Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Getting Off Facebook

Been thinking of getting off Facebook for quite some time now... after having gone off Orkut and Twitter. I will tell you why. First, Facebook has too many people, everyone sending you friendship requests, which are difficult to avoid, unless you are ruthless abour hurting people. Secondly, more disturbingly, most of the updates people post nowadays are completely irrelevant to the world, or, obviously fishing for compliments. Worse, the world quickly responds with compliments and "likes". And so on to the next update. Are you sharing your life, your feelings, or are you creating an online persona aimed to please? And then there is the deluge of "must see" videos, or endless Farmville updates.

So, while I wil retain my profile for some more time, just like my Orkut and Twitter profiles are still around, Facebook too is getting the boot.

3 comments:

Meghana. said...

Facebook is actually best used as a ready online phone diary, with emails and contact info at your finger tips.
Just send a message and get instant phone nos. from people I want to talk to. Good for old-fashioned folks like me who are phone people.
Good for looking at umpteen pics (can't do without pics of my close cousins in India, and every one of their baby's b'day parties, I personally love it). Even inane details like a pic of the cake they decided to get for their child's first birthday, makes me genuinely happy because I am very close to my sisters. I do want to know everything. They do, too.

Now, things I wish we could avoid on fb but can't:
Attention seeking updates: When people try to create mystery on their updates, that really irritates me. For example: Saying "oh don't ask me what, I can't tell you" or Countdowns without telling people what exactly they are counting down. It's a desperate plea for comments, so what if most of the replies say: "countdown for what?".
Pathetic status updates: where boyfriends apologise to mystery girlfriends on fb updates instead of picking up the phone and talking.
Annoying status updates: "look at what I cooked today".
Feel like saying: Um...yeah...and your point here is....?

Facebook is truly for people like me who live far and want to keep in touch with close ones and their babies, share pics and important milestones. Not for family members who live in the same house/ neighborhood/town and it's not meant for that one husband always posting on his wife's posts. Why don't you just go to next room and tell her, instead? Pathetic with a capital P.
I agree with you and I know that if I lived in India, I would get not zero, but almost-zero value out of facebook.

Siddhesh said...

Meghana, for once, I almost agree with you :)

Unknown said...

I agree too! There is lot more crap that goes into networking sites these days.

Orkut was good when it started off, sticking to just socializing a.k.a scrapping.
However with additions of games, applications, advertisements etc, its all gone wacky.
FB is like ‘Fish Market’ of Web world :)
In this regard I like LinkedIn, it has very professional looks and maintains the sanity of contents.