If you know me, you are probably familiar with my stance on Facebook. In fact, I probably was the person that urged you to join that social network just shortly before it exploded in popularity (at least here in Toronto). You were most likely puzzled when I quit more than a year ago. Today, most people look at me like a luddite when I tell them I'm not on Facebook. Certainly, I feel like those people that still don't own a cellphone. To say I'm outnumbered is an understatement.
So, let me address some of the comments and questions I've come across:
But it's good for networking
Is it really? Okay so you've got the ear of a potential business acquaintance. Do you really think you're unique? If it's so easy for you to get ahold of such a person, do you not think a dozen other people are also doing the same thing and diluting any impression you're making? I'm a person that loves technology, but sitting behind your desktop computer and "networking" is not the best way to do it. And no, you Facebook-on-your-cellphone users don't count either. I see you people hiding behind your cellphones at the bar adjusting your status lines. You walk in alone; you walk out alone. Learn to talk to people. If you're going to use Facebook to network, use it to facilitate your networking skills, not replace them.
But I like to play Scrabulous WordScraper...
That's fine. You do realize that you don't have to be logged into Facebook to play it right? Which brings me to one of my biggest pet peeves about Facebook. They're like the Walmart of the World Wide Web. Walmart wants nothing more than for all of its stores to be an entire shopping mall where every little shop is just another Walmart department. Likewise, Facebook wants nothing more than to recreate the entire World Wide Web within its own little sandbox. What a fantastic idea! Let's take the greatest medium the world has ever known, which no one single entity can control, where any one single entity can have a voice, and just remove all of these fundamentally wonderful characteristics.
But I look at everyone's photos to see who is attending an event and determine if it's worth going or not.
I kid you not, I've heard this one much more than any of the other questions/comments.
But Facebook lets me get behind causes I believe in and be politically active
People are so lazy. The same people that utter this line to me are the same ones that can't even get out to vote on election day. Nothing ever gets done by whining and complaining, which is what all Facebook groups centered around issues and politics are comprised of.
But how will I keep up with all of my cool friends and all of their quirky day-to-day exploits?
This assumes that your friends on these social networks are cool and doing really neat things. I'd like to challenge this assertion by popularizing the following notion:
Participating on an online social network takes work. The time spent on this endeavour reduces the amount of time one can spend doing other things. Consequently, the most active participants on a social network actually have less time to spend doing other things. In order for any social network to grow, its participation level must soar. If it's participation level soars, its participants, by definition, have even less time to spend doing other things. If we assume that interesting things, like starting a business, playing sports, making a breakthrough scientific discovery, enjoying a concert, and going on an adventure, are part of these other things, then the most active people left on a social network are in fact the most uninteresting people for they will have less time to do these things. In practice, these people will probably be social network addicts and have no time to do these things whatsoever.
I'd argue that your most interesting friends are the ones who haven't had the time to ever start using social networks like Facebook in the first place. Or if they do, their status line was last updated 6 months ago and not 6 hours ago. If you want to meet interesting people, you need to do interesting things. In the offline world, social networks aren't centered around people, they're centered around activities. So get the hell out into the offline world and start doing stuff. Don't just rush home to your suburban castle to watch So You Think You Can Dance.