Posted on 10/01/2010 7:26:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the last few months, I have received half a dozen e-mails inviting me to become a "friend" on Facebook. Some of these are from my beloved children, some from colleagues and former students, and others from people I barely know.
In every case, I have politely declined, explaining that I detest the idea of Facebook and refuse to be emotionally blackmailed into joining it solely to avoid offending them.
My first reason for opposing Facebook is the sheer phoniness of it. "Friends" are collected and displayed, like a stud's panty collection in a frat house. The very indiscriminateness of it cheapens it. It reminds me of the scene in Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater where Senator Rosewater chides his hyperidealistic son in words something like this:
"Eliot, it's as if you stood on a street corner, with a pile of squares of toilet paper with 'I love you' written on each one, and handed one out to everybody that passed by. I just don't want my square of toilet paper."
My second objection is that the very use of the word "friend" betrays its falseness. I doubt that I've ever used the word in speaking with anyone I know. If one of us were to ask "are you my friend?" the answer would automatically have to be "no"; the asking of the question implies the answer. It's like the explanation of a charming young English acquaintance that "one never calls a woman a lady unless she isn't."
My third objection is that Facebook imposes an artificial and superficial digitalization of the concept of friendship. I know hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. If pressed, I might categorize them as people I've met, acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, friends, and loved ones. But in truth, they form a multidimensional spectrum of innumerable and delicately nuanced gradations of interest, respect, fondness, intimacy, and mutual understanding. (I don't know how many dimensions there are; as in string theory, it's always more than you think.) It would be crude and imbecilic to try to reduce these relationships into a one-dimensional, binary 0 or 1.
There's something Marxist or even Orwellian about this. At the very least, it gruesomely demonstrates how cheap and artificial our society has become, with its A- and B-lists and computer-programmed selection of Christmas card recipients.
My fourth objection is that these relationships are a private matter that I do not wish to have displayed on somebody's website.
My fifth is that the Facebook organization seems to be trying to build an evil empire -- not merely to facilitate, but to dominate the social network they have created. Otherwise, they wouldn't insist on forcing would-be friends to first become members. And they wouldn't send you repeated reminders that so-and-so wants you to be his "friend" and urging you to quickly sign up. There have been several uproars about Facebook's manipulation of its members' privacy, including encroachments that some say the Facebook organization anticipated would be unwelcome. Moreover, it appears that once you have joined, it's very difficult to cancel your account.
My final objection is that it's morally and emotionally harmful to the participants. Popular people are tempted to display their "friends" like trophies or scalps. The shy or lonely are brutally embarrassed by their poor display. It's the very essence of the cliquishness that makes high school a hell for outsiders and loners.
I'm writing this today because I think that the tragedy of Tyler Clementi is a case in point. I think it's significant that Tyler posted his suicide note on Facebook, and I wince at the irony that the mourning of his death is being commemorated on a special Facebook page. More to the point, I believe that the bizarre actions of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, which allegedly led to Tyler's suicide, were to a major degree the product of the Facebook-Twitter mentality that they were all victims of.
This week saw the debut of The Social Network, a movie about the genesis of Facebook. I planned to see that movie in the hope of finding out how all this idiocy started. Instead, I intend to boycott it in honor of Tyler.
And please, if you plan to join Facebook, don't send me any invitations.
I’m always getting Facebook requests from people I don’t know from Adam. My understanding is, if you play the games on Facebook, it helps to have a lot of “friends.” I don’t play the games and I just ignore the requests from strangers.
You can lock down your Facebook account all the way. I can’t even get friend requests from people. After the initial few real friends I put in before I locked it down so now I can only get suggestions from existing friends to add friends.
After that it’s a great way to keep up with your friends and family, especially if they are as geographically spread as mine.
See 42. Lock down your privacy settings.
The guy sounds like a bit of a curmudgeon (not that there’s anything wrong with that). As a previous poster noted, if one doesn’t like Facebook, one shouldn’t BE on Facebook.
There’s something Marxist or even Orwellian about this???
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THIS AUTHOR IS AN OLD GOAT
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I DELETE LEFTIES AND OBAMA SUPPORTS.
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FB IS A GREAT TOOL FOR FINDING OUT WHO PEOPLE REALLY ARE.
I was expecting thousands of hot young women to be sending me friend requests each day. It was what I was living for.
When that didn’t happen, I quit.
I mistakenly opened an account some time ago when I got one of the invites from my brother to check his page out. When people started coming out of the woodwork I bowed out.
FB gave me the creeps
I have no problems with just ignoring request from people I don’t know. I have no problem from ignoring request from people I have know. I also enjoy posts from people like Michael Yon. He is a freelance reporter currently in Afghanistan this was his last post.
Michael Yon Kidnapping
A reliable source told me more details of the Belgian journalist (working for Dutch magazine) who was kidnapped near Sarobi. I suspected at the time that her dangerous venture might have been germinated due to my dispatch, “The Road to Hell.” The source said that this was in fact the case.I would highly suggest to journalists not to blindly follow my steps. There is often a story behind the story that I never tell. I don’t just drive out to these places on a whim. My interpreter had been her interpreter when she was kidnapped. Was he involved? I don’t know. In any case, she was raped and eventually set free and came out defending her kidnapper. After she was released, I was told that our special operations forces came knocking on the kidnapper/rapist’s door and killed him.
I think the precipitating factor for his rant is the pressure exerted by the people in your life (and by the spam emails) to join FB.
It gets really old being treated like there’s something wrong with you because you refuse to join FB, Twitter, or other social networking sites.
You get the sales pitches from your family and friends who assume you haven’t joined because you’re ignorant of how wonderful it is. (This is particularly annoying when they whip out their smartphones during lunch to give you the tour of their FB page. So much for pleasant conversation!) You also get the guilt trips from people who say they “just want to” see pictures of your kids and keep up with your life.
I keep telling them I’m a conscientious objector to social media...I’d rather see them in person or talk to them on the phone.
Lots of people love their FB. That’s cool for them. I just want the people I know to quit pestering me to join.
I asked myself that. My high school chums even asked that one. "You look just like you did in high school."
I have friends I have tried to find for years that had moved across country. We now keep in touch via facebook.
It is also a great way to say to friends and acquaintances, "Let's all meet up here on Friday." in one click instead of trying to hunt down phone numbers or email addresses.
As someone said, it's all in how it's used.
Then I guess I’m a schmuck. I am a 62 year old grandmother of 6 and I love Facebook so I can see pictures of my grandchildren that my children post on a timely basis. I also get to keep up with my cousin who now lives in New Zealand, with whom I had lost contact for many years. You do have to be careful, though. I only accept friends requests from people I know, and I never post in advance that I’m going out of town.
Putting pics of yourself and kids on fb is a mistake.
Why?
That’s a good reminder, Dexter. If I ever get like that, I hope someone tells me (my wife does a pretty good job of that). If I persist in being a self-absorbed pest (”Oh my ministry is SO important!), I hope someone shakes some sense into me. :)
Stalkers. People can see those photos without being on your friend list. All they have to do is be a friend of a friend of yours.
If you do put up photos of kids, don’t tag them. and if someone does tag them, erase the tags.
Also, kids are just plain dumb. they will volunteer all kinds of info without even thinking about it. You can’t let them put up all that stuff on fb. It makes it too easy for bad people to do harm to them.
The two who posted the video of Tyler were not 'victims' of anything. It wasn't Facebook or Twitter that caused them to do this; it was their own stupidity and meanness. Teenagers (and that's what they ARE) have been doing stupid things for millenia. What's different today is that with the immediacy of the 'social networks', their actions are done without much thought, other than that first burst of stupidity, and they're providing a good lesson for others. THINK, before you tweet, or post on Facebook, because you will have to face the repercussions of your decisions.
I happen to like Facebook, because I can chat with friends over long distances, even those I haven't seen in years, but 'found' on Facebook. I don't 'friend' anyone I do not know personally, and even though our college aged kids are on Facebook, I don't get their 'status updates', and I don't check their pages, because I don't need to know all of their business. If they want to post on my Facebook page, they know where to find it, or if it's something important, they just call. But I guess it's a good reminder to them to not post something on Facebook that they wouldn't want their Mama to know, because she can read it for herself on their Facebook page. ;o)
Facebook and Twitter are nothing more than the modern, electronic, 'party line', for those who remember the old days of telephone. Sadly, it can also be used to bully folks, just more immediate, and more widespread than the old days, but just as devastating.
Yep.
I joined for about a week...then UNSUBSCRIBED. Was that simple.
I mostly only friend people I know, or at worst friends of friends. But some peopel are more wide open, and who knows you might actually get to know them, I’ve made friends here on FR. And he needs to pay attention to grouping, you can sub-categorize your friends in FB, which pretty much takes care of his 3rd objection.
“Where else can you heckle friends and near strangers for the whole world to see.”
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