To Facebook o Not To Facebook
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marcus
Aug 29, 2009, 12:15:46 AM8/29/09
to 1960s
I have never joined Facebook, although many people have told me that
they think I should. The article below, by the NY Times media writer
expresses many of the reasons why I've hesitated to join...and why I
probably won't be eager to join.
August 30, 2009
The Medium
Facebook Exodus
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social
grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did,
you'll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she
disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned
desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was
compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.
The exodus is not evident from the site's overall numbers. According
to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the
United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and
compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are
fleeing - some of them ostentatiously.
Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having
dismissed his mother's snap judgment of the site ("Facebook is the
devil"), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in
jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea,
and sells T-shirts with the words "Shut Your Facebook." What
especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation
of personal and social life. As Facebook endeavors to be the Web's
headquarters - to compete with Google, in other words, and to make
money from the information it gathers - it's inevitable that some
people would come to view it as Big Brother.
"The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like
Facebook - and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more
dependent - the more Facebook can and does abuse us," Harmsen
explained by indignant e-mail. "It is not 'your' Facebook profile. It
is Facebook's profile about you."
The disillusionment with Facebook has come in waves. An early faction
lost faith in 2008, when Facebook's beloved Scrabble application,
Scrabulous, was pulled amid copyright issues. It was suddenly clear
that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force
on the Web, beholden to corporate interests. A later group, Harmsen's
crowd, grew frustrated last winter when Facebook seemed to claim
perpetual ownership of users' contributions to the site. (Facebook
later adjusted its membership contract, but it continues to integrate
advertising, intellectual property and social life.) A third wave of
dissenters appears to be bored with it, obscurely sore or just somehow
creeped out.
My friend Alex joined four years ago at the suggestion of "the coolest
guy on the planet," she told me in an e-mail message. For a while,
they cultivated a cool-planet online gang. But then Scrabulous was
shut down, someone told her she was too old for Facebook, her teenage
stepson seemed to be losing his life to it and she found the whole
site crawling with mercenaries trying to sell books and movies. "If I
am going to waste my time on the Internet," she concluded, "it will be
playing in online backgammon tournaments."
Another friend, who didn't want his name used, found that Facebook
undermined his whole notion of online friendship. "It's easy to think
of your circle of 'Friends' as a coherent circle, clear and moated,
when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a
better (visual) analogy." Something happened to this drip painting
that he won't discuss. He said, "Postings that seem private can
scatter and slip unpredictably into a sort of semipublic status."
That friend was not the only Facebook dissenter who was reticent about
specifics. Many seem to have just lost their appetite for it: they
just stopped wanting to look at other people's photos and résumés and
updates, or have their own subject to scrutiny. Some ex-users seemed
shaken, even heartbroken, by their breakups with Facebook. "I
primarily left Facebook because I was wasting so much time on it," my
friend Caroline Harting told me by e-mail. "I felt fairly detached
from my Facebook buddies because I rarely directly contacted them."
Instead, she felt as if she stalked them, spending hours a day looking
at their pages without actually saying hello.
But then came the truly weird part: "Facebook was stalking me,"
Harting wrote. One day, on another Web site, she responded to an
invitation to rate a movie she saw. The next time she logged on to
Facebook, there was a message acknowledging that she had made the
rating. "I didn't appreciate being monitored so closely," she wrote.
She quit.
Julie Klam, a writer and prolific and eloquent Facebook updater, said
in her own e-mail message, "I have noticed the exodus, and I kind of
feel like it's kids getting tired of a new toy." Klam, who still posts
updates to Facebook but now prefers Twitter for professional
networking, added, "Facebook is good for finding people, but by now
the novelty of that has worn off, and everyone's been found." As of a
few months ago, she told me, Facebook "felt dead."
Is Facebook doomed to someday become an online ghost town, run by
zombie users who never update their pages and packs of marketers
picking at the corpses of social circles they once hoped to exploit?
Sad, if so. Though maybe fated, like the demise of a college clique.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
they think I should. The article below, by the NY Times media writer
expresses many of the reasons why I've hesitated to join...and why I
probably won't be eager to join.
August 30, 2009
The Medium
Facebook Exodus
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social
grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did,
you'll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she
disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned
desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was
compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.
The exodus is not evident from the site's overall numbers. According
to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the
United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and
compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are
fleeing - some of them ostentatiously.
Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having
dismissed his mother's snap judgment of the site ("Facebook is the
devil"), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in
jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea,
and sells T-shirts with the words "Shut Your Facebook." What
especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation
of personal and social life. As Facebook endeavors to be the Web's
headquarters - to compete with Google, in other words, and to make
money from the information it gathers - it's inevitable that some
people would come to view it as Big Brother.
"The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like
Facebook - and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more
dependent - the more Facebook can and does abuse us," Harmsen
explained by indignant e-mail. "It is not 'your' Facebook profile. It
is Facebook's profile about you."
The disillusionment with Facebook has come in waves. An early faction
lost faith in 2008, when Facebook's beloved Scrabble application,
Scrabulous, was pulled amid copyright issues. It was suddenly clear
that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force
on the Web, beholden to corporate interests. A later group, Harmsen's
crowd, grew frustrated last winter when Facebook seemed to claim
perpetual ownership of users' contributions to the site. (Facebook
later adjusted its membership contract, but it continues to integrate
advertising, intellectual property and social life.) A third wave of
dissenters appears to be bored with it, obscurely sore or just somehow
creeped out.
My friend Alex joined four years ago at the suggestion of "the coolest
guy on the planet," she told me in an e-mail message. For a while,
they cultivated a cool-planet online gang. But then Scrabulous was
shut down, someone told her she was too old for Facebook, her teenage
stepson seemed to be losing his life to it and she found the whole
site crawling with mercenaries trying to sell books and movies. "If I
am going to waste my time on the Internet," she concluded, "it will be
playing in online backgammon tournaments."
Another friend, who didn't want his name used, found that Facebook
undermined his whole notion of online friendship. "It's easy to think
of your circle of 'Friends' as a coherent circle, clear and moated,
when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a
better (visual) analogy." Something happened to this drip painting
that he won't discuss. He said, "Postings that seem private can
scatter and slip unpredictably into a sort of semipublic status."
That friend was not the only Facebook dissenter who was reticent about
specifics. Many seem to have just lost their appetite for it: they
just stopped wanting to look at other people's photos and résumés and
updates, or have their own subject to scrutiny. Some ex-users seemed
shaken, even heartbroken, by their breakups with Facebook. "I
primarily left Facebook because I was wasting so much time on it," my
friend Caroline Harting told me by e-mail. "I felt fairly detached
from my Facebook buddies because I rarely directly contacted them."
Instead, she felt as if she stalked them, spending hours a day looking
at their pages without actually saying hello.
But then came the truly weird part: "Facebook was stalking me,"
Harting wrote. One day, on another Web site, she responded to an
invitation to rate a movie she saw. The next time she logged on to
Facebook, there was a message acknowledging that she had made the
rating. "I didn't appreciate being monitored so closely," she wrote.
She quit.
Julie Klam, a writer and prolific and eloquent Facebook updater, said
in her own e-mail message, "I have noticed the exodus, and I kind of
feel like it's kids getting tired of a new toy." Klam, who still posts
updates to Facebook but now prefers Twitter for professional
networking, added, "Facebook is good for finding people, but by now
the novelty of that has worn off, and everyone's been found." As of a
few months ago, she told me, Facebook "felt dead."
Is Facebook doomed to someday become an online ghost town, run by
zombie users who never update their pages and packs of marketers
picking at the corpses of social circles they once hoped to exploit?
Sad, if so. Though maybe fated, like the demise of a college clique.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
AnneMarie Balogh
Aug 29, 2009, 10:57:12 AM8/29/09
to 19...@googlegroups.com
Hi, Marc (and all) --
Long story short, Facebook is really what the individual user makes of it. I believe a lot of people don't fully understand that. You can set your privacy settings so that you don't even come up in a search to people who are not your friends. You can create as many subgroups of friends as you want and specify what you do and do not want them to see (people often specify a certain group of friends who are able to see their children's pix, for example). If you feel like you're seeing too much of a person's info on your news feed, you can set it so that info does not appear about that person.
I was pissed royally at the loss of Scrabulous last year -- but stuff like that, as well as ads, and sites tracking what you do -- that doesn't just happen on Facebook. It's part of using the Internet in general. I equate it with going outside your house -- you run the risk of being hit by a bus, shot, struck by lightning or yadda yadda -- but you do it! Sure the Internet has "stuff". Any action that puts you in contact with the world has "stuff".
As far as negative interactions between friends -- again, we choose our friends. I would never dream of publicly posting something that a Facebook friend wrote in a place that was not already publicly viewable. I would hope that the 440-odd people on my list would practice the same courtesy. That's what it is -- courtesy. Marc, you could send a regular email to ten peoople and one of them could quote something you said and post it wherever, thus violating you without Facebook even involved.
Simply put, like Craigslist and MySpace before it, Facebook is now being blamed for something that is really a case of PEBCAK ("problem exists between chair and keyboard"). Humans don't need technology to hurt other humans. Rumors can be spread at the town square or over the phone just as easily as on Facebook.
The woman with the movie app -- if she had read the content on the invite in its entirety before just clicking, she would have known what the heck she was clicking. Truthfully it reminds me of the people who fall for the Nigerian scams. In this day and age, anyone of otherwise sound mind who clicks on HTML within an unsolicited email he/she receives should know better. Going online is like owning a car -- you don't have to be a guru, but there are basics you should know in order to run smoothly.
Thanks for reading this far, whoever has. I realize I may not have convinced anyone to change his/her opinion here; heck, I haven't managed to change my own father's mind about Facebook -- he was on for awhile and then he quit. But I do appreciate being read and heard, because I truly believe that technology is demonized a lot in this society for things that really happen as a result of human choice.
best, ab
Long story short, Facebook is really what the individual user makes of it. I believe a lot of people don't fully understand that. You can set your privacy settings so that you don't even come up in a search to people who are not your friends. You can create as many subgroups of friends as you want and specify what you do and do not want them to see (people often specify a certain group of friends who are able to see their children's pix, for example). If you feel like you're seeing too much of a person's info on your news feed, you can set it so that info does not appear about that person.
I was pissed royally at the loss of Scrabulous last year -- but stuff like that, as well as ads, and sites tracking what you do -- that doesn't just happen on Facebook. It's part of using the Internet in general. I equate it with going outside your house -- you run the risk of being hit by a bus, shot, struck by lightning or yadda yadda -- but you do it! Sure the Internet has "stuff". Any action that puts you in contact with the world has "stuff".
As far as negative interactions between friends -- again, we choose our friends. I would never dream of publicly posting something that a Facebook friend wrote in a place that was not already publicly viewable. I would hope that the 440-odd people on my list would practice the same courtesy. That's what it is -- courtesy. Marc, you could send a regular email to ten peoople and one of them could quote something you said and post it wherever, thus violating you without Facebook even involved.
Simply put, like Craigslist and MySpace before it, Facebook is now being blamed for something that is really a case of PEBCAK ("problem exists between chair and keyboard"). Humans don't need technology to hurt other humans. Rumors can be spread at the town square or over the phone just as easily as on Facebook.
The woman with the movie app -- if she had read the content on the invite in its entirety before just clicking, she would have known what the heck she was clicking. Truthfully it reminds me of the people who fall for the Nigerian scams. In this day and age, anyone of otherwise sound mind who clicks on HTML within an unsolicited email he/she receives should know better. Going online is like owning a car -- you don't have to be a guru, but there are basics you should know in order to run smoothly.
Thanks for reading this far, whoever has. I realize I may not have convinced anyone to change his/her opinion here; heck, I haven't managed to change my own father's mind about Facebook -- he was on for awhile and then he quit. But I do appreciate being read and heard, because I truly believe that technology is demonized a lot in this society for things that really happen as a result of human choice.
best, ab
marcus
Aug 29, 2009, 2:42:02 PM8/29/09
to 1960s
On Aug 29, 10:57 am, AnneMarie Balogh <justmeab...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Marc (and all) --
>
> Long story short, Facebook is really what the individual user makes of it.
> I believe a lot of people don't fully understand that. You can set your
> privacy settings so that you don't even come up in a search to people who
> are not your friends. You can create as many subgroups of friends as you
> want and specify what you do and do not want them to see (people often
> specify a certain group of friends who are able to see their children's pix,
> for example). If you feel like you're seeing too much of a person's info on
> your news feed, you can set it so that info does not appear about that
> person.
For me, personally,AB,other than the reasons stated in the article, I
don't need to spend more time online than I all ready do. I know that
if I had a Facebook account, I would spend too much time on it. I
work with several people who have Facebook accounts, and all they talk
about is their "friends", and I saw that photo you posted etc., and
the fact that they were online for two hours....sometimes three..every
night talking to their "friends" (some of whom are the people they see
every day, or would only be a quick phone call away).
I admit that I am weak...I would spend too much time online if I had
an account there...time that I need to do other things.
Pearlie
Aug 30, 2009, 11:16:44 AM8/30/09
to 1960s
I agree Marc. too much time is wasted on-line. Time that could be
used elsewhere doing something constructive or meaningful for ones
self or others. Fixing what's broken, cleaning what's dirty, helping
others who can't afford the luxury of laptops, widescreens, cell
phones but struggle to put food on their tables or pay the rent, etc.
The internet in particular is the biggest waste of time the likes of
which no other generation has ever seen before. My kids hang out with
friends all day, come through the door texting or IMing the very same
friends they just left, as if they haven't seen each other in years.
How much can people say so much to each other???!.
Tehcnology is rightfully demonized because it attracts temptation for
careless users. The devil is in there. Yes, danger exists when you
leave your house or drive a car, but a lot of awful invisible factors
lurk and one can never tell when one will fall victim. Stuff that
never used to happen is taking place BECAUSE of the internet... Cyber
bulling, stalking, etc. The temptation to do harm to others by those
who are in such frame of mind is facilitated... .Anything you write
or post can be taken out of context, cut and pasted and used
anywhere. What you put out there is out there forever. Its a
dangerous ocean with species--known and unknown, and its risky every
time you dive in. Technology is good and fun and growing at
unaimaginable pace, but it is being treated like a toy. ONe would
think it as great entertainment for the handicapped or homebound, but,
it is creating a lot of zombie homebounds out of healthy folks who
stare at screens morning, noon and night, surfing, googling,
chatting, playing games, watching porn, while dishes pile up in the
sink. My dishes await. and breakfast is late thanks to my being
here. Guilty and it worries me. .
used elsewhere doing something constructive or meaningful for ones
self or others. Fixing what's broken, cleaning what's dirty, helping
others who can't afford the luxury of laptops, widescreens, cell
phones but struggle to put food on their tables or pay the rent, etc.
The internet in particular is the biggest waste of time the likes of
which no other generation has ever seen before. My kids hang out with
friends all day, come through the door texting or IMing the very same
friends they just left, as if they haven't seen each other in years.
How much can people say so much to each other???!.
Tehcnology is rightfully demonized because it attracts temptation for
careless users. The devil is in there. Yes, danger exists when you
leave your house or drive a car, but a lot of awful invisible factors
lurk and one can never tell when one will fall victim. Stuff that
never used to happen is taking place BECAUSE of the internet... Cyber
bulling, stalking, etc. The temptation to do harm to others by those
who are in such frame of mind is facilitated... .Anything you write
or post can be taken out of context, cut and pasted and used
anywhere. What you put out there is out there forever. Its a
dangerous ocean with species--known and unknown, and its risky every
time you dive in. Technology is good and fun and growing at
unaimaginable pace, but it is being treated like a toy. ONe would
think it as great entertainment for the handicapped or homebound, but,
it is creating a lot of zombie homebounds out of healthy folks who
stare at screens morning, noon and night, surfing, googling,
chatting, playing games, watching porn, while dishes pile up in the
sink. My dishes await. and breakfast is late thanks to my being
here. Guilty and it worries me. .
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