My wife, who is still on Facebook uses it as a tool to coordinate social events, message teachers, stay in touch with family and even ask useful questions to specific groups. You can't force everyone in your life to communicate on your terms, unless you want to A) piss people off and B) reduce your socialization dramatically. If I didn't have her, I'd probably be forced to be on Facebook, if only to support my kids social activities, and stay in touch with my immediate family.
Some content shared on Facebook still annoys her - stay-at-home moms posting about their purchases and political posts are her least favorite - but I have those same issues on Twitter and remain because she and I derive value from the service(s) despite this.
Isn't that what many people and groups on Facebook have done? Why feed that mentality?
People who will only communicate with you through Facebook are likely not worth communicating with, as that signals that they don't think you're worth the extra effort. Email and telephone are still quite valid and effective means of communication.
"People who will only communicate with you through Facebook are likely not worth communicating with"
Really? You're suggesting I cut people out of my life who want to communicate via Facebook over other mediums? Pretty harsh.
True. But I think Facebook's usefulness is outweighed by its disadvantages. It's an ever-watching anxiety machine: look at this latest atrocious news story, react to the asinine post an acquaintance has made about their life, respond to this event, post more because you haven't in a little while, watch this video about somebody having a life better than yours (or somebody having a horrible time, which may also happen to you, so watch out!), share your contact information for others so we may increase the webbing to keep you in our walled garden!
It's a need machine. It's the worst enabler-friend. It's not in a symbiotic relationship with you; it's parasitic. And IMO Facebook doesn't improve ones life; it merely facilitates using Facebook more and more often to do things that otherwise we either wouldn't do or wouldn't consider a real hassle.
Also, Grauniad is a terrible source of tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179497
You and I are completely insignificant in the face of this horde of people who are becoming increasingly vulnerable to subtle manipulation. That's the point of this article. A rising tide lifts all boats.
We're past the point where telling people to stop using the services would have any measurable effect.
People were made aware that smoking causes cancer, vaccines do not cause autism, and that man-made production of CO2 was causing accelerated climate change. In each of those cases, there are experts in the field warning common people of the danger. In each of those cases, the experts observed that people didn't know about the dangers beforehand. In each of those cases, there are people who refute the claims of the experts or flat out do not care (I should note that plenty of intelligent people fall into this last category).
I expect this scenario will be no different.
Why do we have to hand over so much of ourselves in order to obtain social connection as a "side-effect" of the true business of social media operators like Facebook and Google? Are these companies the only way to have meaningful online social networks? I don't think it has to be that way, but I also can't fathom how a non-toxic social network can keep the lights on without selling stuff.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
What I am wondering about is the possibility of a social network that is deliberately and intentionally about being JUST a social network and NOT some kind of complex mechanism for market research and exploitation.
If you were to build this hypothetical pure social media communication platform we'd still have to find it, it'd have to be funded, maintained, and improved. Even then it's useful only if you can get your network on it.
Money is the root of all evil and will pervade into whatever is next. It's only human nature.
You can see examples of this with https://diasporafoundation.org/ and https://gab.ai/ -> these platforms and ideas exist but they have a raindrop in a bucket of usershare.
I'm not an expert in this field but I think about it a lot. Thanks for discussion, HN.
The theoretical dream of cyberspace, back in the 60-80's, before "the web" (as we know it) was that merely being "online" automatically put you in a global community: a place where distance no longer mattered, and where _all_ text is part of one giant hypertext. This was roughly the idea as described by Ted Nelson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson).
I think there's a way for this theoretical concept to be realized without dependence on exploitative commerce-oriented websites, and perhaps, without dependence on websites period. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that will be like in reality.
But I'd rather have a small network focused on good connections than a large network focused on invading and selling user data, and maybe a smaller network could be managed by user contributions over investments that lead to treating users as the product.
For this reason I'm basically stuck with Facebook, but I've unfollowed most of my friends, so this reduces the burden to some extent.
Because if ones friends forget to invite them to events because they are not on FB, then it’s time to find new friends.
Even though the shallow connections take up time that could be spent forging more meaningful connections with those around them, not everyone is self-confident enough to go cold-turkey.
Of course, many people don't want to change their habits and I think there is no need to push too hard. However, I convinced a friend of mine to try Gajim on PC and to my surprise he sticked with it and installed the Conversations App a few months later on his smartphone.
Of course, the network effect of FB is very real. So overall this anecdote doesn't really change anything. But I think it is import to remind ourselves every once in a while that there are people out there who are willing to change their habits. And some of these people, in turn, influence other people. It's unlikely that you start a trend but I think we should keep trying.