I couldn't help myself. This is in response to all the Facebook-bashing going on out there by the really cool facebookers who think their lives have been made miserable by other "senseless" facebookers. All the creative segmentation of FB users into N hilarious types of users is of course fun, I love it too. But I'd just like to take a step back and remind them all, there are three options that FB provides to all its users, unconditionally and irrevocably, in decreasing order of severity -
Option - 1: Delete
Option - 2: Untag
Option - 3: Ignore
First up, if you don't want to have fun, there is something called LinkedIn. Here's the link: http://www.linkedin.com/. It's becoming really popular, I hear. And it serves the same purpose as FB, sans all the Farmville and the who's-gonna-slap-you-today quizzes and the haha-I-beat-you-in-the-smartest-way-to-sip-your-soup contests. Go for it!
So let's see, what do we always crib about?
Random status updates - I am assuming that if you're adding someone as your "friend", you know that person. If you're adding people randomly (coz it's oh-so-cool to have so many friends on FB) and complaining about someone kicking you with a virtual shoe, you're a moron. Don't even bother reading any further. Now, if you're not interested in knowing that someone ate blueberry pie for breakfast or wore stilettos to last night's party, there is something very simple that you have to do - option 3 - IGNORE. No one is asking you to check your FB wall every half an hour and like/comment on/like someone's comment/comment that you dislike every status update/photo that appears there.
Tagging - Ever heard of people untagging themselves? There are people who add relatives/bosses/colleagues on FB. Fine, your call. But stop whining when someone tagged a pic of you passed out on the footpath or posted a status update on how you threw up on the waiter last night. Please refer to option 2 above. On a more cruel note, if you don't want to be found doing something, don't do it! Simple.
Quizzes - I think they're fun! If you don't agree, see option 3.
Stalkers - Come on now, lets not flatter ourselves. They are just people like everyone with the obsessive compulsive urge to comment on everything FB posts on their wall. And I thought you posted something so that the world knows about it anyway..
Farmville - Somehow, the people who whine the most about getting bugged by this are the ones who check FB for updates every half an hour and are the promptest to reply to posts. Others don't care enough to do a market segmentation of facebook users. I find that puzzling, and even a little disturbing. If someone is your friend, accept (read ignore) the fact that they are obsessed with farmville or random quizzes or whatnot. You got tagged in an app that finds the biggest imbecile on FB? At the cost of sounding repetitive, refer to the three options above.
So all the smartass FB-critics all around, if you're wasting your "precious" time liking comments on FB or getting tagged and becoming scandalous revelations to nosy cousins or bugging yourself over somebody's exploits in mafia/you-are-my-sweetheart-of the-day quizzes, there is only one person to blame - you. Period.
I'm afraid you missed one more important point: Data Privacy.
ReplyDelete1. Facebook has consistently degraded the privacy settings (be it default or otherwise) since 2005. I understand they require the revenue and perhaps are seeking a much better business model ahead of their IPO, but a careful study of how they've handled user data shows they value privacy very less.
2. Also, facebook has been guilty of purposely obfuscating the privacy settings, and choosing to make features opt-out rather than opt-in which most people don't like. Similar reasons caused a huge backlash against Google Buzz.
3. Facebook, in making the friends list public and your name and information indexable by search engines, which wasn't the norm about 3 yrs back has lead to a lot more data being public domain than people might realize. If the consumer doesn't perceive the magnitude of the problem does that absolve the company in the first place?
I realize privacy is probably the only thing that is letting down Facebook, but they've done a pretty horrible job of improving it. The new Instant Personalization is the bane of the internet and some people find it quite underhand of Facebook to be going in this direction.
I realize your article was probably more tongue-in-cheek but I hope more people realize what posting data to Facebook entails these days.
Ananth
Hey but there's a very simple alternative right? To just not use Facebook. Someone's giving me something for free, I'm doing random time-pass with it - I wouldn't complain too much about what I'm doing of my own volition. I agree something as popular as Facebook needs to be more responsible and pay more attention to those privacy issues.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, like you mentioned, I was just talking about users of Facebook, as against Facebook itself..
Ahem...I know you love FB! But what eactly triggered this?
ReplyDeleteI think the concern is more about how facebook (or linkedin for that matter) are effecting the way we socialize. It is good in few ways but bad in many many more ways. For instance, I keep in touch with most of my friends on facebook, but at the same time facebook has also made it soo much more easier to stop calling them. It definitely brought a lot of fun into my otherwise boring day, but lets call a spade a spade. It also brought a lot of crap.
ReplyDeleteTo stop using facebook is not an available option Jyo. Especially when 99% of your friends are on it. I liked the 'facebook is a stupid idiot' video a lot because it reminds me not to depend solely on FB to socialize.
@Jyothsni: Not exactly. Facebook has done what is tantamount to bait-and-switch. The premise upon which most users of facebook, at least the first few that launched it off the ground and made it so popular was that the data and socializing would be restricted to universities with strict control over who shares data with whom. Over the years, gradually, as the popularity grew, and the monopoly over the social networking market grew, they started to get lax on the privacy. Of course, no one "forces" you to use facebook but in some sense we have little or no other options.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, just my $0.02.
Honestly, even I don't like facebook coz I end up wasting so much time on it when I could've done something much more useful. And I DON'T like the way it is starting to post random stuff on everybody's wall without asking for permission. One of these days, I might delete my account (hopefully) :D
ReplyDeleteBut that was not the point. It is just funny the way people make fun of what others do, when they themselves are guilty of the same things..
Over time, a lot of things happen which change the way we live. The invention of the telephone lead to a drastic reduction in face-to-face conversation. Are we complaining about that? I'm not saying social networking sites are as great as that invention. It's just a personal choice. I know a lot of people who lead perfectly normal and social lives without being on facebook or just checking it once in a month.
So if you're addicted to smoking, should you blame the cigarette, the ones who introduced you to it or other smokers? All I was trying to say is - yourself
PS: This is just my 2 cents too! :D
@The Kid.. aka Baby-suit :P not sure, I guess that video was the last straw ;) and no, I don't love facebook!
ReplyDeleteMen desire fame. So do women. One way to become famous is to target famous people/things. David Ippolito targeted Facebook. Jyothsni is targeting David Ippolito. Good attempt.
ReplyDelete