17 Reasons Facebook is awkward now
I think I hate Facebook. So much so I almost deleted my account last week.
I got as far as setting up a “dummy” account to manage my blog pages from (I have a Facebook page for each of my blogs: they do drive traffic to the sites, so I don’t want to get rid of them, but for some reason Facebook requires you to have a personal account in order to manage a page…), and then I stopped. Somehow I couldn’t quite persuade myself to take the final step and hit that “‘delete’ button. So I stayed – for now. But…
I don’t think I like Facebook any more. Here are just a few of the things that make it awkward… 
01. The politics of having to accept friends requests from every single relative, no matter how distant, or start a family feud.
02. When your third-cousin-twice-removed breaks up with her boyfriend of five weeks, but you’ve still got him on your Facebook, because your aunt made you add him. What to do?
03. Drama-seekers who post zero-context statements like “fuming!” just so everyone will rush to ask them what’s wrong.
04. “PM me, hun.”
05. People who ‘check in’ to A&E but give no clue as to why they’re there until they have at least 200 comments, at which point they reveal that they were dropping their nan off for her eye exam, and the main carpark was full.
06. “Every girl whose name is on this list will get engaged this year!”
07. “What colour is your aura?”
08. “Post the name of a fruit to prove you hate cancer almost as much as I hate Facebook!”
09. “Happy heavenly birthday…”
10. People who share posts about dogs who are missing in countries none of their friends actually live in. I mean, if I live in central Scotland, what are the odds of me having spotted that poodle that wandered off in Western Australia?
11. Daily updates on what everyone’s Elf on the Shelf is doing. (I hate Elf on the Shelf almost as much as I hate Facebook, though, so I’m possibly biased on this…)
12. Having to wish a happy birthday to people you haven’t met in two decades, because Facebook told you to, and if you don’t you’ll just feel guilty when they put up the inevitable, “Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes yesterday!” post.
13. Couples who post nauseating anniversary messages to each other rather than just, you know, TELLING the person. Who presumably lives with them, and therefore doesn’t need to log onto Facebook to find out that their partner is wishing them a happy anniversary.
14. “99% of my friends won’t share this post; let’s see who’s REALLY reading…”
15. “Had a Facebook cull yesterday: if you’re reading this, congrats, you made the cut!”
16. When someone tags you in a photo where you basically look like Voldemort.
17. “Inspirational” quotes. This should have been number 1, actually, that’s how much I hate them…
So I hate Facebook, basically. Which is a shame, because it wasn’t always like this…
Facebook actually used to be my favourite of all the social networks. My friends and family are scattered across the country – and, in some cases, the world. Even the ones who live locally are often busy with their own lives so I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like to. I liked the fact that Facebook brought us all together again. That I could log in, and have some degree of connection with people who would otherwise be lost to me. I have cousins, for instance, who I hardly ever see, and who, without Facebook, I’d barely even know. I liked the fact that, because of Facebook, I’m still able to have some kind of relationship with them – to know what they’re doing, and how they are. The same goes for all of those friends I never see, and would totally lose touch with if it wasn’t for that little blue page.
I even liked Facebook for the things other people hate it for. All of those old high school friends who randomly send you a friends request, even although they wouldn’t have been seen dead with you when you were actually in high school? I kind of loved seeing what they’re getting up to now. I’ve heard it said that no one ever really understands you like the people who knew you as a child. I think there’s some truth to that, and as I get older, and there are fewer and fewer of those people in my “real” life, I quite like the fact that there are still some of them on Facebook. Hey, remember that time in 2nd year, when…? Who else could you share those memories with? Who else would ever care?
So I liked Facebook, is what I’m saying. I even liked all of that boring, banal stuff that most people complain about: the “what I had for dinner” statuses, the photos of people’s babies, the holiday snaps… Er, OK, maybe not the food stuff, actually. There are few things less interesting to me than a meal someone else ate, seriously. But the thing is, if you’re my friend, I WANT to see photos of your children. I’m interested in your holiday snaps. I like that you can tell me you had a bad day at work, and I REALLY like the photos of your cat. Or your dog. Or whatever small, furry, animal you own.
People don’t post photos, or tell stories, or even let you know what they had for dinner anymore – they just share other people’s content, instead. Clicking the “like” button has become an easy shortcut to self-expression: why bother telling me what YOU think about a particular issue – in your own words – when you can simply share what someone else thinks, instead? I work out who you are, not by the things you say and do, but by the people and pages you associate with, and by the things you share. You don’t express your own point of view – you just share someone else’s, and while there’s always a place for a well-timed quote, there’s something hollow and ultimately disappointing about a personality which is simply cobbled together from other people’s words, images and ideas, which is all I ever seem to see these days.
Er, I don’t suppose this would be a good time to ask you to follow me on Facebook? Nope, didn’t think so…
RELATED: The brutally honest reasons I unfollowed you on Instagram
Wendy
You nailed it. I do sometimes share but I check the source first. And I often do the quizzes but rarely post the results. I do post news stories and petition requests sometimes too – but I always make a comment on them about how I feel or think on the subject. I strive for at least the 80-20 rule: 80% my own typed content.
I think the one that annoys me most is a sudden rash of shares about missing animals or people when it is the work of a moment to check whether said critter or person has been found – checking the original post’s date is a good place to start. And don’t even get me started on quotes with minion pictures!!!
Amber
Yeah, I think 80 / 20 is a good rule – I should probably have clarified that I’m not against ALL sharing etc (I do it too, if I think it’s something particularly interesting), but for some people it’s literally ALL they post, and it’ll be dozens of videos a day. I looked at my newsfeed a couple of days ago, and it was literally just You Tube videos… that I’ve now seen 163 times each, thanks to people sharing, then re-sharing the same stuff!
JuneBud
Oh Recently DETOXED from FB for 30 days. What a RELIEF. I never want to go back to it.
My partner posted morning noon and night. Did Lives. Made those people her life. I found it detestable, so vowed to stay away from it A DAY AT A TIME….like a recovery program.
Life is much calmer, serene and peaceful. I enjoy exercise and hobbies and life in general much more.
What started out in 2009 as a fun way to stay in touch with friends in my home country evolved into a TOXIC form of abuse and passive aggressive quotes and comments.
Basically. If I stay away from FB….LIFE IS SO SWEEET…
But what works for me, may not work for others….
They can “take their site and shove it !!”
HAPPY JOYOUS AND FB FREE..
ONE DAY AT A TIME..
LOL
Elle Robson
I agree with you, a lot of the time it seems more like Tumblr where people just reblog other people’s photos, videos etc.. I know a lot of my friends have deactivated fb because they find it impossible to share personal statues or get moaned at for sharing too many of their own pictures. I mostly use my fb to message people and use my fb pages for my blogs, I use Twitter more than anything as I feel I get more interaction from people x
Amber
One thing I do still like it for (and one of the reasons I’m still on it) is for organising stuff – it’s much easier to send a group invitation on FB than to contact everyone individually, so there is that!
Sophie
I agree with practically every sentence here!
I now just yawn at every click-baited and often incorrect articles that people shared, that they most likely haven’t even read themselves.
It just so impersonal now – the fact that it hides certain people if you don’t ‘interact’ with them as often is a prime example. Just because I don’t click on their name, or chat to them on messenger doesn’t mean I don’t want to know whats happening in their lives.
I just don’t like striking up conversations – I’m pretty anti-social even on social media. As an introvert I find even online conversations a bit draining. But to completely remove people because of this? Ugh…
But I do enjoy being on it regardless. It’s one of those, can’t live with it – can’t live without it kinda things now as it’s so ubiquitous.
Fantastic post 🙂
Amber
“It’s one of those, can’t live with it – can’t live without it kinda things now as it’s so ubiquitous.”
SO true! I actually find it quite fascinating, in a “can’t look away” kind of sense! Don’t even get me started on the whole “we will decide what you see on your newsfeed” thing. I actually HATE Facebook for this – I have over 3,000 subscribers to my blog page, but FB only shows my updates to a tiny, tiny percentage of the people who have liked the page: they want me to pay them to show the updates to more people, but why should I have to PAY to make sure that people who have already liked the page (presumably because they WANT to see the updates) can actually see the thing they’ve subscribed to? Such a horrible business model!
Melanie
Yes, the algorithms that ‘decide’ what I should and shouldn’t get to see – I mean seriously, it’s MY account and set of friends / liked pages etc. When did a machine get to decide what I want to read?
Francesca Stone
Oh! This is SO true. I deleted Facebook from my phone recently and instantly felt like I had so much more time. I do like to see what my friends and family are posting but like you say, I have to filter through so much other crap to get there. The endless toilet paper scroll (in more ways than one!) is just a little soul destroying and I have no time for it anymore! But alas, like you I blog so Facebook is a neccesity. But perhaps that’s just an excuse?
Great post x
Amber
Haha, “toilet paper scroll” is such a good way of describing it! I valiantly try to block each new clickbait or video site that people start sharing from, but it doesn’t always work, and there seems to be an endless supply of them!
Denise Groulx
I so like what you wrote here!
I think I’ll follow your blogue more thoroughly.
Have a great day.
Manon
You’re absolutely right.
I stopped sharing personally stories for 3 reasons, one is because I feel so disconnected from everybody on my friends list. Some never share anything, or have blocked me from seeing their content, and I have only talked to 3 or 4 of them in private in the last year. Another is that I got mentally ill and couldn’t work anymore, so I didn’t want to see all my colleagues what I was doing in fear of losing my job. The last reason is that I don’t want everybody who googles me get so much personal information. I have a really unique name so there aren’t 1000 Jane Does to disguise me.
So I’m actively contributing to the kind of Facebook you described and I don’t like either.
Amber
It’s tough when you have things going on that you don’t really feel comfortable talking about publicly … Weirdly, I’m actually more likely to share something on my blog than on Facebook, even although my Facebook is restricted mostly to “real life” friends. Somehow it’s easier to open up to strangers!
myra
Guilty as charged. I do share posts, but curiously rarely petitions I have signed as I believe that I shouldn’t try to influence others into signing too, on an issue I feel strongly about, so rarely give my point of view of fb. I do though make comments on others’ posts about particular posts. One initial post was asking for opinions on whether primary schools should teach girls how to shave their legs and boys how to shave their faces. My comment “why should we teach girls that they should shave their legs at all.” got over 20 likes in 24 hours.
The posts I share usually have a meaning for me, and are intended for particular friends that I know will like them (and yes I do inbox them if for only one or two friends).
As to personal posts, I have noticed that I have rarely posted recently and this is probably because there are stressful events in my life that I am thinking about all the time, and don’t want to share on FB, and the shared posts bear a resemblance to my life, and friends who know me recognise these are saying what I feel. I’m sorry if that turns people off FB, and particularly those who are my friends.
Amber
Not at all, Myra – I think the type of things you mention are totally valid, because they ARE actually giving an insight into your life, and are meaningful to you, which people who know you obviously realise. I’m talking more about the endless stream of videos etc that I sometimes suspect the person hasn’t even watched themselves before sharing. Obviously those are fine too, in moderation – lately they seem to be literally ALL my newsfeed has on it, though, which means I rarely look at it any more. I think it’s a shame that the kind of stuff you’re talking about often gets drowned out by all the rest!
(I actually haven’t seen a post from you in absolutely ages, now I think of – another thing I hate about FB is that it often ‘hides’ updates from you, so you don’t even get to see what people are saying a lot of the time!)
Rachel
My best friend and I say this all the time. We are on it all the time sorting through the rubbish people put on but none of my friends really update statuses anymore (unless we are kayaking on a hen do and get hit in the head with an oar!). We still post all our pictures from nights out and it’s come in handy as a diary for my parents travels now they’ve retired. I’m finding myself ‘hiding’ more and more people or just unfriending. I do share lost dogs IF they are local and after I’ve checked to make sure they haven’t been found and I do beg people to sign petitions, usually only dog related though 🙂 Many a time we’ve tried to delete our accounts but…..we never do, it’s that “I might be missing something” I think.
Andrea
I like Facebook pretty well personally. Professionally I hate it fort my clients/job because of the issues you mention about it now being a paid platform with little value to companies who won’t pay for their likes/views.
My big pet peeve, though, not that you asked is PEOPLE WHO DO FACEBOOK WRONG! For me this turns out mostly to be relatives who it would cause a whole stink if I unfriended. I know, who am I to judge the “right” or “wrong” way to do Facebook? But posting every blurry picture you take whether you or your child or pet or whatever look good in it or not, or indeed are visible, is wrong. I mean literally 20 pictures a day of hanging around the house with no one looking at the camera and it being dark and blurry. This makes me feel like a snob who only wants perfectly curated photos of “your best version of yourself” but so be it. Also, posting a heartfelt thank you message to the stranger who helped you today…..did you friend them on Facebook? It’s not a bull horn!!! They’re not going to see it! And the new trend where pages actually instruct users who don’t know any better to “share this recipe on your page to save it!!!” that now has people posting pointless dish soap tricks and tips worn the mere caption “saving!.” For the love of God get on Pinterest!
Okay this has really turned into me complaining about my aunt. I’ll stop now. As ever, you make good points. But I do still like Facebook kind of as a news aggregator. Though it’s a time suck for sure.
TinaD
I think FB is patient zero in a kind of whole-internet problem. What people are interested in is now quantifiable in ways it never has been before (print circulation used to be the standard metric, but you couldn’t tell which stories flogged circulation. Not consistently, anyway.) Pageviews, likes,retweets, pins and repins mean popularity metrics are at everyone’s fingertips. It is a short step from knowing who the popular girl at school is to trying to build her, and I think what you see on FB is the tail wagging the dog (how is Rubin?)–content positioned to go viral because it is immediate, whether or not it has value, and communities of people conditioned to participate in the popularity process. Makes me miss the Numa Numa guy.
Janis Christie
This exact thing has been playing in my head the past week. I literally had to “hide” 80% of my fbook feed the other day because I just didn’t care about any of it. Why am I being informed if my friend has liked their friends photo? I don’t know their friend, why is it on my feed? And don’t get me started on the minions.
char
I’ve never had or wanted a Facebook account, I have no interest in it. Sadly, however, I found recently that to have a page for something I volunteer for means having to have a personal account. So I had to get one, and now I see what you mean. They’re insufferable sharers, aren’t they!
Elizabeth @ Rosalilium
I’m only FB for the groups and my pages. I’ve found the algorithm means I only seems to see the same 10-20 peoples statuses in my newsfeed anyway despite being ‘friends’ with over 400 people.
Jennifer
I think you’re finally showed me what it is that I no longer like about Facebook anymore – the lack of personal posts, all replaced with sharing videos and articles. I liked knowing what people were up to – but people I actually know, not celebrities. I actually kind of miss when I could refresh my news feed every few minutes and see something new. I miss when everyone put up whole albums of photos, not just the odd instagram linked here and there.
Jennifer x
Ginevrella | Lifestyle Blog
Terry
Wise words Amber 🙂
Heather
I have unfollowed so many people on facebook my feed rarely updates 😉 the endless videos and quotes… ugh. I just want personal photos and status updates! (But no vaguebooking, please). I use instagram more and more because its more of what i like.
Kirsty
“I don’t really get the point of people sharing whatever the top news story of the day is, as if they’re the only one with access to BBC, and the rest of us are depending on them to tell us who won Wimbledon or whatever”
Hahaha. This! I also think that whoever first started putting headlines like “You’ll NEVER BELIEVE number 5!” on every article has a lot to answer for. “Number 5” (and all the other numbers) are always mundane things that I believed very readily.
Loved this post.
Kirsty
Amber
I know! I want to know who these people are who are so totally amazed by every little thing!
Amber
Also: people who post just to state what the weather is. WHY?
Candy Pop
I did the same thing – I made a dummy account for my pages so I could delete my Facebook account. But then I got cold feet!
Hannah Scott
I went back and forth for months on whether or not to delete my account. I finally decided to unfollow every single person, so I have no newsfeed whatsoever. None! It’s been amazing to finally get some clarity on whose life I’m interested in enough to type their name in the search bar and seek them out. I plan to add back in a select few people to my newsfeed eventually, but for now the quiet is lovely. And I still have the ability to contact and be contacted as needed!
Katryna
YES. I have had a feeling for the last while that something wasn’t quite right with Facebook and you hit the nail on the head. I MISS THE PERSONAL STUFF. I remember when I would share photo albums every month, and my friends would do the same, we would have funny discussions on walls and compete for wittiest status.
I really hate how my feed is filled with “your friend Liked someone else’s post LOOK AT IT” right now. I seriously DON’T CARE.
Joyce
Yes, I do not often use Facebook, but occasionally go to see if there can be any good news to share with.
http://www.popoo.fr
Victoria
I am exactly the same, have thought about deleting so many times, but just can’t. I still want to keep i. Touch with a handful of cousins and school friends that otherwise I’d probably lose contact with. But the constant stupid videos, minion quotes (why???!), the ‘if you don’t share this post you will have bad luck for the next 4821 years, etc posts are just a nuisance. I also try to keep my facebook account more personal and have to awkwardly decline people I’ve met through work as I just want to keep things seperate, some people don’t understand that.
And I have family in law that I’ve had to friend accept that click ‘like’ on EVERYTHING I ever post, please don’t.
Lauren
I totally agree. All I ever see down my newsfeed nowadays is shares, silly challenges and funny videos. I was thinking about it the other day, actually. It’s quite rare to see anything personal on Facebook now, which is strange as that’s all that it was used for a few years ago…
Sarah Rooftops
Laughed and nodded all the way through this. And why is Facebook now insisting on telling me when friends comment on the shares of people I’ve never met? WHY WOULD I CARE?!
But… I have an archive of personal photos there and it’s the only way I keep in touch with my cousins (and father) and it’s still the main way my friends organise group events, so… yeah… I feel a bit trapped…
Anca
Yesterday I saw on Facebook how are all going to die if we eat lemon peel from waxed lemons. I agree with you completely, why do people believe everything they read and feel the need to share it too is beyond me.
Lucy
I think we’re seeing the backlash from the age of overshare + Facebook’s evolution and growth.
For a while there, everyone knew all their friends in “real life”, and they were all your age since it was restricted to college students. We were posting mostly personal things, because of the aforesaid as well as that the Facebook-viral model hadn’t come yet. And let’s face it, most ordinary lives are ordinary and not really worth sharing.
But Facebook is addicting, and it was a new and exciting form of AOL Instant Messenger, so we couldn’t just only pop on when we had something of actual interest, we were on all the time, and when you see everyone else posting you probably feel pressure to post, even if it’s ordinary. AIM dinged when you had a new message, so maybe we were also following a Pavlovian response even though the stimulus had been removed?
So then you got internet-wide handwringing about overshare (i.e. Lamebook, STFU Parents), which has seeped into our heads and made us feel self-conscious about oversharing. Combine that with the realization that Facebook is the opposite of private, and your posts can get you fired, and now you’re friends with your mother-in-law’s second cousin’s dentist, and as a group, we’ve gone too far in the other direction and are mostly recycling content. The content is already there, carefully crafted to go Facebook-viral, so it’s the easiest way of continuing to post without falling into overshare (see: addicting).
Social media is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, so I think we’re all still figuring out how to use it, and as more and more platforms become available, which ones are for what purpose. Remember when MySpace was actually a Facebook competitor? Before Tumblr and Pinterest and Twitter peeled off a good chunk of LiveJournal users?
I’ve been on Facebook for 11 years and have never posted very much, so I feel confident in my theory as it’s based mostly on observation. And I have totally dated myself with this comment 😀 When I joined LiveJournal, I needed an invitation code from a current user lol.
Rosie
I agree with you. I’m fed up of seeing things people have liked that I have no interested in seeing. I’m fed up of the silly quizzes and all the daft articles. So many of the pages I used to like just share absolutely rubbish and inspirational quotes that has nothing to do with what the page was actually about.
Michelle
I deleted my facebook account 18 months ago when I was at my wits end with all the bragging & smugness & parents congratulating their kids for every little fart they did! The last straw was that ice water bucket challenge thing, I mean why do people feel they need to be congratulated for donating money to a cause? And why do they have to make some bizarre grand gesture to show support? We’ve been donating to our favourite charities for years by direct debit so what?
To say I didn’t miss using fb is a gross understatement, I never gave it a second thought it was really easy & if anyone ever mentioned anything they’d read on it I genuinely wasn’t the least bit interested. So that was that….but then dum dum dum duuum, a few months ago I decided to start blogging as a job & whoops I needed facebook! So now I’m back on purely to promote my blog & it’s ok actually. I’m keeping it simple & not getting involved in all the nonsense. I know you can install the add on “kill fb feed” that helps with the white noise if you want to but I haven’t bothered. I think as with all these type of things there comes a time for a back lash when everyone gets sick of something & it dies a slow natural death. Facebooks time is coming folks….
Corinne
I feel exactly the same way. Facebook was great for the first few years. I remember when I was at uni and you could only join if you had a university e-mail address, then they made it open to everyone and at first it was just status, writing on peoples walls and sharing photos.
I spend my time clicking ‘hide posts from clickbaitsite.com’ than actually having any fun.
It’s all rubbish, too.
Corinne x
Quaintrelle Georgiana
Lately (like 2 years or so) I have been using facebook only for personal messages with friends. I do not post my own content any more, I have never been a huge poster but I stopped it completely. I mind there is too much sponsored posts in my feed etc, nothing interesting except for a few remarques from the same people. The too personalised news feed just ruined my facebook experience.
I use Twitter more, I like it. And Instagram because I love photography.
Patricia Lynn
I too have seen an abundance of shared stories, many of which I’ve actually liked (but the quiz thing – ugh! Do you honestly think those things say anything real about you.) However, I’m still lucky in that for every story my friends share, they’ll post two things that are happening in their lives, on average, so it is all still a nice balance in my realm.
Deserae
You basically hit it spot on with this. I think I need to share it on Facebook.
Ina
What I see in my particular example is the following: people have become more aware of privacy issues with Facebook. 6 years ago I used to upload pics of my new baby, the house we were living in etc untill I realised how little control I had over who saw my posts and also concerns over how my son would later on in life think my decision to share his life was very very wrong.
Also, the other noticeable trend is that companies have become SO much better at creating attractive content people are happy to share. My feed overflows with cool stuff I really want to read and I constantly Like new pages that produce appealing stuff for me. I find FB annoying as a page manager and am looking for other social media channels to engage my audience but that’s a whole other issue. x Ina
Trish
You nailed it!
Facebook was great in its earlier days. Back when there were only status (with limited words), comment section and photos sharing. It was simpler and not as heart-wrenching as now.
I’ve been using Facebook since I was 18 (2006), now I’m 28. Years in and out, Facebook has added so many things that maybe seems good to majority, but as an avid social media users (I’ve been actively using Friendster, MySpace, Tagged, Hi5, Zorpia and etc before some of them closed down, forever…), I find it extremely suffocating when I bumped into my newsfeed at the start of my day to see unpleasant news, ie: Dismembered bodies in accident, grim stories, click-bait articles, ‘inspirational’ articles that mentioned if I don’t follow these 8 steps of successful people – I would be a failure or nowhere closer, gossip and statuses condemning someone outside that these people failed to advise (gahhh! This is the most absurdity happened in social media! Natural-born complainers took their complains to the next level by viral their ‘complains’ in Facebook, while they can’t even stand on their ground and settle it outside – in their real life!), bragging friends that showing off her/his new Gucci shoes and LV bag- not a review but rather a one-time show-off, sharing stories that biased one-side and people don’t even bother to check it before share on their page; that ‘share’ button is the devil. And one of the annoying stuff that Facebook hasn’t really look into much – massive tagging in product posters by these hard-sellers. It violated our privacy and thus, turns me off completely.
The only saving grace in Facebook currently, in my opinion, is those tutorial and skill-sharing pages that share how-tos, tips and tutorial videos. Though we can find them all over Youtube and blogs, which I personally prefer.
I would really hope that social sites could stick with just Profile, Comment section and Blog.
Back in those days Friendster was a big-hit, we don’t have issues that would make us ‘mentally-suffocating’ with newsfeed. No matter how we try to customized the Facebook’s newsfeed to avoid negativity, it just somehow lost its purpose.
I liked the fact Facebook connects me with my long lost friends, high schoolmates, family etc. But even so, I felt like nobody bothers my content (I share my own design projects and illustration), turns out a selfie won over original content created by a user, or pictures with Starbucks coffee as foreground + ‘motivational quotes’ gets hundreds of likes.
Facebook lost its original touch. Rather than a profile social sites, they became content-sharing sites; sharing other people’s content, and to add salt into the wound, those contents most of the time are really brain-damaging. And I can’t fathom till this day.
That is why I started blogging since last year.
Melina
I for one have never liked Facebook, and hope it will one day (hopefully soon) become obsolete, or gone forever 😉 I just don’t see the reason for the popularity, and don’t like anything about it, first and foremost the total loss of privacy… I used to have an account under my own name, only to have random people contact me as “I found you on Facebook”… Grr… And all that “add a friend” thingie, I just don’t get it, what’s the point of having a million facebook “friends” you don’t even know?! I mean, not at all… And yet I hear some people, especially young ones, count their “popularity” in the amount of facebook “friendS” they have..! That’s just sick. I could go on, but I guess that’s enough…
So I closed the account under my real name, but now have one under an alias (you could call it a “dummy” account), as I still want to participate in e.g. some interest groups or discussions (which unfortunately seem to centered on Facebook these days, though I much prefer online forums), but that’s about it.
Ella
I’ve often thought about writing a blog but I wouldn’t know where to begin. It’s so complicated. I’m not technically minded either, but after reading this effervescent post I think I’ll just give up. This is so well written.
I enjoyed the little flourishes, for example, when talking about the Daily Mail (which I despise too), I love the little comment in brackets.. “If I wanted to read the Daily Mail I’d just visit their site (I won’t)”.
Anyway, back to the issue in hand – I tried Facebook several years ago, just from sheer curiosity. I got chatting to a nice person whom I followed but somehow I ended up being bombarded with photos of ‘the latest cup of tea’ or ‘lunch’ or ‘another cup of tea’ or ‘dinner’ and before you know it I was trying to navigate through a bewildering choice of technical options to try and make it all stop.
The relentless stream of banality became a form of mental torture. The little flashing light on my phone was urgently urging me to check and see the latest communication I’d been sent, which often turned out to be a photo of a piece of carrot cake or something someone had bought from Amazon. Facebook forces you to become a slave to the mundane.
There are also the issues of privacy when it comes to Facebook, which in all honesty is the biggest concern for me. Facebook seems to be the NSA and GCHQ’s favourite keyhole I which to spy through, something you cannot un-know. I don’t want to be spied on thank you very much.
I don’t know what to do, but thank you for a very entertaining post.
Jennarose
I deleted my Facebook account a couple of years ago and I have never looked back. I deleted my account because woman at my work would get mad and not talk to you if you didn’t accept their friend request when you weren’t friends in real life. I thought that was ridiculous and decided that my real life friends have my number and that’s all that matters. I don’t have any form of social media and I am very happy with that decision, of course I don’t have a business that requires me to have one.
Becky Jones
Completely agree with this, my feed is full of shared content, Ladbible, Buzzfeed, daft quizzes that nobody cares about, well except my one friend who is convinced FB knows the “love of his life” or “what he will be doing this year” I’m starting to think he needs to get out more, anyway… Like you, I find it’s a good platform to keep in contact with old friends and seeing how their lives are changed and all those people I’ve met travelling makes me not want to delete. Have found myself scrolling less and hiding people who are glued to the share button.
Romeo
Amber: you are SO right. “People don’t post photos, or tell stories, or even let you know what they had for dinner anymore – they just share other people’s content”
That’s exactly what i think, and let me tell you something. I got here because i typed “people like me in the real world but hate me on fb” cause i wanted to know if somebody else has that problem.
I never post memes, cat videos or whatever is trendy and you see it posted like 5 other times or more in your newsfeed because i totally agree with you, i believe social network should be a space to learn and know more about your friends and even random people that you add, maybe even from another country, because, that’s coo,l right? How good are the possibilities that technology give to us, if we just do the same thing online that we do in regular life with the boundaries of distance, money, time, etc…
The point is, i used to use my profile to share honest questions and thoughts of my own, and… do you know what? PEOPLE HATE ME FOR THAT
I don’t really get te reason, but they find me annoying for making existencial questions, sharing deep thoughts or talking about what happened to me last night.
I decided to stop doing it. From now on, i’m just sharing my work as a photograper and i don’t think i will ever give a personal opinion of anykind in my fb, since i don’t want people to unfollow me or have a bad image of myself that can affect both my professional and social life.
I think its really sad, and i think it sucks that fb is what it is now (with the new changes on the site, i think its a matter of 1 or 2 years to see it going down) but i’m glad as hell that i found your post and it makes me feel really good that i’m not the only one who feels like this.
Thank you for writing this!
Suzan
I liked this article and its makes me want to share it on Facebook ????
Just kidding it really express the truth.
Love the content of your page
Vanny Lawrence
My wife has facebook, my daughters have face book, my youngest daughter’s boyfriend has facebook, all sorts of relatives here, there and everywhere have facebook. Me? Never have, never will. And look at this!!! I’m still alive!!!
Paul
I deleted my Facebook page i was fed up of the wannabe models, politics and arguments with family plus the fact that i let it ruin relationships by sitting scrolling and not paying attention to my then girlfriend who just wanted to talk to me. I wish the fucking thing never existed. Social media for me is the devil and should be banned in the UK but im just wishing here!
It brings nothing to nobody and helps nobody its given people a false perception of themselves. Look at how people act in public nobody hardly talks to each other but yet will be stuck in their phones begging for validation from the latest ‘morning selfie’ while stood in a mirror waring a thong and bra. This shit isnt for me iv just found this page to see if i was alone. Out of bordom half hour ago i made another account before i put a profile pic on i deleted it swiftly reminding myself just how bad it is, in a wierdo way i felt a bit sick. Fuck that
Radio X and a big bag of weed thats all a man needs. Fuck socials, fuck them really hard
Catherine
I actually was okay with Facebook before about 2019, but recognized the problems about it. Then I got mad at FB and deleted my whole account in Nov. of 2019. Two. years ago, I got back on to help me connect with things I wanted to do socially and creativity and my break ended up curing me of any addiction to being on there or posting much of anything. I get on once in a while to deal with events and friends but that’s it. It mostly bores the living f*ck out of me. And now it’s even more full of ads.
I have a real Zen approach to it now. I find that when I do post anything, it was because someone asked me to post an obituary type tribute or they tagged me in a post because I have a real relationship with them and sent them something nice in the mail or something like that. I’m okay with those things.
P.S. It also did help when I developed a couple of medical conditions. I found the private information groups on there to be helpful, but that’s about it. I find it a colossal and/or narcissistic waste of time for most people, IMO.