It was November 2008, when a colleague of mine in Malaysia asked me if I have a Facebook account. I asked back if that was the thing like Friendster? He said yes and I never got interested.
That was my first week in that Malaysian office. The second week, after all those lunches with the new colleagues, and dinners, most of them asked me to get myself a new Facebook account and add them. I said to myself, oh my goodness; I don’t have time for that. But then, to blend in with them, I made a new one. Then i added their emails and as Facebook friends, then got interested to see their backgrounds, stories, and such, over Facebook.
It was really a simple site way back then, easy to explore and browse on. As a software engineer, i prefer efficiency over features. It was a cool site just what a usual Facebook user wanted. Going back to the present, 2012, my added friends have already increased, though not much, because i only added friends which are people that I really know of. I have over 100 pending requests with the same please-remind-me-of-you-just-when-did-we-meet expression.
But there was this frustration lately when using Facebook which i noticed before the mandatory Timeline was up. There was this real-time activity on the right side that updates you with friends' activities in every stressful second. I would say, wow nice feature but no thanks. Oh please stop updating me with these things, i am not interested, let them have those activities without me knowing. For me, its more of an annoyance than a benefit. Secondly, it hugs bandwidth, too bad if you keep that open while you are browsing on some sites.
Lets talk about privacy management. Facebook now lets you set exclusivity of your posts and photos. Ill say wow that's great. But to some extent, can I just let them be shown to everyone since i have already filtered the friends that i have accepted. And some of my friends or so called friends would say, "hey have you seen that girl's photo in the bar?", ill say, "what photo?", and he's like. "wait i think i need to add you to the people who can see it, my grandma is in my Facebook so I have to set it exclusive". Oh, is that micromanagement of privacy really a need? why not make it an option rather than incorporate it into the usual simplicity?
Lets go tackle expressions. I can almost hear this everyday; "Hey come on dude, Like my post". Or "Haven’t you seen it in my post?". Even one of my bosses asked me, "Oh you were included in the invitation but I've announced it in Facebook". What the F just happen to people. Facebook without doubt has become part of life but come on its not an essential part. I have a real life outside and I log on if only I have time to sit and browse Facebook. The worst thing is 'poking' now becomes an etiquette. I have to poke back if I am being poked or someone will say, "Hey dude, poke him back or he will think you are ignoring him. Its been an hour already since he poked you."
Lets now tackle Facebook updates. People here mostly as I have observed, has made Facebook an alter ego. There was once this friend-in-Facebook of mine. He committed suicide last year. Shock? of course. Me? super shock. If I am going to browse his Facebook profile, i can say he has a wonderful life, he is outgoing, loveable, likeable, active and full of dreams. But in reality there is no way as the same as his real life. In short he is the opposite. In my interpretation, he made his Facebook account an alter reality, an ego boosting world, a world he wished it to be where there are his long distance friends as his audience, and would applaud him for his posts. People in Facebook seemed to post selected, filtered events of their life, of course its a privacy thing, but it became lately a major source of approval, an essential source of ego altering beast. I did this, I did that but no one likes it, and say I was not appreciated by anyone. It became an issue when someone post a life reality quote and only got 2 LIKES and Comments, but someone an alpha female would post "Went shopping" would get 900 likes and 900 comments. I can always hear someone saying, "Oh why did you LIKE her picture in bikini? I’m your girlfriend. And you didn’t even changed your status to In Relationship". Oh come on honey, you guys did not start your relationship online. The thing is people would post Facebook like saying "hey this is my life, look how successful I am, happy, active." And some people would say, "look he is so happy and active. and I’m lesser than that. what have I become." People, wake up! The moment you get into this, pause and stop, and say to yourself, "Ill go read Desiderata." But seriously, get a real social life, not onlife (online life). Facebook is just a social networking site. If you wont, someday Facebook might shut down there servers and you're dead.
Lastly, the dreaded Timeline. I hope Facebook designers considered the 80-20 rule. It is called Pareto principle. Read it in wiki. Basically, it means 80% of your output comes from 20% of input. To apply it, for example, in a room, you only need 20% of what you have in your room to execute 80% of your activities within it. In an internet browser for instance, you only use 20% of a browser's functions to do 80% of your browsing needs. And it applies to everything. Now the Facebook layout, and the Timeline, just check how much features presented to you in a Facebook page you actually need? That is why simplicity is a word. And information overload is also a word. No further statement your honor.
So as a conclusion, don’t deactivate your Facebook, as what I have said, make it a part of your life but not an essential part. Make it a source of information because information is an advantage. Make it an input of your daily decision making but filter it because it is manipulated information. It is a fantasy world, so don’t live on it. You are a person and is way too important to be corrupted by it. Live with its name as a superficial book of fantasy.
With regards to my friend who ended his life, I don’t have plan to UN-friend him in Facebook, or he may visit me in ghostly form and say, “Dude why have you UN-friend me in Facebook, are we not friends?” Nyaaaaahhh !!!
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