Why I hate facebook

I’m part of the eGeneration and we don’t care for traditional grammar. We own iPods, shop on eBay, spend hours on YouTube. So now it must be time to hop onto the web’s latest bandwagon – the social networking site, facebook. Oh please, don’t make me LOL.

For the uninitiated, here’s a bluffer’s guide to facebook. But if 25 million people worldwide are signed up to it, what’s the problem with facebook?

For me, it’s not the recent stories about the privacy problems that surround the site. It’s the pointless and annoying competition the website arouses. As facebook is the latest thing “everyone’s doing”, there’s bound to be hundreds of people you know who are also doing it. They become your facebook friends. But after that, any random encounter is treated by many as a reason to become “friends” online. The distinction between friend, acquaintance, and person you acknowledge with a cursory nod has become dangerously blurred.

Facebook has descended into a tedious popularity contest. “Look, look I have more friends than you do – there’s a tally that proves it”. No, it doesn’t. It might mean you have more friends of a friend, or more likely, friends of a friend of a friend. One guy I met told me that he wanted to be the first guy he knew to have sex with someone they’ve met through facebook – something he called a “facebook f**k”. Lovely.

The site has developed it’s own self-obsessive culture. I can't remember predecessors to facebook, like Friends Reunited and MySpace having the culture of moral superiority that revolves around those who use it – as though today, not engaging in facebook is an ASBO offence. One mate of mine was told by her childhood friend: “you know, you really should sign up to facebook, so we can keep in touch properly”. Properly? What happened to emails, phone calls, texts, and even meeting up once in a while? When did facebook become the glue in modern companionship?

This kind of social networking is as virtual and unreal as the internet itself. At the risk of descending into old codgery, what happened to the good ol’ days when we actually met new people away from our desks, new experiences were sought, and friendships turned out to mean something? Surely having 10 friends that you rely on is better than having 100 who you say hi to online?

That’s not to say that these sites like facebook don’t sometime serve some great purposes. For example, the admirable students of Virginia Tech who used facebook to share information about the victims of the school shootings there so they could instantly commemorate the dead.

But even in these cases, the ties that hold these communities together is through the forging of real relationships. That takes time, effort and dedication – a concept lost on an eGeneration used to getting everything from the click of a button.

Murad Ahmed

Comments

[Vee Barbary]

Surely Facebook is for that precise purpose: keeping in touch with people that you otherwise wouldn't? I pass occasional wall messages with people that two years ago would have dropped off my radar, while my good friends and I never bother with Facebook, it's there simply as a way of sharing photos. Facebook is therefore a good thing in terms of friendship networks.

I admit that the whole competitive thing is rather irritating - but it is completely optional and shouldn't detract from the hours of pleasure gained from looking at photos of parties you weren't invited to.

[Fred Quill]

Facebook is the epitome of lame. The only thing more pointless and less productive is blogging.

[Oliver]

Sadly it is almost impossible *not* to be on Facebook, even if you don't have a profile. Pictures and comments that feature you are posted by "friends" with gay abandon, and, most irritatingly, these are posted without your permission. Testament to this is the oft-heard cry in real-life social engagements: 'if this photograph is just going to appear on Facebook I don't want to be in it'.

To my mind this is the most insidious thing about the site: in order to monitor the information available about you, you are pressured into joining. Optimistically I fully expect that, given a couple of years, the Facebook-fad will die a death.

[Amol Rajan]

Dear Murad,

You may enjoy this:

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2977/

All best wishes,

AMOL RAJAN

[Bob Macdonald]

It is pretty clear Facebook is really F*&k Book. I can't see what other reason you would have to use it.

[displaced]

irrespective of whether or not you like the application, i have to tell you that it has been a great way of getting in touch with friends that I haven't seen in over ten years - as each person I added to my list knew other people.

from the perspective of an ex-patriate, this is good news, no matter what form it takes.

give them some slack - it ain't facebook that's the issue here, it's insecure people who think the number of people they have in a list equates to how popular they are...

[Daniel Lucraft]

Is it possible you get out of Facebook what you put into it?

Who cares about how many friends you have on Facebook? Isn't that like bragging about how many people you went to the pub with the other night? If one of your friends started doing that, would you blame the pub?

"Properly? What happened to emails, phone calls, texts, and even meeting up once in a while?"

You must be SuperFriend. Real people have friends that live in other cities, and you know you should stay in touch, but somehow you never get around to emailing them, phoning them, texting them and meeting up with them on a regular basis. And it's a shame. And you feel guilty, but that's just life.

That doesn't sound at all familiar? Well, for me, for this at least, Facebook helps.

[joseph]

poor article. hope it didnt take too long to write. ild like those two minutes of my life spent reading it back please.

[S Wesley]

Facebook is great - for example, a good friend of mine from university is in Tel Aviv while I am in London. Facebook allows us to play scrabble online with each other.

[Will HOyles]

For a start the 'why can't we just meet up once in a while' line is so ridiculously passe. It was an argument that came about with the advent of email, texting and almost certainly the telephone, hell when the first letter was posted some curmugeon was probably whinging about the glory days when you trekked 5 days accross the moors so you could really talk to them. Which brings me swiftly to my next point - why is a social networking site anyless intimate and real than texting or email? Surely the fact that you can see photos, interests, status updates etc means you actually have more of an idea what your friends are upto than if you just received an email once every couple of months?

I will never understand the notion that a new method of keeping in contact with friends somehow makes us more distant from them, as if people stay on a Friday night leaving messages on each others walls rather using it to arrange a get together.

This is lazy journalism and I hope to god that editors across the board of national press realize how badly it reflects on them and move on. Of course as soon as everyone starts using the next communication method the same old articles will be trotted out with a few words changed. Eugh.

[JOHN CHUCKMAN]

Excellent little piece, perfectly capturing aspects of this silly phenomonon.

What Facebook really does is give people the option of creating a temporary private club, based on almost silly criteria you care to name.

All the notions associated with clubs are associated with Facebook. How many? How exclusive? How celebrated? Etc.

In a sense it is not even a genuine communication medium. It permits you to address the converted exclusively. To build a temple for others, like-minded, to join you in worship of some obscure nature or another.

Facebook also creates a huge pool of intimate information that can, and almost certainly will, be abused for profit.

[Joseph Francis]

I really am staggeringly bored with the anti-facebook thing.

It's a way for friends to communicate, not the decline of civilisation. Get over it.

My favourite part of the post was:

"culture of moral superiority that revolves around those who use it"

Are you kidding? Someone in the process of writing an article dismissing something that 25 million do for fun is accusing them of moral superiority? New batteries needed for the irony-meter.

Finally, I just know that the writer has barely used facebook. There are few things lazier of more arrogant than writing something dismissing of a phenomenon that you neither know nor understand.

[fleepish]

"I’m part of the eGeneration and we don’t care for traditional grammar."

"The site has developed it’s own self-obsessive culture."

Well, quite.

[Sarah]

If it's such a waste of time, why try and glean reads for your poor column from it? Cheap.

[Katy M]

Facebook has developed a self-obsessive culture? And posting a weblog rant about it is not self-obsessive?? If you don't like it just don't use it. Simple really.

[Julie]

Facebook is rubbish; so far no-one will admit to knowing me.

[Raffy]

Facebook is the epitome of lame. The only thing more pointless and less productive is blogging. - Fred Quill

And what is after that... Posting comments?

[margot]

"Surely Facebook is for that precise purpose: keeping in touch with people that you otherwise wouldn't?"

Isn't that what Christmas cards (with personal, handwritten notes) are for?

[James]

Here's a site I bumped into which might refresh your faith in humanity a little. www.areyoulocal.co.uk .

A local guy started it up near me - it tries to help build social networks street by street - support for local groups etc... doesn't have 30 million members though, but the people round the corner are at least real...

[Alice]

Facebook and Bebo allowed me to check in with the rest of my school year during a long absence. The fact that this was during exam leave made it almost impossible to arrange to meet anyone in real life, as we were all on different schedules, and I was often too unwell to go out. Joining Bebo (I later switched to Facebook) meant that I could say "hi, how are you?" to people whom I wouldn't otherwise be able to speak to. So it's not all bad, and you can take or leave the parts you don't like.

[Alice]

Shouldn't it be spelled with a capital F?

[Starling]

You can be on facebook and write Christmas cards, they're not mutually exclusive. I only have a facebook account because someone started a facebook page for the BBC's Magazine Monitor. But I still use the internet (a forum) to keep in touch with friends, and we send each other Christmas cards and meet up when we can (we're rather widespread).

[Joseph Francis]

Alice,

It doesn't spell itself with a capital F. Have a looksie:

www.facebook.com

[jibbajabbawocky]

Don't you guys get it? These social networking sites are just compiling data for the new fascist take over, Rupert Murdoch's ownership of myspace should be example enough. There's nothing to do on that stupid site anyways, read a goddamn book!

[SJM]

Just over a year ago building up your profile was just something to do when bored one evening. Now its the main way of arranging parties, coffee dates, sharing pictures and wasting time on silly getting to know you notes. For the student users (it was originally for) its turned into a great, free way of keeping in contact with people who have moved on elsewhere. Though there has been cries of returning facebook to the glory days of requiring a university email to join and be in a network. Cant be doing with randoms you have never even heard of asking to be a friend.

[Max]

I'm in my sixties and Facebook has been a great means of getting back in touch with old work colleagues. I love it.
Daniel, many of your past articles have just seemed like wind-ups to me. Is this another one? Keeping score of friends. C'mon, who does that? Oh, do you?

[margot]

Starling, I know that I could use facebook and write cards ... it's true they are not necessarily performing the same function. But I hate the fact that it's such a popularity contest, and for myself, I really dislike the idea of living my life out in public in this way. It seems to me the height of arrogance and self-centeredness to assume that my 'friends' are interested in my life to the level of detail that facebook assumes. I also think it encourages a laziness in friendships - that what matters is telling everyone what you do and think, rather than how you live and relate to those around you being of paramount importance. This is a phenomenon I've observed in real life in urban London, where it seems that having a vast acquaintance has replaced having a few good and trusted friends. It's as though we're all stuck in 6th form or university again (and I guess, using facebook, we are).

[Rebecca]

Uhh, since when was it a popularity contest? Why bother adding people you don't know?

[james]

"Posted by: Starling ...
Alice,

It doesn't spell itself with a capital F. Have a looksie:

www.facebook.com"

www.FACeBoOk.com also, brother.

[Anon]

Personally I am grateful to facebook for its security advantages. On a drunken night out, I mislaid an expensive coat in a bar. When I rang the bar I was disappointed but not surprised to hear that the coat was no where to be seen. However, I was astonished to receive a phone call about an hour later from the bar manager. He had trawled through CCTV footage to find who had appropriated my coat, then used facebook to track down this opportunist thief, called them and ordered them to return my coat. I got it back the next day!

[Dave C]

Joseph i think your comment, "New batteries needed for the irony-meter" might be the funniest thing ive read today.
Nothing gets on my nerves more than people digging at the first and most obvious thing they come to, to try to produce a sad article to fuel their own self importance. I have spent alot of time on various parts of the world and i allows me to keep in touch woth people i wouldnt have otherwise and tell them when ill be back so we can "meet up" in the real world,dead useful actually.

[Lois McDonald]

I joined Facebook because some of my relatives had one and they are the only people on my Friends list. I have to agree though that it can be dangerous. My neice answered a quiz which appeared to be a light-hearted get-to-know you quiz and I pointed out to her that it asked "Which bus route do you use regularly." WHAT kind of information is that for a young woman to give out, especially if Facebook also shows which "network" (region) you live in and you've publicized your name, photos and many other details?

[Ross]

Ha! i love this! not so much the actual article, having spend an amount of minutes i can count on a 3 fingered hand on Facebook, but the comments posted about it.

Yeah, its funny to flame some ones views, but not always nice. The thing here that shines is the cross flaming between those that accept the authers views and those that oppose them.

Either way its unfair to push your views of anything on another person not open to accepting them. As a rule im not a fan of these sites having tried them in the past, but if some one gains enjoyment, great.

As long as people dont tell me what i should and shouldnt like, feel free to express your opions, for with out doing so, less open minded people would have no one to flame, thus causing entertainment to all

[James]

Bunch of losers. Get onto MySpace, it's much better!

[Mei]

There are many naturally positives to using a social networking site such as facebook, the most obvious being that you can get back in touch with people from long ago who somehow fell off the radar. However you do end up getting embroiled in the politics of adding or not adding people from the past: there are those who add you that you were barely acquainted with in the first place (and are really not that bothered about retaining as friends now), and those others who add you who you were very much in contact with in previous times and most definitely do not want to be in contact with now. Not to add can mean causing offence, while adding can mean giving up your privacy to those you have no wish to, or perhaps allowing yourself to be haunted by a past you wanted to leave behind.

However, despite my facebook site turning into a bizarre school reunion, I for one am likely to continue using it as it has enabled myself and many of my friends to enter into the same conversations across continents, and also to know what is going on with each other in more general terms. I doubt this would have been possible without facebook.

By the way, does anyone know if anyone has tried the six-degrees of separation theory via facebook or any other social networking site?

[Andy]

> By the way, does anyone know if anyone has tried the six-degrees of separation theory via facebook or any other social networking site?

Yes - we're trying via every bit of social networking we can, and other means too, to find this guy:
http://www.findsatoshi.com/
http://www.billion2one.org/

[Poppy]

I totally agree with Daniel's statement that "the distinction between friend, acquaintance, and person you acknowledge with a cursory nod has become dangerously blurred".

Facebook is such a time waster and I definately think that there are major privacy issues with it. I don’t use it simply because I have photos and news I want to share with my closest friends, but I certainly don’t want someone who I haven’t spoken to since junior school (or even someone closer than that) to see - its none of their business! And yes, I know I could just forward the pics via email, but that defeats the purpose of having all my photos uploaded in one spot.

Basically, I think that social networks are here to stay, but the whole novelty of them is wearing off. Users need the same tools but with greater privacy controls. And they need to start playing a more constructive role in our lives, instead of leading to wasted time spent poking everyone - maybe then our workplaces won’t go banning them.

[Jen]

Using Facebook can clearly cause anxiety in the already insecure. There is pressure to count friends; to prove you're going out; to prove people want to talk to you.

Of course facebook is compulsive, facinating, fun and useful, but perhaps some thought should be spared for those who are predisposed to finding the exposure and pressure of the facebook world upsetting and occassionally traumatic.

While this is perhaps not one of the most interesting aspects of the phenomenom, it is certainly worth a thought. It is a complex issue and facebook the application isn't really to blame; no-one is- it is human nature. But with its increasing dominance over our lives, Facebook does, undeniably, have the ability to affect mental well-being. Because once you're a memeber...

[Ellie]

Sadly enough, no one has chosen to argue about the breach of privacy and friend/acquaintance concept. One of the best features of facebook is the extensive privacy settings. You can choose exactly what you are willing to let each person see. Your friends can see more than random acquaintances, and you can make sure that the people who just search common interests and so on can't see any of your profile.

It's a valuable tool for college students to keep in touch with former classmates, family, and co-workers from "back home".

[smileydan]

I must be one of the only people in the UK not to have bought into the facebook phenomenon. It does look to be a fantastic means of communication and way to meet like minded people- my friend has started a book club.

Im not on facebook though, because from what I've seen happening to my friends. I understand you need to move with the times but facebook seems genuinly bizzare to me. I had a look at my friends account and saw photos of some of my old school friends. Those people have nothing to do with my life now.

Im 22 and really enjoying life but its also quite confusing. Our society is very complex and in my opinion you need to make as many things work as naturally and smoothly as possible. Part of life has been meeting people then losing contact because you move on. Being able to communicate with every person youve ever met just seems fundamentally wrong to me. Get on with your life people. Apart from the fact that so many people seem to get addicted to it and its just another reason for people to be STARING AT A COMPUTER SCREEN!!!!

Talk to your real friends they matter. Make new memories dont live life looking a photographs of past events- when have the best things happened- when you didnt have a camera

Lots of love for the wonderful thing that is the human population. You just arent responsible enough for something like facebook. Living happily without facebook, from a very smiley person :) x peace

[Johnny]

I used to love Facebook for a great time wasting device. a way of playing scrabble with your friends at a time when you should be doing something more useful! However, i am beginning to realise how ridiculous it is. I recently broke up with my girlfriend of 4 years who left me for our mutual housemate. we no longer live together and whilst i am not that angry anymore i really have no desire to hear about thier relationship. Facebook has meant that it would be socially unacceptable to block them as friends (it would look like im bitter) but everytime i log in i am treated to a stream of news stories and updates about how much they love each other and how they are planning on spending christmas together. I think i'm getting over the break up fairly well but i would really rather not be reminded about how i got dumped every time i try to check my emails.! Bugger Privacy issues, Facebook is dangerous for your emotional stability.

[Charlotte]

I am on my exchange year in Japan and facebook helps me to keep in touch with my loved ones at home.
Due to the time difference, I can't simply text or phone my friends or my siblings and so a simple facaebook wall post every other day is a great way to say something small without having to write a whole email.

I also found a short term job through facebook the other day!!

[james]

The only thing i hate about facebook is that they wont let me sign up because I'm not ''good enough''

[dewi]

I like facebook

[Steve]

I go to an international school and have friends in almost every time zone. My friends and I use Facebook as it allows us to communicate in the holidays and when we leave without worrying about whether our E-mail addresses change, the cost of international phone calls or trying to find a time that is convenient for multiple our time zones...
I can also see photos of wherever they are and vica verca without having to cart huge photo albums all over the place...
It may not be perfect, but until I find a perfect alternative, I'm going to continue to use Facebook...

[henry]

i like face book,becouse ture face book you can make a friend