What is so great about Facebook??

Mr. Zuckeberg is coming up with some interesting ideas for spreading Facebook around the globe, but I don't understand the attraction. I was on Facebook for 5 months, before and after our last high school reunion. It was fun chatting with my former classmates, and downloading our reunion photos, but most of us (including me) have deactivated our accounts. We just don't feel the need to know every tiny detail of our friends lives. Maybe it's because we're getting older (late 50's). I think Facebook is overrated.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-lab-intent-delivering-internet-004533701.html?bcmt=comments-postbox

It's very important to know what your friend - with whom you haven't talked to in 6 months because you're all too busy - had for dinner yesterday. It's also important to acknowledge his existence and recent dinner activities with the least amount of required action - by clicking a like-button. Finally, it is crucial that you show everyone whom you "know" what a busy and pleasant social life you have by posting every single irrelevant thing that happens in your life. Because that means you have succeeded in life.

You dig?

Originally posted by bill718
Mr. Zuckeberg is coming up with some interesting ideas for spreading Facebook around the globe, but I don't understand the attraction. I was on Facebook for 5 months, before and after our last high school reunion. It was fun chatting with my former classmates, and downloading our reunion photos, but most of us (including me) have deactivated our accounts. We ...[text shortened]... ance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-lab-intent-delivering-internet-004533701.html?bcmt=comments-postbox

I can understand the attraction of Facebook, because families are often scattered around the country, or around the world. I can't understand people spending hours, playing some of the mindless games. Other social media sites like LinkedIn seem to have more practical applications. Facebook is different things to different people.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
It's very important to know what your friend - with whom you haven't talked to in 6 months because you're all too busy - had for dinner yesterday. It's also important to acknowledge his existence and recent dinner activities with the least amount of required action - by clicking a like-button. Finally, it is crucial that you show everyone whom you "kn ...[text shortened]... vant thing that happens in your life. Because that means you have succeeded in life.

You dig?

Also, you absolutely have to post photos of infants and let everyone know how far you have been running today.

And cats. Lots and lots of cats.

Originally posted by bill718
Mr. Zuckeberg is coming up with some interesting ideas for spreading Facebook around the globe, but I don't understand the attraction. I was on Facebook for 5 months, before and after our last high school reunion. It was fun chatting with my former classmates, and downloading our reunion photos, but most of us (including me) have deactivated our accounts. We ...[text shortened]... ance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-lab-intent-delivering-internet-004533701.html?bcmt=comments-postbox

It's a good way to keep up with relatives with whom you might not meet up with but more than thrice in a lifetime.

Originally posted by bill718
...but most of us (including me) have deactivated our accounts.

I am curious as to why you deactivated your account. Did you feel the need to keep checking in or posting when it was active?
I am not a big facebook user myself, and currently only use it to follow one or two family members. I would actually like it if a few more family members kept me abreast of family news by some means (doesn't have to be facebook).
I am however not interested in reading up on what someone had for dinner last night so such people would be removed.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am curious as to why you deactivated your account. Did you feel the need to keep checking in or posting when it was active?
I am not a big facebook user myself, and currently only use it to follow one or two family members. I would actually like it if a few more family members kept me abreast of family news by some means (doesn't have to be facebook). ...[text shortened]... erested in reading up on what someone had for dinner last night so such people would be removed.

I, too, deleted my account.
Moving from myspace to thefacebook in the early years of the latter's formation, mostly because of the increased flexibility of picture posting and messaging: with friends/family scattered literally across the globe, group emails didn't always fit the desired outcome.

With the expansion of the website and the loss the first three letters, I gradually started to lose interest.
It was getting more of a high-junior high school vibe the further it went.

Final straw for me was seeing posts from business associates on the West Coast which were not only unprofessional, they were grounds for lawsuits.
Figured it was time to cut the chord and call it a day.
This was right before FarmVille took off--- which really put the icing on the cake in my view.
It was a real eye-opener to see just how incredibly shallow and easily entertained people could be.
En masse stupidity has a way of finding the least common denominator... and then slowly dragging everyone to it.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
And cats. Lots and lots of cats.

and dogs loads of dogs

People are very attracted to impersonal communication, like texting. That's the lure of the internet, and why internet forums or chatrooms are so popular. People can communicate with much less fear of rejection, seeming uncool, etc., than when they're in front of people. It's like the reverse of public speaking.

That said, Facebook is a very convenient method of impersonal communication (I think I may have just coined a term). It's not so much that Facebook itself is such a unique and revolutionary concept, as much as it being a good outlet for impersonal communication. MySpace was popular for the exact same reason.

So answer the OP, it's not that FB itself is great, it's just currently a very good method for impersonal contact on the internet.

Originally posted by vivify
People are very attracted to impersonal communication, like texting. That's the lure of the internet, and why internet forums or chatrooms are so popular. People can communicate with much less fear of rejection, seeming uncool, etc., than when they're in front of people. It's like the reverse of public speaking.

That said, Facebook is a very convenien ...[text shortened]... itself is great, it's just currently a very good method for impersonal contact on the internet.

its ok

Nothing is great about facebook.
I hear so many people saying things like: "This way I keep in touch."
Or, like with dating sites: "It's the same as going to a bar, but I can stay at home."

No it is not.

There's a whopping big difference.
One's experience of life is multi-fold: sight, smell, sound, touch, taste...
Experiencing life through the internet ignores so many senses that it doesn't make sense to compare it to reality.

Sure, you can chat with someone online. But communication is 90% body language. The whole internet is a con.
It's like watching a movie instead of writing a book. Easy entertainment which ultimately will just leave you empty (or full if you're eating sacks full of popcorn or crisps.... choose your poison).

Someone asked me why I didn't like posts.
I said I did.
Seemingly to like something means to have to actively show enjoyment by boosting someone's ego by proxy.

IF... if you need likes on facebook to measure how entertaining your comment is, then you have bigger issues to deal with than just the lack of smell and taste I mentioned previously.

Good grief.

Obviously I hope everyone gives this post a thumbs up!