5 Things I Hate About Facebook
I am not addicted to Facebook. I merely treat it as an extension of my brain, that’s all.
But now, Facebook has grown out of control. Cancer of the extended brain. And it’s time for some blogotherapy.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s an update. Facebook has been gradually rolling out new features ever since it went public, but most of these have been small, optional additions. Yesterday, however, a design-changing element was introduced: a “news feed” that alerts you of every move any of your friends make on Facebook.
So what’s wrong with this?
1) There’s no way of taking yourself off of it.
Yes, I realize you can close your Facebook account or not do anything else, ever, but that would interrupt your normal use of Facebook SO much–to avoid activity on the feed, you would have to avoid friending people, joining groups, changing your profile or picture, uploading photos, tagging people, writing on the walls–basically every interesting thing to do with Facebook except displaying an already-made profile. With all the other Facebook features, you have control over the accessibility of your information–untagging photos, making your profile (or subsections) private, etc. So why not this?
2) It’s UGLY.
Back on the old Facebook, your homepage contained your picture, a couple of links for editting, announcements about new requests and invites, and birthday announcements. It was very clean and easy to navigate, and the really important things were immediately apparent upon logging in. With the new “Facelift”, as my roommate calls it, you’re immediately flooded with a ridiculous amount of information the second you log in. There’s no big thing (i.e. your profile pic) to click to go to your profile, and the requests and invites are relegated to the top right corner of the page, where they’re easy to miss. What, instead, gets front and center? The fact that 75 of my friends have joined the group “Students against Facebook News Feed”. Oh, the irony.
Also, having the Minifeed console in the middle of the profile splits it up in a really uncomfortable way. It’s such an interruption and a design killer.
This wouldn’t be too much of a problem except…
3) There’s no way to take it off yourself
I mean, yeah, you can minimize the Minifeed console on your profile page so that you don’t have to see it as you surf other people’s profiles, but there’s no way to compthe fletely remove it. More importantly, you can’t do anything about the fact that your home page has been completely ravaged by a plague of useless ugliness. According to the Facebook blog, they are debating whether or not to provide the option for removal. Why should this be a debate? Give the users the choice on this, especially since it’s so controversial.
4) The information is kind of USELESS
Do I need to be notified if 5 of my friends join “Crikey! A Steve Irwin memorial group”? Or that two of them left “Amazing Sexy Bitches”? Or if one of my friends from high school is friending new people THAT I DON’T KNOW at her college? Do I need to be alerted every time a relationship splits up? Don’t you think that if we cared, we would go check ourselves?
I understand that Zuckerberg & crew were just trying to make our lives even MORE convenient, but they don’t seem to understand that these are the things we just don’t need to know. Or at least, not this way. In my opinion, browsing Facebook is like a very lazy way of visiting your friends (or at least what they choose to put of themselves online). You casually browse and notice that so-and-so is in a group that looks interesting, or shares some interest with you, or has decided to change their profile pic. The new Facebook shoves it in your face, and it feels uncomfortable. Why?
5) It’s Creepy
This is the biggest outcry from people. But why is it creepy? I think it’s creepy that acts that were once personal and not immediately open to the scrutiny of others are now blared on loudspeakers to everyone without distinction. Sure, none of this is information that didn’t already exist, but the difference is accessibility. It’s like the birthday feature: if your friends’ birthdays didn’t pop up on your home page, everyone would get a lot fewer birthday messages because fewer people would know. Similarly, you can always check to see what groups your friend is in and, if you’re interested enough, notice new additions or removals. However, the information is then only accessible to a few, devoted people. Now, people who don’t even know you all that well will be informed about every–well, I’m going to let my friend Banan explain the consequences with her Sting parody.
“Every Post you make
Every Pic you take
Every Friend you fake
For Facebook’s sake
I’ll be watching you.”
(Edit: Jesus CHRIST, people, if you don’t like Facebook don’t use it, but please stop venting about how you got screwed over by it on my blog. I am not interested in hearing about your ex-girlfriend’s facebook profile and how many friends she has and how hurt you felt by it.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | 18 Comments
Tags: facebook, privacy
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I want to create a stir with all these facebook addicts.
Why do we need to know what someone else who we really don’t know that well or else we’d be seeing them on a regular basis in real LIFE and Facebook would not be needed..what that someone else is doing every minute of the day? Who would want to broadcast their life to a network of people across the country and then again including those people from high school you didn’t really like anyways hehe. It’s like who cares if today I woke up, showered, went for a jog, read the newspaper, called in sick and now I’m shopping online while babysitting my children, oh and what music I’m listening to or the number of ‘friends’ I have adding me on Facebook compared to my next door neighbor. And who needs to read online that Jane from kindergarten got a breast reduction and hates the scars and she’s also eating mac & cheese for lunch? Why can’t people just life their lives as lives…there’s so much more out here people than Facebook, online blogs, chat lines…live a little. It sounds funny because at one time when internet was just starting out, people would say…get Online! You’re missing out, join the web of information…now it’s get off the computer, get outside. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a great multitude for research, news and also using free time. But please keep your personal life personal. Facebook needs to end.
I seriouslly hate facebook not because of any of the above really but i have noyiced changes in my partner , addiction to the damn thing like a heroin addict they should scrap the fucking thing plus now its the world against me….the best place for poeple straying into the world of cheating .. I HATE YOU FACEBOOK I HATE YOU!!!
You are all right. The people who waste their time on facebook, any time at all, are allowed to waste their time. I just hope that for their own sake they have actually read that disclaimer. Go ahead and create a database for the government. Go ahead. Once data is created, it is never destroyed. Do whatever you wish, but please, please… don’t send me those DAMN INVITES!
I started off like most people I guess, couldn’t get off the computer once I got hooked. Then my ex got into it and things have gone downhill since then. Honestly I think it is one of the quickest ways invented to destroy a relationship and what’s sad is that it’s all over fucking facebook?? The problem with facebook is that it’s such a public display of your life, your status, your everything, that some idiots think it’s a forum to let everyone you know know when you’re single, when you’re not, when you’ve done something, and then of course there’s photos to prove it! Everything is out there, and as far as I’m concerned it’s just a way for people to hook up and to hurt others. I know I’ve had more hurt in my life in the last 3 months by Facebook than in the last year by anything else. I hope they ban the fucking thing.
I’m so happy I have found a place to vent about Facebook, without being attacked! I myself did join, then cancelled, when I realized that it was a complete waste of time and that I really didn’t care what people were up to. When I left Facebook, everyone was like “Why, why, why???” It was like def com 1 or something. It was like there was no life after Facebook. Honestly, I think this place is just for people who need confirmation that someone is listening to them. All I have to say for those people is “NO ONE GIVES A SHIT!!!”
I agree, im sick of receiving these requests to join up, clogging up my email. I got a request from a mate the other day (lost count what number that was) but i thought to myself, set up a blag email and name and actually see what possesses these people.
Did that and saw my mates profile. Now apparently she’s got 230 odd friends, which i find very hard to believe. Surely how does she keep in touch with them all. What i dont understand is that my mates have my number and email so they contact me on them as opposed to this god forsaken website known as facebook.
Ive got to agree with tony though, i think its some governement conspiracy to basically control our lives (just like continuous building of stupid 1-bedroom flats in city centres, so they can keep an eye on us by CCTV, but thats another theory), but then again i thought of these whilst at work, and most probably bored.
It’s actually a relief to see people airing their concern and distaste for the whole faebook phenomenon. I thought I was the only one who hadn’t been sucked in by it. I’m sick and tired of friends asking me if I’m on facebook and sending me invites. I haven’t had any bad experiences with it, so you have to understand that this is not me being bitter. I see my friends organising things via facebook these days rather than the old fashioned way, a lot of them are spending a great deal of time racking their brains for people they can add to boost their friends list and seeing if anyone has sent them anything. I think the whole ‘gossip’ angle seems to really resonate with a lot of the women I’ve spoken to about it. Well I don’t want to use facebook and I’ll tell you why:
1. I have the number/email of all my close friends, so I don’t need to go through a third party website to contact them, or arrange to go for a beer etc. Call me strange, but I still actually quite like to speak to my friends to arrange things every now and again.
2. I don’t need the ego stroke of having 100+ friends of whom I only really speak to five with any regularity.
3. I simply do not want every facet of my life put online for god knows who to read about at their leisure.
4. I also don’t want to willingly hand over all my personal information and habits to this big database they are building, who knows what it will be used for in the future.
I really think there is something very dark about facebook hidden beneath the bright and colourful façade of a ‘fun, social networking utopia’. It has been marketed as a more ‘adult’ service, and actually tries to make people think they are being semi-sophisticated simply by using it, only a couple of days ago I heard some demographics on the radio that facebook users are generally ‘white, middle class with well paid jobs’…. Well quick, I’d better get using it before I get left behind or heaven forbid considered ‘common’ by my peers.
It strikes me that facebook is open to all sorts of abuse, surely it’s a stalkers paradise? Or for people who enjoy a bit of ID theft. As well as opening the door for a huge amount of potential social engineering abuse that would just not have been possible with such enormous ease in years gone by. People just seem ever so keen to divulge everything online, I’m not sure if people realise how easily they can be tracked down from the information they put online or not, I’ve certainly got nothing to hide but that doesn’t mean I want to provide anybody with so much as a passing interest in me the ability to learn all about me with such ease.
From reading some of the comments above I can totally appreciate how facebook can destroy relationships, and loose people their jobs – there are a LOT of people on the prowl. Am I simply old fashioned and no longer down with the kids..? I don’t know but I really hope that the facebook bubble bursts and soon.
I’m in my twenties, think the internet is fantastic, use it every day for work as well as in my social time, but I simply can not understand the fascination with facebook. I’m not even completely comfortable posting this and adding to the oxygen of publicity that facebook is enjoying.
Facebook, I hate you (and I’m no longer alone, yay!).
TOTALLLLY AGREE WITH YA ALLLL!
WE GOT LIFEEEEEEEEEEEE!
REAL LIFE.
NOT ON THE INTERNET!
GEEEz.
Glad some intelligent beings exist.
Friends go when you die like your possessions. Becoming to attached only leads to misery; and a fat check to the facebook cronies……..LOL
I would rather carve myspace out in the real world…..(pun intended)
What makes me laugh is that all of us on this website have actually typed into some search engine that we hate Facebook, and stumbled onto here and vented our anger.
I got asked by a colleague at work if im on it, honestly i nearly let rip on the person. People in their mid twenties shouldnt be on FB. Whats happened to having actual conversations in person, or just disappering whenever you feel like it and just get on with your own interests.
Its as mark says, its a stalkers paradise no doubt, and besides there’s a reason why i dont speak to some people anymore so why would i want them knowing what im upto now.
To summarise
Facebook, i hope you die, and die quickly. Im sure theres more people out there who agree. Come on dont be shy.
The funny thing is, I can guarantee all these people who are on it will deny that they were even on it, once its unfashionable. I wonder what next years fad will be…
Yay, others who agree with me.
I am on facebook but have stopped using it as I prefer talking to my real friends face to face. I don’t care about the stuff facebook seems to think I want to know. I don’t care that my ex-housemate has got a new sofa!!
The thing I find most annoying about facebook though is the photos. I know what they look like! I don’t need to see several hundred photos of them drunk, doing something twatish or both!
I also know that one of my real friends wouldn’t talk to half of the people she has as her facebook friends in real life.
you think you guys have it bad with facebook? you have nooo idea. i admit facebook is a good tool for keeping in touch.but when you NEED to keep in touch. if youre living on different CONTINENTS MAYBE. but wtf all people ever do is go on FACEBOOK. when my friends come over to my place before they put some music on or open a beer they GO ON *&%$## FACEBOOK!! and whats more. they CHAT on facebook. CHAT. i mean WTF. why the hell would i want every random idiot to know about my personal life? what happened to phone calls, forget that instant messaging? atleast you could have some goddamned privacy!! you know what shocks me more? smart people i know. SMART friends are lapping it up like its the best thing thats ever happened. how sad is this? and when i tell people this.. its either ” shut up and get on facebook, stop acting like an idiot” or ” yeah i agree i dont even use it anymore ” (though these are the same friends mentioned earlier) somethings gotta be done about this. this has gone on long enough. a couple of years was bad enough. but this is too much. facebook must die. a quick, yet extraordinarily painful death.
FACEBOOK IS A CULT…..at least, that is what I told my friend not two minutes ago via e-mail (how old fashioned of me.) I swear blind it completely through her into a crazed hysteria and proceeded to scribe a 5000 word essay on the joys of Facebook. You know what?…”get a life!” Is this it? Will I eventually lose all my friends and then become socially ostracized by my acquaintences until I submit to the almighty Facebook.