Why DO people around me almost always have Facebook on (especially females)??
I am a little annoyed at how the internet is so unimaginably gigantic and growing exponentially all the time, yet people will still habitually surf Facebook. Many people have been locked into Facebook, and maybe that's why the company is on the stock market now. But I find it disturbing to see lots of people huddling over their facebook while the book shelves lie quiet.
Is it that Facebook somehow gives the feeling of being interconnected? Is it that people like to be spoon-fed information to devour for the short attention spans, and feel the shocks? Or that we prefer gags and trivial fun to more profound emotions as comfort, satisfaction, cognitive dissonance...
Out of all the Facebook feed I found myself consistently looking into the Slashdot/.science related ones. People CAN BE exciting, but they seem to be there for the kicks - the bursts of emotion and reactions that are fun for a tiny spike of time.
I guess we just have to be amazed at how powerful habits can be in really dominating our behavior.
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4 years ago
1 comment:
I, unfortunately, am one of those you describe. These days I feel compelled to post on Facebook when I do something significant.
A good example would be my recent trip to Prague. At night we would huddle in our hotel room for wifi (and go on Facebook, among other things), while during day we would prefer restaurants with wifi. Being able to post close to real-time allows for quick and immediate feedback. I have friends who have been to Prague before, and they can give us feedback on our trip. It also means our parents can see where we are and what we are doing - important as they ultimately finance our holiday.
Another advantage of Facebook is that it allows one-to-many communication. When I post that I have arrived in Hong Kong, it allows my extended family, classmates and friends who (hopefully) cares that I have arrived safely home. This means that I don't have to contact them individually to 报平安 (notify safe journey), thus saving a lot of effort. Indeed, the only persons who I had to contact "deliberately" are my dad and grandmother, who wont and can't use Facebook, respectively.
Lastly, there is the ubiquity of Facebook: 95% of people I know have it, and higher in the younger demographics. Facebook is particularly useful in asking questions. Our year has a Facebook group where students ask each other questions. Some are quite pathetic, but others are insightful and point you in the right direction. I cannot see this ability replaced by emails, which are too cumbersome, nor by forums, which have poorer UI and require separate login. Most people already use Facebook regularly, so this is very much a "bolt on" function.
As much as I despise Facebook with its advertising and privacy issues, it is providing a service that other people and I find useful. It's free too, so what's so bad about that? Personally I consider what I post as public domain anyway, so I don't have a privacy issues (just don't post what you don't want others to know). I think there is a shift towards an acceptance that a large aspect of our lives being online and semi-public, particularly younger generations.
Of course, this doesn't stop people with phones on Facebook everywhere being annoying; but hey, at least these are touchscreen devices. The clicking of a physical T9 keypad sms-ing can be magnitudes more annoying. At least on Facebook, you're quiet.
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