With friends like these … Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook: This is a very long rant against Facebook, and social-networking in general. It gets deep into the politics of the founders and over-capitalism, and all that, but I was struck by this bit towards the beginning.
A friend of mine recently told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations.
Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in us, too. If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval.
The Internet sucks the soul out of the relating to people in general, but are the advantages worth it? The Internet allows a large quantity of relationships of less quality. Is it worth it?
Naval-gazing assery, written to tell a flood of people voluntarily using a site not to use the site.
I vehemently dispute your tossed-off statement that the Internet sucks the soul out of relating to people in general.
I think there's a lot of coolness to Facebook - but your page gets filled up with applications you found other people using. (I influenced my cousin to use the Chinese Name application, for example). And your news feed is all about everything everybody did to everyone else. :-)
Deane, do you really believe your statement? Could you elaborate?
Recent research by the University of Amsterdam in cooperation with Hyves (largest social network in The Netherlands, 5m users) shows that Hyves strengthens offline relations, instead of weakening them or preventing users from being social offline.
Hyves users turned out to even have a more active social life offline, compared to non-hyves-users. The 3000 people that were "researched" (I don't know if they were interviewed one by one) indicated that they mainly use Hyves to get in touch with old friends and colleagues.
I don't see why this should be much different in the US. I wonder why social networks often get this negative vibe from people saying that they are evil and talking down at people using them. What's your take on that?
This is a press release quoted by a newssite: http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=1366168&c=50
P.S.: I'm a avid reader of your blog, keep it up!
Deane, do you really believe your statement? Could you elaborate?
I've been online so long now, that perhaps I'm a little jaded by this point. But the Net seems to increase the quantity of the relationships I have, but at a superficial level. I relate to a lot of people now, but at little significant depth.
I have hundreds and hundreds of people that I've "met" on the Net. I have touch-and-go, once-in-a-while relationships with these people, but I know little about them, and they know little about me.
At the same time, my circle of "real life" friends seems to get smaller and smaller. We don't sit down for a beer, because we can always email. Email provides a veneer of intimacy, which helps us avoid anything more real.
I am sick to my stomach about Facebook. It seems like it's one big college frat party....sex and alcohol being the main topics. People pretending to be connecting to others but really only do so to massage their own egos. People pretending to be caring when all it is is fast-food, who's next, stroke my ego, talk dirty, fool around on people who really do care.
It's all kind of sad really.
facebook are thieves and make there own rules to suit themselves.
