Does anyone else hate Facebook?

I don’t.

<raises hand high> I hate it.

I’m here, Askville, Twitter and a couple other places, too

Just out of curiosity, why do you hate it?

Twitter is the one that seems ridiculous to me. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care for a website dedicated entirely to Facebook status updates.

Sheesh. Why be hatin’ yo?

If you want to slum it in the MySpace toilet, knock yerself out.

Dont see the added value of Facebook

It’s a great way to keep up with the goings on of family and friends.

I hate it too. Among other issues (like privacy) I dislike the fact that it has brought up many people I would rather kindly forget. You are expected to have a profile and to accept friendship request. Or else you are an anti-social.

Why would you not have a profile on a social site?

I don’t accept just anyone’s friendship requests (or app requests or group requests) or whatever. I use it for what I want. No one calls me anti-social.

Meh. I am apathetic towards it.

I think most social networking sites propagate inanity and make it okay for people to post ridiculous photos of themselves (or their friends) doing embarassing things.
We have lost our sense of propriety due to these sites and people think that every idiotic thought that crosses their mind needs to broadcast to the world.

My husband’s job required him to get involved in social networking. He created a Facebook account and responded to a couple of co-workers friend invitations. Within 24 hours, he had been contacted by an old girlfriend of the poisonous variety. He freaked and de-activated his account.

I have male friend who, like you, had an account for business reasons. He also has a 14-year-old daughter. She asked if she could be his friend on Facebook. Indulgent dad said, “Of course, honey.”

Imagine his surprise when he checked the site a week later and found a bevy of little 15-year-old girls as his “friends.” He is now afraid to use it in a demo lest he be thought a pedophile.

@Marina, how could he have gotten a “bevy of little 15-year-old girls as friends” unexpectedly? You must explicitly accept each and every request.

@Dorkgirl

How do you know “ridiculous photos of embarrassing things” aren’t just people having fun? What’s wrong with preserving that as a photo?

@robmandu Maybe they were just requests? I am afraid that my friend is not very technosavvy or social networking savvy and neither am I. I’ll have to ask him.

@Dansedescygnes I guess I think photos of yourself or your friends who are obviously drunk or stoned are embarassing. As are photos of girls/women flashing their boobs, or boys/men making lewd gestures.
Perhaps that photo may not be embarassing today, but it’s out in the world of cyberspace. And, anyone can find you if your profile is not private. Employers may look you up and see you in a questionable state or posed provacatively then not pursue you for a job. Same with boyfriends or girlfriends who look you up to see what you have been up to.
With digital photography and cell phone cameras our moments of idiocy are out there instantly.
Sorry if I seem like a fuddy-duddy but I think younger people don’t realize the impact things like FaceBook can have on them in the longer term.

@dorkgirl: I enjoy sharing my silly ridiculousness with the world. If it wasn’t on facebook, I would still be taking out my digital camera and showing silly pictures of myself to my friends. Oh wait, I already do that

Personally, I think people generally “hate” Facebook (or almost any other thing for that matter) simply because they don’t understand it.

Like being concerned about privacy. Good thing to be concerned about. But I wonder if the owner of that quip has actually read the 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know?

FB ain’t for everyone, for sure. It’s not even a good fit for most people. Fine. Then don’t use it. But to “hate” it so vehemently… tells me they’re really hating something else.

@Dorkgirl

Which is why I think simply making your profile private can solve a lot of problems. There are plenty of photos of me drunk on Facebook. If I really don’t like a photo, I will kindly ask my friend to delete it and they will. For the most part, we just have fun commenting on the photos and looking at them, it isn’t really embarrassing or shameful. That’s just how it works me, I know that’s not everyone.

@Dorkgirl: And employers can’t just “look you up” on facebook without you giving them access. Each person can set their profile as “public” or “private” many different levels. You sound just like my high school guidance counselors who had no idea what facebook was, had never seen or used it, but were nonetheless, scared shitless of it, and tried to instill in us the same. Give me a break.

@La_chica_gomela okay maybe not the case with facebook, but I have found people on Myspace.

I do like Facebook – though not so much the way they’ve been changing the structure so often.

I somewhat agree with @Dorkgirl in that it is definitely used as a tool for the narcissistic so they can (as my friend, PTNA2) put it, “Show off their awesome tits.”

Communication’s one thing, but to subject everyone you know to all of your self-centered bullshit is stupid.

@boots

What if the intended audience is really only your closest groups of friends? You can always choose (on Facebook’s settings) from whom to receive more updates about. I mean, yes, when you post photos, any one of your friends can see a sampling of them if they appear on the mini-feed, but no one has to investigate further if they don’t want to.

i hear a lot about facebook. my teenage son goes to that page as soon as he gets in the house and i still for the life of me cannot understand why. i have been invited there and it seems really cool, but at my age with my baggage and history, i don’t need to be “known” the world over. i do not have many people in my life i can call friends. there is no way anybody can have 1,000 or more friends.

@charliecompany34

Facebook “friends” are really just a combination of true friends and acquaintances.

@Dansedescygnes That still doesn’t stop people from putting them on there incessantly.

I mean, if you went on vacation or something similar, it’s one thing. But I’ve got too many friends on there that take their camera out every weekend and post the same pictures of them sticking their tongues toward each other or making faces.

I mean, the only real answer as to why people do that is narcissism, vanity, and/or bragging rights.

@boots

The most of what I see like that is that there are probably at least 30 photos from every weekend party I go to. Major parties get more; the mardi gras party I went to, for example, had 4 different people each post many photos. To me it seems like it’s just an attempt to preserve it. I mean, I have Facebook friends that I don’t really hang out with and they post pictures from their own parties and I’m not really interested. And I’m sure there is some of those three things in there. But, for example, when I posted pictures from a party last week, I didn’t do it because I wanted to show off to all my Facebook friends, I did it because I wanted to show other people who were at the party the photos that I had taken of them.

If you care enough about facebook to complain about the layout then you are completely worthless.

It keeps me connected, and everything is set to “friends only”, and I don’t add people who I don’t want knowing the details. If they think I’m anti-social, well, screw them.

But yeah, there’s a lot of silly feed stuff that I’d like to skip that I haven’t figured out how to filter just yet. In due time..

i don’t really like it all that much either. i think it’s really really boring, and the only thing i use it for is to change my status to complain about whatever class i hate the most at the moment, and to click the little ‘like’ button on other folks’ updates on how much they hate school.

it’s not a very positive website, for me. :p

I despise them all since My Space. If you’re important enough start a website.

@3or4monsters I’m still learning the features but also have it set to be viewed only by friends, not friends of friends or anyone else. Having had friendster and myspace before, I know better than to post any “fun” pics or share status updates or info I’m not prepared for the whole world to get a hold of. Learning… that said, I don’t hate facebook, I can’t because it re connected me with a few MIA people.

Facebook is an amazing tool for me to keep in contact with friends. I have been going to grad school in the UK for the past year, and if I didn’t have facebook, I couldn’t keep up with friends who are spread all over the world, from Hawaii to South Korea to Madagascar.

My privacy settings are the most stringent possible, and I only friend people I actually know. Also, I routinely de-friend people who I do not keep in touch with. This way, it is only the people I care to know about whose profiles I see and can see mine.

If you do not enjoy the site, do not use it, full stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64OxJNHn0Zo

Pros – As soon as I first signed on, I started re-connecting with people I hadn’t seen in years, some of whom I’ve actually gotten back in touch with now outside the Facebook world.

Cons – Seems really immature, like sending each other imaginary drinks, throwing imaginary snowballs, pretending to bitch-slap and drop-kick people…all seems very childish to me. I loved a recent episode of My Name is Earl, one of the characters (Joy) set up a page on a social networking site but because she’s so mean, no one befriended her, so her husband (Darnell) stayed up all night and created like 315 fake friends to become friends with her. The first one she opened up, the picture was Connie Chung, and she thought she looked familiar, and then she read the description…oh yeah, that was my high school music teacher, “I’m gonna throw a sheep at her.” I mean, seriously…what the fuck?

http://sparo.us/post/79852249

I hate so many aspects of it but I feel like it’s becoming some sort of societal norm (which totally freaks me out!)
Like emailing has become too difficult, you have to send them a message on Facebook.
It makes stalking wayyy too easy. And I almost don’t like being that connected. Isn’t there some information that we shouldn’t know? Plus, I’m really not into all of my relatives, teachers, and friends’ parents getting accounts!
I do like the ease of communication it allows, especially for my friends who are abroad or just live faraway. And it’s a great outlet for all those digital photos, because otherwise I think they’d be lost.

@aviona

As a 17-year-old, sometimes I can’t help but think that so-called “old people” (like older than 30) shouldn’t get Facebooks…lol

It’s weird…like, my English teacher has a Facebook and I’m friends with her. But she’s really super cool and I wouldn’t have accepted her friend request if I didn’t think that.

@Dansedescygnes my only problem, really, is with the pictures, so I generally put as you call them “old people” on my limited profile, so they can’t see them.
My aunt and old Spanish teacher really do not need to see me drunk or at a rave! And I’m not going to give in and untag myself simply because they got a Facebook. And you’re right, they’re cool people, I’m not going to deny their request.

Sometimes I think people under twenty shouldn’t announce their opinions. They’re often so predictably ignorant. ツ

@robmandu

Was that aimed at me?

I utterly despise FaceBook and MySpace. Both are pretty much useless to me. But then, that’s what the kids today want, so they can have it.

Sorry… didn’t complete the thought…

Fortunately, on Fluther, there are many exceptions that prove why such rule would be stupid. And I think the same would hold true on FB, too.

That said, I can certainly agree that certainly family circles should likely not overlap on FB. I don’t think I want my mom and dad on there.

@robmandu

I was joking about the “old people” thing, just so you know. It was mainly a response to parents who want to get Facebooks so they can closely view everything their kids do. Luckily my parents have no interest in getting Facebooks, even though they are pretty tech savvy.

I have really enjoyed it until the recent format change that SUCKS. Starting to loose interest.

I hate facebook !!! I think its the devil !!!! I’m addicted… its a very dangerous, dangerous drug.

I do not like facebook at all for ‘socializing’, I don’t like the ‘apps/games’ constantly being sent to me no matter what! IF it was just a site to ‘talk back an forth’ to friends or family that would be great, or ask questions. Also the format is very difficult to figure out and get help on!

I only went on there when some others I know went there to keep in touch with them but now I find it even worse since they have changed things again!

I really like Twitter because it is an easy way to send a message to someone interested in hearing what you have to say (hence the term Micro-blog), but with Facebook it seems people get totally addicted and instead of quick messages it becomes the primary medium in which people communicate.

I don’t hate it. It’s a great communication tool that has helped me keep in touch with many of the people in my life. It’s also great for sharing photos and stuff like that without having to individually e-mail them to people who want to see them.