Thursday, January 17, 2008

I Don't Do Facebook

Just never struck me as a good idea.
Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week.
But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal
information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind
the social networking site.


I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business
describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people
around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a computer to
connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be
mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in
California? What was wrong with the pub?

Another article from The Guardian Online.


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2 comments:

  1. Yeah, but ignoring it isn't that easy. The existance of facebook has completely changed the student body at university since students have organized themselves into their own cohorts that move through one's classes...my colleagues who don't understand about facebook can't figure out why the class dynamic has suddenly changed and they feel like they are missing part of the conversation...because that's what's happening.

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  2. What I really don't get is why you need facebook. Isn't that what the pub and coffee shops are for?
    the other thing that bugs me is how we so willingly abandon ourselves to the corporations that own these sites. I do it--after all I use a gmail account and I do have some idea what happens with the email I generate. But it's our willingness to abandon all good sense for a percieved benefit that I don't get--even about myself.

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