7 reasons to quit Facebook ?

Last-12-Exit

Is this place the same as the message pit? Wasn't that on sonys website back in the day?

brianlux

Facebook has been around a long, long time:

Last-12-Exit

brianlux said:

Facebook has been around a long, long time:

Good one

hedonist

mookey, that was fucking awesome.

It's funny, I thought your av was Bogart and thought it a perfect end shot to your post.

But since it ain't him, here ya go, sir.

rgambs

Last-12-Exit said:

rgambs said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

brianlux said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Exactly! If used judiciously, it can be a great way to keep up with people. I prefer (in order) cards and letter, phone calls, email and lastly, Facebook but I use Facebook because in some cases there are friends and family (mostly younger people) who only keep in touch that way.

If you really want to know how others are doing make a phone call.
If you really want to let others know how you are doing make a phone call.
When parents have almost stopped communicating with their children via phone and the preferred method is facebook to me that is a signal of how botic we have become.

Send actual printed pics to your friends and family you'd be amazed how uplifting it is to receive physical mail. Pics of children and vacations on facebook are boring now not novel.

Pick up that phone!

Last-12-Exit said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Couldn't all of that be done simply enough with email?

You are talking about dozens of phone calls and emails. It may sound lazy, but that isn't the reality.
Do you call your Mothers every day?
Do you expect a busy college student or new parent to send out a dozen emails and check for replies?
Do you keep in touch with cousins who live across the country on a daily basis?


Of course it is less personal than other forms of communication, but it enables a frequency of involvement that I guarantee isn't happening for those without social media.

If you don't care about pictures of people's children and vacations on Facebook so you really mean to imply that paper makes all the difference?

Do you want to talk to your mother daily? Or distant cousins? I dont.

Hahaha no, that's part of the beauty of it, she can check in on me without me having to talk to her lol

rgambs

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

rgambs said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

rgambs said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

brianlux said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Exactly! If used judiciously, it can be a great way to keep up with people. I prefer (in order) cards and letter, phone calls, email and lastly, Facebook but I use Facebook because in some cases there are friends and family (mostly younger people) who only keep in touch that way.

If you really want to know how others are doing make a phone call.
If you really want to let others know how you are doing make a phone call.
When parents have almost stopped communicating with their children via phone and the preferred method is facebook to me that is a signal of how botic we have become.

Send actual printed pics to your friends and family you'd be amazed how uplifting it is to receive physical mail. Pics of children and vacations on facebook are boring now not novel.

Pick up that phone!

Last-12-Exit said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Couldn't all of that be done simply enough with email?

If you don't care about pictures of people's children and vacations on Facebook so you really mean to imply that paper makes all the difference?

Yes.
No one puts forth the effort anymore to print (develop) a print anymore.
Remember our parents had framed pictures of kids all round the house? How did that happen?

Still happens.
Wall space is limited in the physical world, my FB wall can hold a ton more pictures.
I can see how that means nothing to folks who do nothing, but with a lifestyle like mine it is priceless!

Honest question...
Have you sent physical pics of your new one to friends and family yet? or is it on the list to do?
They would love to get physical pics, go to it!

A few, but only to the immediate family who really want them enough to bother hanging them. Otherwise they get jammed in a box and forgotten about like they were in The days of yore.
The people with Facebook can go to just about any store and print them off themselves if they really want them.

Godfather.

it has it's good and bad points.....good; hook up with old friends - bad; I don't care what you ate at the burgerstand, I don't care to follow your dog stories, if you got dumped by the love of your life...I don't want it on my FB page...that's your business, I have never seen a woman post a broken heart story about the guy who left her....but I have seen guy's post whinny crap abouit the girl who cheated or left and that just baffles me, and then they'll follow up with pictures of meals they cooked for themselfs .....WTF ? I have "unfriended" quite a few guy's that took the "wussy card" to new levels.
and who are these chicks I've never heard of posting sudductive pic's of them selfs trying to "friend " me ?

Godfather.

whispering hands

benjs said:

Honestly, why seem to target parts of society that exhibit the traits we say are bad for us, rather than the traits themselves.

Facebook wastes your time: PEOPLE choose to waste their time.
What society should say: "Your time is limited and precious. Consider how you want to spend each minute, and treasure them."

Facebook uses you to sell stuff: BUSINESSES look for weak-minded, non-observant sheep looking for simple pleasures, willing to not think but only to consume.
Re-branded message from society: "Be critical. There's no such thing as a free lunch - always decide whether the cost is worth the pleasure. If you don't see the cost, make sure you think about it until you do."

It targets you with advertisements: This is called marketing. You find the right customer for the right product, and you try to match the two. You try to propose what hole in your life the product will fit, and hope this leads to a sale.
What to teach: "When businesses are marketing to you, they are looking out for themselves. They will often try to tell you about what's missing in your life. Did you know this was missing in your life before they told you it was?"

It's bad for your health: Along with cigarettes, copious consumption of alcohol, working too much, working too little, enjoying too much, enjoying too little, over-spending, frugality, etc.
A better message: "Life has all sorts of pleasures and pains. Some short-term pains lead to long-term pleasures, and some short-term pleasures lead to long-term pain. Learn to live a balanced life. Think about the sacrifices you will make for the things you go back to on far too regular a basis."

Who are these people, anyways?
Message from society: "Think about the quality and quantity of your friends. Usually, it's hard to find both, and usually you only need one. Gravitate to the people who will care about you, and who will bring out a desire to care for them. Don't waste time on anyone else."

But I don't care about privacy.
Suggestion from society: "Privacy is your right, and caring about privacy is your obligation. You can surrender some privacy, but be cognizant of it. Realize that this surrender is taking place. The minute we as a society stop caring about privacy, is the minute those with self-serving intentions take advantage of this fact in devious and deceptive ways. Sometimes these might even have monetary costs associated."

Nothing you post actually matters.
Society says: "Since we're all being aware of how we spend our time (see point one), our posts should be met by virtual tumbleweeds. If they're met with comments, then it probably was matter. Freedom of expression grows us personally and societally, so why discourage sharing these sentiments?"

My opinion is that this article is correct in some ways, but the author needs to zoom out and look at what poor societal traits Facebook represents, and how we can start to change them.

Very VERY well put!

benjs

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

rr165892

I think it goes by age or generation Ben.You and Gambsy are youngish,you grew up with it,therefore it is of more value.Im in my mid 40s,I could give 2 shits about it.
Pics get texted and emailed,so we still stay up on that.
By following my interests on Twitter,I get my news,sports,concert,band info w/o the book of faces platform and nonsense.So yeah I bet it's more along generational lines.

brianlux

benjs said:

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

Those are good points, benjs although there are other points that are also worth looking at: Could not Facebook have been created without so much emphasis on commercialism such that much of it feels invasive to some of us? That new record sleeve I was looking up information on the internet is now being pushed on my Facebook. Really? Facebook, did I ask your opinion? NO! And the other point the article makes is about the amount of time spent on FB that is not constructive or communicative and the ill health affects of FB. Not saying it should be outlawed or over-regulated, but these things are well worth considering and being aware of.

rgambs

brianlux said:

benjs said:

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

Those are good points, benjs although there are other points that are also worth looking at: Could not Facebook have been created without so much emphasis on commercialism such that much of it feels invasive to some of us? That new record sleeve I was looking up information on the internet is now being pushed on my Facebook. Really? Facebook, did I ask your opinion? NO! And the other point the article makes is about the amount of time spent on FB that is not constructive or communicative and the ill health affects of FB. Not saying it should be outlawed or over-regulated, but these things are well worth considering and being aware of.

When I first got a Facebook it was exactly what you wish for. It was an anti-Myspace, unadorned, no ads, and you had to have a .edu email address to join. I remember when they opened it to everyone, I said, "A few more years it'll be commercial crap" lol

brianlux

rgambs said:

brianlux said:

benjs said:

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

Those are good points, benjs although there are other points that are also worth looking at: Could not Facebook have been created without so much emphasis on commercialism such that much of it feels invasive to some of us? That new record sleeve I was looking up information on the internet is now being pushed on my Facebook. Really? Facebook, did I ask your opinion? NO! And the other point the article makes is about the amount of time spent on FB that is not constructive or communicative and the ill health affects of FB. Not saying it should be outlawed or over-regulated, but these things are well worth considering and being aware of.

When I first got a Facebook it was exactly what you wish for. It was an anti-Myspace, unadorned, no ads, and you had to have a .edu email address to join. I remember when they opened it to everyone, I said, "A few more years it'll be commercial crap" lol

Ha! Yes! And over-the-top that way!

Whatever happened to Myspace? I never had it... all though I've asked for a little space a few times, haha!

rgambs

brianlux said:

rgambs said:

brianlux said:

benjs said:

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

Those are good points, benjs although there are other points that are also worth looking at: Could not Facebook have been created without so much emphasis on commercialism such that much of it feels invasive to some of us? That new record sleeve I was looking up information on the internet is now being pushed on my Facebook. Really? Facebook, did I ask your opinion? NO! And the other point the article makes is about the amount of time spent on FB that is not constructive or communicative and the ill health affects of FB. Not saying it should be outlawed or over-regulated, but these things are well worth considering and being aware of.

When I first got a Facebook it was exactly what you wish for. It was an anti-Myspace, unadorned, no ads, and you had to have a .edu email address to join. I remember when they opened it to everyone, I said, "A few more years it'll be commercial crap" lol

Ha! Yes! And over-the-top that way!

Whatever happened to Myspace? I never had it... all though I've asked for a little space a few times, haha!

It went down like the Hindenburg!
My personal opinion is it died because it allowed too much customization. You could download wallpapers and animated gifs from third parties so everyone who lacked class (90% of users lol) had such a busy, cluttered page that it would take ages to load up. Back then, high-speed internet was the exception, not the rule, so you would wait and wait for the 1000th Hello Kitty cat, sports mascot, or weed leaf to load and then you couldn't even find their profile under all the mess.

callen

Reason 1. Already Have adequate means of communicating with ones I want in a very efficient manner

Indifference71

callen said:

Reason 1. Already Have adequate means of communicating with ones I want in a very efficient manner

Yep. If you're important to me, I'll make enough of an effort to keep up with you. I joined facebook when it first came out when I was in college. De-activated a few years ago when I just couldn't take it anymore.

HughFreakingDillon

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

brianlux said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Exactly! If used judiciously, it can be a great way to keep up with people. I prefer (in order) cards and letter, phone calls, email and lastly, Facebook but I use Facebook because in some cases there are friends and family (mostly younger people) who only keep in touch that way.

If you really want to know how others are doing make a phone call.
If you really want to let others know how you are doing make a phone call.
When parents have almost stopped communicating with their children via phone and the preferred method is facebook to me that is a signal of how botic we have become.

Send actual printed pics to your friends and family you'd be amazed how uplifting it is to receive physical mail. Pics of children and vacations on facebook are boring now not novel.

Pick up that phone!

funny. think about your post for a sec. any behaviour that involves technology was once criticized by the generation or that did not have the ability to benefit from it. the phone, for instance. when that first came out, there were people who said "you want to talk? dont waste your time on that damn telephone! go to their house for a visit for christ sakes!". facebook is this generations landline phone (which, as a kid, i would spend literally hours on) or the tv, which was once marketed as a tool to bring your family closer together, just as social media has. its all in how ypu use it. you can filter through the crap you dont want to see instaed of wasting an entire evening at your uncles house looking at his slides of his disney vacation. the previous generations wasted just as much time, if not more, on these so-called family togetherness activities, when they were actually anything but.

brianlux

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

brianlux said:

rgambs said:

People fail to give proper credit to Facebook.
Yes it is annoying in all the usual ways, but if you don't like Billy's posts about what he is eating you can easily avoid it. It is tops for keeping up with family and friends from a distance, it can't be beat. I'm not going to email all the relatives and friends regularly and they won't either, it's too much hassle, but having one site where we all go to post our pictures, our thoughts, our day to day life allows us all to keep in the loop without any extra effort. I can hop on and look at the latest artwork by my neice in art school in Boston, see how my cousin in Colorado is doing with his new wife and latest business venture, talk to my mother who lives in Colorado, and look at pictures from my Army buddy's kids in Kentucky... And all of that vice versa with my baby boy, whom they are familiar with and a part of his life even if they haven't met him yet.

That's pretty amazing.

Exactly! If used judiciously, it can be a great way to keep up with people. I prefer (in order) cards and letter, phone calls, email and lastly, Facebook but I use Facebook because in some cases there are friends and family (mostly younger people) who only keep in touch that way.

If you really want to know how others are doing make a phone call.
If you really want to let others know how you are doing make a phone call.
When parents have almost stopped communicating with their children via phone and the preferred method is facebook to me that is a signal of how botic we have become.

Send actual printed pics to your friends and family you'd be amazed how uplifting it is to receive physical mail. Pics of children and vacations on facebook are boring now not novel.

Pick up that phone!

funny. think about your post for a sec. any behaviour that involves technology was once criticized by the generation or that did not have the ability to benefit from it. the phone, for instance. when that first came out, there were people who said "you want to talk? dont waste your time on that damn telephone! go to their house for a visit for christ sakes!". facebook is this generations landline phone (which, as a kid, i would spend literally hours on) or the tv, which was once marketed as a tool to bring your family closer together, just as social media has. its all in how ypu use it. you can filter through the crap you dont want to see instaed of wasting an entire evening at your uncles house looking at his slides of his disney vacation. the previous generations wasted just as much time, if not more, on these so-called family togetherness activities, when they were actually anything but.

Hey, wait a minute there you young whipper snapper! Hahaha!

But seriously, it's true- technology changes and we either change with it or, to some extent, miss out. But I still like the idea of (working back in time):

Email: same ability to e-text a message without FB trying to push some product on me or hook me up with a singles group ("Um, hello Facebook, I'm happily married, thanks anyway, dummy!")

Phone call: for me, the sound of voice still trumps a quickly dashed off message or copy-and-paste e-card.

Cards and letters: Hand written! Some of us still know hand writing! I save them all. Will make great fire starting material at the edge of the apocalypse!

Family gatherings: These are the best. If you're 18 years or older you can always opt out. But for me, a holiday gathering of family and friends is as real as it gets. But granted, it may be that some humans are losing the ability to enjoy reality. Hmmm.

Now, here's a little thought experiment: In the future people with have little implants in their brain that will allow them to communicate without pen and paper, Morse code, flag semaphore, signal lamps, string and tin cans, smoke signals, phone, or electronics. How does that grab you?

mookeywrench

It's all the same. 1930's sociologist Sidney Aronson May's research survey on the telephone:

"... Most people saw telephoning as accelerating social life, which is another way of saying that telephoning broke isolation and augmented social contacts. A minority felt that telephones served this function too well. These people complained about too much gossip, about unwanted calls, or, as did some family patriarchs, about wives and children chatting too much. Most probably sensed that the telephone bell, besides disrupting their activities, could also bring bad news or bothersome requests. Yet only a few seemed to live in a heightened state of alertness, ears cocked for the telephone's ring - no more, perhaps, than sat anxiously alert for a knock on the door. Some Americans not only disliked talking on the telephone but also found having it around disturbing, but they were apparently a small minority. Perhaps a few of the oldest felt anxious around the telephone, but most people ... seemed to feel comfortable or even joyful around it. ..."

benjs

brianlux said:

benjs said:

As said here - anyone who's travelled or has friends/family abroad will immediately understand the value of Facebook. It is, simply put, the easiest means of staying in touch. And has facilitated more real-life interactions with friends I'd have lost touch with otherwise for me. The advantages over email or phone numbers is that people are likely to change their email or phone numbers, but a Facebook account follows you through multiple email or phone numbers. Don't want to be in touch? Remove a person from your account, and they won't know you've done that until they look you up!

Those are good points, benjs although there are other points that are also worth looking at: Could not Facebook have been created without so much emphasis on commercialism such that much of it feels invasive to some of us? That new record sleeve I was looking up information on the internet is now being pushed on my Facebook. Really? Facebook, did I ask your opinion? NO! And the other point the article makes is about the amount of time spent on FB that is not constructive or communicative and the ill health affects of FB. Not saying it should be outlawed or over-regulated, but these things are well worth considering and being aware of.

Brian, I think the answer is that businesses do what is best for businesses. I think this can be countered through open-source behaviour. The open-source movement exists as a means for people to speak up for people in the realm of technological development. I believe that a competitor to Facebook could one day exist as a donation-run service akin to Wikipedia, open-sourced and developed as a not-for-profit organization. For this to happen, we need to accept the tremendous benefits to social networking (primarily the potential for social development and social engineering), and then organize ourselves in ways to make an indispensable tool grow, and to remove some of the corrupt elements from it.