Facebook

Okay, so here it is. All my vitriol regarding Facebook. I don’t know where this all comes from. I tend to shun things that are overly popular (like iPods, cell phones, Harry Potter, Dan Brown, etc.); but I like a good bandwagon as much as the next person and even though I usually do it late, I’ve been known to jump on a few. But: Facebook? I’m just not buying it.

Some of the arguments in favour of Facebook that I’ve heard:

1) You can find “old friends,” and catch-up with them
2) You can reach said friends all in one easy place/it saves time
3) It’s useful as a procrastination tool
4) Everyone else is doing it!

Some of my arguments against Facebook:

1) Sometimes friends become “old friends” for a reason; if they were that great in the first place I wouldn’t have lost touch with them.
2) It’s like creepy digital-stalking
3) Instead of using it as another communication tool, it’s becoming people’s only communication tool. Facebook messages are simply a fancier version of the group email.
4) I simply have no use for it.
5) I think it uses the word “friend” too loosely, but I suppose “Acquaintancebook” sounds silly.

Let me flesh out my complaints a little. I grew up in a small town. I graduated OAC with people that had been in the same daycare as me. It’s not as if I moved around a lot, or even changed schools once. I see the people I went to kindergarten with every time I go back home. There aren’t any long-lost people in my life. Mainly because I’ve kept in touch with the people that I wanted to keep in touch with. All these stories I hear, “I found my best friend from high school! We hadn’t spoken in years!” What the hell kind of best friends can’t keep in touch? My best friend (of 16 years) and I weren’t even in the same grade, we haven’t lived in the same province as each other for 7 years, and we manage to stay friends just fine without Facebook.

It can’t be both a time saver and a procrastination tool, so I won’t go further with that. I think the point in this round clearly goes to me.

I have used Facebook, so it’s not as if my hatred is completely blind. I’ve logged on using a friend’s account. I hated it before I logged on, and I think I hate it even more afterwards. It was all creepy: there was too much information about people that I don’t think I would need to know, had it been my account. There was a list of the different people that had recently become friends, and who was poking whom, what everyone’s mood was, who had signed which wall. It was like having a ticker on my computer that would scroll “Cricket is reading an article….Mika is in MBSU….Cricket has gone to the bathroom….Oz has just gotten up….Mika just dropped some foreceps.” I mean, is the running commentary important or even interesting? (I realize that MSN does something similar, but not on this scale: it’s not like it tells other users when I’m having a conversation and with whom). Deb tells me that “It doesn’t have to be creepy,” meaning you can adjust what you want the world to see. Which is all kinds of good, because apparently (and I literally just found this out) they have a really skeevy Privacy Policy. If what I read is true, it’s downright scary. On par with how Gmail never deletes emails and makes a profit datamining them.

I have other reasons for disliking Facebook, but those are the main ones. I have a blog, email, and a phone. That’s all I really need to keep in touch with the people I care to keep in touch with. I just don’t need Facebook (and, despite what my tone may suggest, I have nothing against the people who use it - just quit sending me invitations!).

This, however, is a site I would join.