Gadgetopia

Naval-gazing assery, written to tell a flood of people voluntarily using a site not to use the site.

I vehemently dispute your tossed-off statement that the Internet sucks the soul out of relating to people in general.

I think there's a lot of coolness to Facebook - but your page gets filled up with applications you found other people using. (I influenced my cousin to use the Chinese Name application, for example). And your news feed is all about everything everybody did to everyone else. :-)

Deane, do you really believe your statement? Could you elaborate?

Recent research by the University of Amsterdam in cooperation with Hyves (largest social network in The Netherlands, 5m users) shows that Hyves strengthens offline relations, instead of weakening them or preventing users from being social offline.

Hyves users turned out to even have a more active social life offline, compared to non-hyves-users. The 3000 people that were "researched" (I don't know if they were interviewed one by one) indicated that they mainly use Hyves to get in touch with old friends and colleagues.

I don't see why this should be much different in the US. I wonder why social networks often get this negative vibe from people saying that they are evil and talking down at people using them. What's your take on that?

This is a press release quoted by a newssite: http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=1366168&c=50

P.S.: I'm a avid reader of your blog, keep it up!

Deane, do you really believe your statement? Could you elaborate?

I've been online so long now, that perhaps I'm a little jaded by this point. But the Net seems to increase the quantity of the relationships I have, but at a superficial level. I relate to a lot of people now, but at little significant depth.

I have hundreds and hundreds of people that I've "met" on the Net. I have touch-and-go, once-in-a-while relationships with these people, but I know little about them, and they know little about me.

At the same time, my circle of "real life" friends seems to get smaller and smaller. We don't sit down for a beer, because we can always email. Email provides a veneer of intimacy, which helps us avoid anything more real.

I am sick to my stomach about Facebook. It seems like it's one big college frat party....sex and alcohol being the main topics. People pretending to be connecting to others but really only do so to massage their own egos. People pretending to be caring when all it is is fast-food, who's next, stroke my ego, talk dirty, fool around on people who really do care.

It's all kind of sad really.

facebook are thieves and make there own rules to suit themselves.

Most of people that are on facebook have not read 'terms and condition' - this is really sad for them otherwise they would know that all information on facebook are not their property anymore but property of facebook (which is illegal in democratic country) and they sell information about you to companies.

When I tried to destroy my account it was impossible - facebook keep information about me forever. Now, my account is unactivated.

And do you know what the funny part is.. Now if you don't have a facebook account you are considered to be a third world inhabitant. I hate these networking sites.. It's so ridiculous for someone to waste his/her time to these bulls....t! Childish and silly... I wish someone could close it down for good.. I know people that they might consider commit suicide if this happened.. The world is going MAD...

My shirt is blue. Facebook, and internet communications in general deprive us of the sensory information our brains require to make real decisions and decipher the truth about the physical world. Its a liars paradise, as you see, my shirt is actually black. Does that information matter? Probably not. You'll never know because your eyes will never see it. And though the internet allows voice and video to be transported, it fails to reveal to our sensory brains, that essential concecpt of situational awareness that is so important to the social habits of people. For example, you can feel when someone is uncomfortable, or pick up on the body language that someone is about to make an excuse to leave your presence. And some people take great care to manipulate that fault to its full advantage. The internet fails on so many social levels, yet for many people it has become the foremost means of communicating with people outside of their homes. (A recent survey found people ranking the internet as essential as heat, water and hydro in their budgets) Facebook isn't evil, its merely, like the rest of the net, a sensory info deprived void that people take advantage of by indulging in vanity. The formula for the sucess of networking sites is quite simple. The more people can input (truthfully or otherwise) about themselves, the more atractive it becomes. Is it really the internets fault that people choose to use it in that way? Of course not, the internet is a great idea. Its the people your supposedly communicating with that you have to watch out for. I'm telling you the truth about my shirt and that doesnt matter. That information isnt tangible.

It just makes me a little sad thats all. I remember when people went out of the way to catch up with friends. Now they just email or something equally less personal.

The worst part of the whole thing is how easy it is for people to get tied up into the bullshit, the false information that is fed from one person to the next is inexcusable. The users of these websites base themselves on how many friend they have, is it jut me or is this just one giant popularity contest, its truly sad. The creators of these websites are truly the scum of the earth that are making millions and millions of dollars by peoples stupidity, its so incredibly discusting, i though i was the only person in the world who has a strict anti-facebook policy. Being a 22 year old male and not being involved in all this bullshit is an acomplishment, and knowing all my friends and even my fiance are a part of it makes me steam, but it also fuels my fire, it makes me realize my strength is greater than theirs. These websites are personal adds, made for these people to promote themselves under false pretenses 90% of the time. Taking photos of the side of your faces so noone can see the true ugliness that radiates off of you is proving that you will pour as much gas into your own tank to keep you moving as long as you can until eventually you run out of gas, but they continue to fuel themselves and hope and pray tha others will spare them fuel by "commenting" on their photos , its so discusting, all of it. It is a personal ad, plain and simple, its no different from say match.com, or any of those other sites, its just people promoting themselves to get friends and it is sad.