I have also seen a few non-FB web sites that just assume you have a Facebook login and that is how they want you to identify yourself to them. They do not seem to grok that there is some percentage of the population that doesn’t have & doesn’t want this.
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I think that what you experienced says more about your set of friends…but then again, they weren’t really your friends.
People are just people, whatever the platform or format. Don’t blame FB for your alienation. I’ve experienced quite the opposite by curating my newsfeed so that I’d always have a variety of everything (just as I like it in the “real world”). I feel more connected to people from all around the world, and have had the most authentic conversations ever experienced in life because most people are more comfortable doing so when they’re not face-to-face.
I’m just myself, everywhere. There’s only ONE version of me (because I like who I am), so I experience continuity in life, wherever I am, and whatever I’m doing.
BTW, Facebook’s gotten a lot better at its suggestions. Since they buy up user info from places like YouTube and Amazon, they actually KNOW you. It’s made my FB use much more rewarding, as a result.
Try it again, if you ever feel inclined to…I’d say it’s vastly improved from before.
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You say that like it’s a good thing.
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That sounds like hell. Those of my friends who freelance hustle have to spam ALL the networks, so any effort to compartmentalize has already failed.
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It’s been known for a LONG time in sociology circles that people present themselves differently in different situations:
A huge amount of issues people had with Facebook early on were due to context collapse. There’s nothing wrong with doing a kegstand, but you wouldn’t email that picture to your boss or grandma. With Facebook, everyone saw everything.
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The ‘one presentation’ was my biggest issue with facebook when I first joined and the reason I rarely posted anything. But now Facebook allows private groups which basically solves that problem. You still have to use your ‘real name’ but you don’t have to be friends with someone to be in a group with them, so all they will see of you is what you post to that group.
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The reality is, if you’re on the web, they can track you. They also like to try to sell you stuff, but in the earlier days, their strategy was more about throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
If these two inevitabilities are part of the internet experience, I prefer it to be targeted. I have no delusions that my data is “safe.” We’re on THEIR platform, and our data will always be for sale to not only the highest bidder, but to anyone who’s willing to pay a little something for it.
Until telepathy is perfected, the only way people won’t know what you’re thinking or doing, is by never sharing your thoughts, and by living in complete isolation so that no one ever sees you.
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That’s pretty much what I have done. I follow my local for-sale feeds, and a couple of friends that I actually see from time to time. Messenger I love, because where I live there’s no real cell service, though there’s free wifi all over the place, so I can ‘text’ people and i don’t have to scroll through page after page of stupid memes and ‘inspirational’ garbage.
ETA I also use a fake name in order to avoid having to ignore tedious friend requests from people I didn’t particularly like 25 years ago but after a few glasses of wine suddenly want to be ‘friends’.
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Wow. That sounds awful.
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Would it help if I told you it has approximately the same amount of racist uncles?
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The point is that people are retracting from genuine and emotionally rich inter-personal life, and forgetting that what they’re seeing is fake. When they see the smiling faces and joyful this that and the other, they feel bad.
The one surprise I had on FB was an old school friend who’d been posting a pretty picture of life, only to suddenly reveal her husband had been beating the shit out of her and the kids.
Now that’s over, she’s posting the happy life stuff again.
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You should read The Circle, I think you would really get along with the protagonist!
One of the major problems with Facebook is that, no matter how bad it is, if you’re checking in to say you don’t have one, you’re basically the 21st century version of the “I don’t even own a TV!” guy. Even if you have very good reasons for not being on Facebook, or any social media, showing up to proudly declare it is going to come off as somewhat sanctimonious. Telling everyone else they shouldn’t be on Facebook… well that just makes the problem worse.
Right now it’s become pretty clear that Facebook is awful for a whole host of reasons, but it’s also become clear that it fills a gap people need. Hell, that’s why I still have one; I’d basically never know what’s going on with a whole side of my family if I didn’t. It’s a service people depend on emotionally, which is part of why it has the ability to have the influence it does. The problems with Facebook are all real, but somewhat nebulous. It’s hard to see Facebook manipulating news, or making people unhappy. Essentially, attacking the service, or telling people they need to delete their accounts is somewhere between useless, and worse than useless.
What I think we really need is a better alternative. Someone mentioned e-mail, but that doesn’t really work. One of the things Facebook provides is the ability not to look at it. If you skip out for a few days, stories just move down your timeline. (Or they used to, back when it was a timeline, and not some “news feed” that Facebook chose how to order on your behalf.) Unread e-mails are just clutter. The sort of quick updates that work for Facebook would be extremely annoying as e-mails. Some might say longer and more meaningful communication is a good thing, but even if we could move everyone from Facebook to e-mail, what you’d wind up with is something more like… no communication. Some sort of open, non-profit social network might be helpful; the problem then would just be getting people to pick it over Facebook.
I’ve never understood why anyone would want to establish a single, static, identifiable “online identity” on any social media platform, including this one, given the fact that humans are built to oversimplify, assume, judge, stereotype and otherwise not see each other except to establish safety by screening out threats. I mean, that’s humanity’s default setting in person. When we reduce the communication channels down to almost nothing, what do we expect is going to happen?
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Because communities require the accumulation of reputation to exist. We wanna establish that we are good, smart, respectable people deserving of civility and decency because we do not expect that people will give it by default to some random person who is probably a spambot.
If you believe in the Phildickian dystopia, establishing your humanity - your sincere humanity - is your own defense.
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If having many names in different places was good enough for Gandalf, it’s good enough for me!
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On the other hand having identity is nice. I’ve spent a long time switching usernames every 6 months to a year out of fear of harassment. On one hand, I avoid harassment. But I also avoid building relationships.
I have read BB since 2004 or so but I only relatively recently made an account and it really increased my enjoyment. It’s a risk, but it’s worth it.
That reads like a filk version of a Squirrel Nut Zippers song.
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He was Tharkûn to the Dwaves when he came.
He was Tharkûn to the Dwaves when he came…
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