The Facebook Obsession 265
rabidmuskrat writes "Are we too obsessed with Facebook? With 500 million users and a CNBC story about it, the answer would seem to be yes. PostRandomonium notes the media's obsession with Facebook, and how it impacts their news coverage — in particular, that of CNN. One out of every 13 Earthlings and three out of four Americans is on Facebook, and one out of 26 signs into Facebook on a daily basis."
Missed an important stat (Score:5, Interesting)
we're not obsessed with facebook (Score:2, Interesting)
we're obsessed with socializing
facebook is just the tool which makes the most sense to manage your social network now. will that be the case in 10 years? if you say definitely "yes" (or definitely "no") you definitely don't know what you are talking about. maybe it will be, it could be, it has the network effect on its side, that's for sure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect [wikipedia.org]
ps: i don't have a facebook account and i never will. egads, the tedium
Peak Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
I could give two shits about facebook, its about easily seeing what friends and family are up to and communicating, not about facebook itself. Its like a very easy to use forum and blog for your life. If another website came out tomorrow that was better everyone would use it instead. Its akin the old crazes and obsessions of writing and journals, video diaries, the internet and blogs, remember how obsessed people were over those! OMG society almost didn't make it through those crazy times! The fad will fade as all do, you sign up, connect with lots of old friends, post a ton for a while, then after a while realize its all pretty meaningless and the people around you are the ones who matter most anyways, and you don't need facebook to talk with them. It will never go away though because its still great to see what distant friends are doing every once and while. Peak Facebook is coming soon though...
Compare texting (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And it's killed smalltalk with friends. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell ya what happened to me. I had some colleagues at work. People I had known for 13 years at the time of this happening, and always gotten along with. Until some day one of them divorces his Russian wife, gets a wee alcohol problem and a midlife crisis to boot. Now these guys were a couple of flavours of Scandinavian, FYI. So this jackass starts insulting Russians on Facebook, and I comment on that. My wife is Israeli, but from Ukranian descent. So I tell 'm to chill out with his statements about eastern European and Russian "whores" (to mention one of the more palatable things the guy wrote, picture a drunken Mel Gibson if you will) because he's getting on my nerve. Some other guy pitches in and before you know it I've gained 3 people I won't speak to again in this life time.
On top of that FaceBook is a ridiculous place that fuels pettiness, jealousy and generally doesn't really contribute to my life in any tangible way. So, my wife and I removed our accounts and never looked back. For those that want to find me, there's a professional profile on LinkedIn. This is enough. I don't want to see what my boss did with the neighbour's dog at the Christmas party in 2008, I don't want to see my old shag buddies and my wife's old shag buddies mingle in all kinds of lists, I am uninterested in my teenage nephews' dumb friends and their void messages and I certainly don't want to get reunited with anyone from high school.
So yes. When I speak to my friends, we have something to talk about beyond the colour of their toilet paper this morning, and it's all good. My friends will be my friends long after Facebook has croaked.