Facebook is boring. Sorry, I just lost interest!
If you haven't seen me around on Facebook lately, don't worry, I'm still around, just not on Facebook. I have deleted most of the information on my Facebook account. I still use it to store photos, so I won't be deleting the account anytime soon (UPDATE: My account has been deleted). As a means of uploading photos and then sending a link to friends by e-mail, it works great. And they don't have to have a Facebook account to see the pictures.
But the rest of it? Not interested. Grooming my profile is just a waste of time. Who am I trying to impress? And besides, all the information is on my website, basically.
Reading other people's "wall postings" has gotten old, particularly since it had taken on a twitter-like format - short little "tweets" that so-and-so is making dinner or attending a concert. No offense, but I just don't care, and I am sure they don't care what I am doing.
And besides, it gives us nothing to talk about in person - it removes all the mystery.
Plus, it is kind of creepy that I can see conversations my friends are having with other people who I don't know. Are they friends, or acquaintances, or what? It is just odd, and I feel like I am invading their privacy. And if I post to their "wall" as part of the conversation, I feel like I am interloping.
It is just uncomfortable and boring.
And as I have noted before, Facebook is not selling oxygen - I don't need this to live. So why bother?
Facebook does pander to people's obsessive-compulsive disorder - the need to log into a site every day to check it out - and it does act as a time bandit, to distract you from real work.
But of course, it is just another advertising venue, and the ads are pretty much all for raw deals, and it is creepy how when you type in something that an ad for related products pops up.
Of course, Google does this as well. We recently went on a cruise, and I've posted things about that on Facebook and searched on Google, and of course, posted here. So whatever web page I go on these days pops up ads for cruise lines. Google is probably harvesting this info from gmail as well.
And of course, I make it a point to never click on an Internet ad, ever ever whether it is on a website, a paid Google hit, or on Facebook.
Screw the marketers and their advertising bots.
But Facebook is just boring, and I found myself logging on less and less. And when people try to contact me via its VERY VERY PRIMITIVE MESSAGE SYSTEM, they get pissed off when I don't reply, because I haven't logged into Facebook in a week.
I already have e-mail. I don't need a second e-mail that I have to monitor.
So goodbye Facebook. My account is still open, but my profile is blank, and all my privacy settings are set on MAX except for photos I want to send to friends (and then I usually set the privacy settings back to ME ONLY later on).
And I'll probably stop using Facebook entirely, once I find another place to host photos. If they can download my photos from my Facebook page automatically, so much the better...
It's just BORING and I don't see any way they can make it interesting. I'm just NOT INTERESTED in "Social Networking" at all anymore. In fact, I'm less and less interested in being social or in networking. People are fine and all, in small doses. Knowing what they are doing all the time is just a turn-off. It just feels like too much pressure - like having 100 needy friends - and it makes it seem like the world is caving in on me.
So, no offense, but I just don't need to know what you are doing every minute of the day. It is not that we aren't friends anymore. Quite the contrary - I can be more of a friend by NOT knowing so much about you!
You know, the old-fashioned, pre-Facebook, kind of friendship!
UPDATE: Since writing this post, I have closed my Facebook account and never looked back. I see today how their "mobile" strategy has taken off - people are obsessed about checking Facebook on their phone, all the time, and then taking pictures of things they are doing and uploading them to their "feed" to impress other people about how swell their life it. It all seems to empty and hollow, and I don't think these people are truly happy but instead masking depression.
BY THE WAY, if you see a Facebook page that links to one of my blog postings, it is not my doing. I am not on Facebook, PERIOD in any way or form.
That hasn't stopped Facebook from creating a page for my long-ago closed law practice, which I find creepy and weird and invasive.
But again, that is the nature of Facebook. They can do whatever the fuck they want to, to you. You have little or no recourse. That is yet another reason I jumped ship. It just isn't worth it, giving some big company so much control over my life, or more precisely surrendering control in that manner.
