Facebook account deactivation
I’ve decided to deactivate my Facebook account as a bit of an experiment, to see if I find myself genuinely disadvantaged. I really dislike what Facebook has very recently become, and more generally, what is has been encouraging for years. One might say that the most basic method of online communication is e-mail. E-mail is great: it can be cheaply provisioned for people, it’s neutral and simple and accessible, and universal. I tend to find that people who write e-mails for purely social purposes treat the process like writing a snail mail letter, which means that they put time into it, and send a worthwhile and thoughtful message. They sent the e-mail not because there was an opportunity presented to them that they accepted for the sake of it, but because they actually wanted to communicate. This is a much more positive way of having relationships with people.
This brings me on to my more recent issue with Facebook. While the News Feed has done an excellent job of telling you about things people are procrastinating with, it was never quite so intrusive as the expanded suggestions area, which now has a tendency to say things like “x and you haven’t talked on Facebook for a while”. So? Friendships can end due to changes of life circumstances. More importantly, why does Facebook wish to define my friendships; is it not up to the friends and I to do that through our actual communication in real life, and over more thoughtful mediums?
The last straw was when I pondered deactivating my account and, on clicking the deactivate button, was shown five photos (several identical) which had me and a friend in, with a caption saying that “x will miss you” and an opportunity to send them a message. So now Facebook is also trying to claim that people will miss me based on whether I use their site. I don’t think anyone could want a friendship that is so poorly grounded that people miss each other because they’re not mutually making use of a website; I certainly don’t. So I shall see how I do with e-mail. I’ll get less contact from people, but when I do get it, it’ll be actual social contact as opposed to lazy dashed off wall posts.
Facebook is controlling many of our social lives (not that I have much of one of course). It’s becoming, slowly but steadily without us realising, something that defines friendships and is essential for their existence. It does not have to be this way and I do not want it to be.
EDIT: Oh ho ho look what gets posted mere days later! http://xkcd.com/672/
There was a column in the Times 2 about this yesterday, saying that email was going the way of snail mail, but not really rebelling against it. I think it’s sad that the default method of communication among us young people is going from open protocols (snail mail, email) to closed, proprietary systems (facebook, myspace, twitter). Only if the medium is free (in the libre sense) can communication with it truly be free.
J
This may surprise you, but I agree. I really dislike the way Facebook approaches the whole kaboodle. In theory I like the idea of it, and it’s certainly convenient as a way of contacting people quickly and easily in a way that E-Mail isn’t ( in the sense that knowledge of someone’s email is reqiured before you can email them ). But the “you and X have mutual friends” and the “suggest friends for X” suchlike are wearing.
Facebook’s useful as communications medium in the short term, but is useless for long-term planning or meningful discussion of any kind. For that, e-mail is still the simplest and best method.
Or of course, Google Wave
Couldn’t agree with you more, Sean! Social networking sites are simply a way of chopping up your integrated communications infrastructure into a series of walled gardens, each of which is saturated with advertising. Not only do all these different sites NOT integrate their content (while email accounts integrate your conversations, whatever the service provider of the sender) they sometimes even censor your content! LinkedIn, for example, refuses to let you communicate email addresses or URLs to your supposed “contacts”. This is information bottlenecking of the most cynical, opportunistic kind. I guess Facebook may do this, too – but I don’t know, I’ve never had a Facebook account. (I’ve scrapped my LinkedIn account now, in disgust.) In 1997 I wrote in the Lowtech Manifesto “Email is still the killer App” and now, in 2010, I think it’s even more true. That’s one reason I’m putting this posting in an email, not on a website. Oh, damn.