Probably more significant is the impact of not being able to make new friends in the same way. The communities that surround my hobbies seem to be concentrated on facebook. When I make new friends at the face-to-face events the friendship doesn't transition to anything more significant because there's no followup connection on social media. This seems to be one of the modern ways that friendships are built - meet IRL, connect via social network and then always have a connection of some sort which allows the relationship to grow if nurtured. In my case I don't see or talk to these people until the next physical meetup and so I'm "out of sight, out of mind". It seems to me that other newcomers join the group IRL and on social media and are quickly integrated, but I'm just some guy that occasionally shows up.
My wife, on the other hand, lives for this stuff. She is much, much closer emotionally to people she went through earlier stages of life with and she routinely moans and shrieks about the things I mentioned above. And this suits here needs, because she cares about that sort of information.
That said, even if we grant Facebook a monopoly on 'keeping up with old friends', every other 'social vertical' that currently relies upon Facebook for connection, networking, and event planning represents a startup opportunity with massive market potential. Big one: mommy groups.
I don't have Facebook and I have no issues making friends-because I get up and go out and talk to people. Sure they may not invite me to X events-but when I see them we talk, we have a good time, and we go on with our lives.
> meet IRL, connect via social network and then always have a connection of some sort which allows the relationship to grow if nurtured.
I think part of this is "they're just not that into you." Not in a relationship sense-they think you are a fine person. But people have family, work, other, older friends. The vast majority of "social network connections" went just as far for me as some of my in person encounters-that is, went nowhere. But a few did. People don't have the time to be friends with everyone so they simply outsource it to facebook. Sometimes they do things that are interesting and a friendship grows from it-most times, not, in my experience.
I don’t think that this phenomenon is attributable to Facebook. I.e., Facebook doesn’t necessarily steer you toward meaningful interactions, and even without Facebook you can nurture a friendship using SMS, email, and so on. Developing friendships takes more effort than a typical Facebook interaction allows (“liking” a pic of someone’s food or whatnot).
[1] Granted, this may be age group specific. My friends tend to be 30-40-somethings, or late 20s at the youngest. Not so surprising, given I'm in my early 40s.
It's not optimal, but as others said, getting out completely can make you a bit of a hassle to others.
Could someone explain what this means? Is Facebook’s facial recognition illegal under GDPR?
1) Find out through Facebook as if I'm friended to "the right people" like it's 1987 [my "usual network" would never have heard of these people, not even a little bit]
2) Find out through an acquaintance live and in person by them randomly inviting me simply because I was around the right place at the right time like it's 1987
I'm not on Facebook, even if I was it's still 1987. Perhaps this is "the discovery problem", but even so in "current year" it still exists if only in ever-smaller measures. Choose your intensity of flavour, I guess.
They have to text you the details outside of Facebook, or alternatively, have to adopt a new platform because of you.
Of course I still think you should delete Facebook. With all this recent controversy they had a chance to right the wrong, instead they chose to double down on exploiting their user base - not only in the legal department but also by quickly running their facial recognition stuff before the GDPR goes into effect.
On the plus side, the more people leave, the less Facebook will lose its justification because right now, the sole reason to be on Facebook is that it’s where everyone is.