I really must have missed it.) Because that would be jerkish…I understand, as I believe I’ve said before, that by not being on FB, I miss out on things. Yup, that’s my choice. But I do like to bitch about it now and then.
My issue with his dislike of FB in this case is that it is not for personal use. Fine, don’t use it, don’t be an avid user, don’t share, whatever.
The case here is that he is an officer of a college club. And for that purpose, for the purpose of planning events, updating members, attracting members, promoting the club, sharing club pictures and/or videos, then yes, FB fulfills a nice niche that is somewhat easier and more up-to-date than other media.
If he doesn’t want to use it for personal things, fine, don’t. But the club, not him, the club he is an officer of, most likely need one. To not use some venue that will help the club is not doing part of his job as an officer. And if he doesn’t want to do that, then he should prod some other more FB-interested student into maintaining that part, stat.
Why put it such pejorative terms?
At some point in the past you must have had another means of communicating that worked well enough so why make it seem like it is their fault?
You’ve decided to use a new mode of communication and it is annoying because they haven’t followed suit?
If this is an issue for you then you have to ask yourself if they are really friends at all.
Oh. Opting out of Facebook means I have to also opt out of real-life social groups. And I get judged as jerk if I don’t. Yeah, that really sounds voluntary. :rolleyes:
FB is normally off of my radar, but I am getting tired of it permeating every other corner of the internet. the worst example is the already-mentioned trend of web sites using FB (and only FB) as their commenting system. And half of the time I can’t even mouse over an image on a page without a smattering of icons popping over it such as “Share on Facebook!” Fuck you. “Post to Twitter!” Fuck twitter, and fuck you. “Share on g+!” who the fuck uses that?
You do not have to join. If you don’t, there may be social consequences. If those are worse to you than joining Facebook, perhaps you should join. If not, then continue to avoid it. The world is full of difficult decisions. Joining an online social group isn’t one of them.
What would you have said to someone who said “I don’t open personal letters.” Or someone who refused to get a telephone “because I don’t like to talk to people.” That’s basically where we are right now with Facebook. It’s a standard method of keeping in touch with people.
Unless you are somehow unable to connect to the internet, there’s no good excuse for not being on Facebook. It doesn’t matter whether you feel like making status updates yourself, but it is a simple social courtesy to have some degree of interest in what your friends and loved ones are saying.
Typical SDMB bullshit. Any complaint about friends or a relationship leads to a “dump 'em” type of comment.
FWIW, I think Ascenray understates the real concerns some people have over Facebook. But I also think that the OP is getting entirely too angry about something that’s ultimately not that huge a deal — at least not enough to warrant the emotion.
But they aren’t saying that are they? you must have had some way of making contact with them before facebook and now you’ve changed and are annoyed because they haven’t as well. I think you are in the wrong.
You are the person saying “I won’t contact you or communicate with you unless it is through the medium of this new facebook thing…adapt mortal or lose my friendship forever” then you probably cackled. Sorry, I just don’t see* them* as the unreasonable ones.
certainly someone is being discourteous but it ain’t them. Would it kill you to email them or “gasp” phone them?
If it is too much effort for you to contact them in other ways then you already have de-facto dumped them ( or maybe that is what they are trying to do to you?) Certainly anyone who got annoyed with me because I didn’t communicate with them in their chosen way isn’t worth communicating with in the first place.
Actually, I said nothing of the kind. You made this up yourself. So really I shouldn’t even respond.
What Facebook has done is given social networks the opportunity to be in touch with each other more often and more regularly and more easily. There are a lot of things that interfere with maintaining friendships, such has having children or having to move farther away. These things are mitigated by online networks. You can still exchange information, and have conversations, tell jokes, all the things you were able to do before, but more conveniently and taking less time.
None of that means that anyone is refusing to use older methods of communicating. This is the progress of society through technology. It used to be that the only way to interact with someone would have been to physically visit them. Then writing and postal services were invented.
Expecting people would open and read your letters didn’t mean that you were “refusing” to keep in touch the old way by making visits. The new technology enhanced the opportunities and broadened the scope of relationships.
Online networks is simply the next step in this progression. And refusing to read your friends’ Facebook posts is analogous to refusing to read their letters.
If people don’t understand what you’re saying, the first thing you should ask yourself is not “why are people so stupid”, but rather “what did I do wrong in communicating what I’m trying to say?”
If one idiot misunderstands you, it’s because he’s an idiot. If everyone misunderstands you, it’s because you are the idiot, and didn’t express your thoughts well. Don’t blame the audience for not clapping for your fucking failure.
Errr…of course I made it up. It is statement taken to the absurd extreme. You didn’t really say those words. I promise you that no-one really thinks I’m claiming you did.
(And I think I may found out why your friends are not too fussed about keeping in touch with you.)
And if people don’t wan’t to be in touch so often? or prefer a more tactile, tangible and personal connection? I suspect you are only concerned that facebook makes updating multiple people really easy for you and you are bothered by the fact that some people make life just a little more complicated,
They have a preference, you have yours. Are they luddites who refuse any form of electronic communication at all? Or are they just not a fan of your particular flavour? can you not send emails from facebook? Being anti-social would be when you insist on a single mode of communication to the exclusion of others. If they are open to calls, letters, emails, visits or other electronic means while you insist on purely facebook…well, I know where I’d point the finger.
Well I can see you feel personally slighted by your “friends” lack of interest in your activities but that really says something rather uncomplimentary about you, not them. If you have something really important to share with them then get off your arse and call them, or write them a personal email. If it is something so inconsequential that a general update on facebook covers it then I don’t think they are missing out. ( and I suspect they know that too)
I’m not some massive FB fanboy, but I think the way you’re phrasing that is pretty unfair. I have a group of friends who all know each other that I refer to as the “games night” group. Almost all of them are on Facebook, with one notable exception. None of us are particularly excessive Facebook posters, no one is posting 5 times a day about what meal they just ate or something. But with some regularity, probably averaging between once a month and twice a week per person, someone will post a little update about what they’ve been doing in their life, a picture of a vacation they’ve been on, a funny joke they heard, or something of that sort.
That kind of blog-esque group updating is something that would have been impossible to do easily 20 years ago, and 10 years ago would have required awkward mass email chains with photo attachments, etc. FB makes it easy.
So… the one guy who’s not on FB. Every time any of us has some comment or update or something, should we post it on FB and also remember to specifically email it specifically to him? Would doing so somehow prove that we actually value his friendship in some way that would otherwise be suspect?
I don’t think it’s RUDE or OFFENSIVE or anything to not be on FB, but I think there’s clearly an extent to which it makes some kinds of communication distinctly more awkward, and is starting to become comparable to not having a phone number at all, or not having an email address.
