Yes, I can. The networks work fine. If people need more than "this works fine, it's free, and you can use it instead of the other way around" as a reason, the people are broken.
20 years ago we hardly had cell phones and that was just fine, if you actually loved your Grandmother you'd always find a way to send her some baby photos... and now we start to cry because Diaspora is kinda basic? Even though that would change real quick if only 5% of the FB users would switch to it. I think that's silly, so I for one am reachable by phone and email, and my friends are always welcome to join me "on the actual web". Until then, I'm not supporting them in their self-harm: for whatever reasons people use Facebook, I try to avoid being one of them (edit: one of the reasons, that is).
I'm going to be blunt, and I'm neither going to apologise for it, nor ask your forgiveness or understanding.
Do you really think I haven't considered all these points? Do you really think I haven't considered alternatives? I have, and I have, and my conclusion is that I (a) want to stay in touch with these people, and (b) have no effective alternative.
These are people I care about, who care about me, and who are, today, using FB almost to the exclusion of anything else because they find it convenient and have given up nearly everything else. Despite many attempts they are unwilling or unable to use email as effectively as they use FB, and proliferating platforms would do them no favours at all.
You, and several others in this discussion, are using what you believe to be ironclad reasoning to replace any sense of understanding, sympathy, or empathy.
Yes, but I don't use facebook because my Grandma's on it (well, actually she isn't, but if she was it wouldn't matter).
If I found a new social network that I thought offered something new I would start using that in parallel to facebook. Then I'd use the new one more as more people moved over, until eventually facebook just became a way of emailing my grandma.
A lot of these facebook killer conversations seem to be based on the idea that I'm only going to use one social network. I'd argue that's not true at all.
You underestimate how central communication over Facebook has become for some segments of the population. All their friends are on FB. All their family is on FB. Business associates are on FB. Their hobbies and news are on Facebook, and on and on and on.
Sure. They could opt out of that, just as some people opted out of having a telephone in their homes back when it was the primary mode of communication -- but they were so few that one was considered strange for not having one.
Of course, the objections to using Facebook are much stronger than they've ever been for having even a television, nevermind a telephone. Yet most people can't seem to tear themselves away. Not that they'd want to. They've got everything they need on Facebook, don't they?
I'm sorry, but this is just "anti" for the sake of it. If you have a good enough relationship with friends and family, Facebook is just another medium to stay in touch. I'd agree that if it's the only medium, there may be issues, but your suggestions are merely alternatives, no better and in some instances slightly worse (no, the postal service is not a valid alternative). Yes, there are other options, but Facebook works well enough for a majority of folk. I'll come clean and say that I'm not a fan of Facebook, I find it too intrusive. That said most of my immediate friends and family use it and get an awful lot out of it. The psychological benefits of just feeling connected cannot be understated.
Yes you can, I have friends whom for various reason don't have a Facebook or stopped using it/deleted it. People will adjust and instead we contact them by mail or phone. Perhaps it's a bit of a annoyance, but you are not kept prisoner.
Facebook has its pros and cons. While I continually seem to lose a bit of faith in humanity while on it, the truth is that it is the easiest and cheapest way to keep in touch with family back in the states. And it happens that I've met a few great people as a result of it.
Which is a real problem with studies like this: There isn't a viable alternative that could take its place. Sure, some have tried: But none of them have taken hold enough to convince some family members to switch over. The main thing missing from other platforms is that they don't cross-communicate. It is like a phone that won't connect to another company's phone, even if it is located next door.
In addition, there are a lot more options other than on or off facebook. One can limit their time on it, limit the folks they friend, and other such things. How do these people fare comparatively? Do they find exceptions to the rule - people that find themselves lonely without the broad connectivity?
What is the point of that? I'm not into the whole social network thing but isn't the point of Diaspora to be able to control your own "private" information? If you post to Facebook from Diaspora wouldn't you be giving up the only real reason to switch?
That's true for me, too. But I can communicate with those people via other means and have found no downside to doing so. I've been Facebook- free for years now.
You might, but we are talking about broad circle of ordinary people here, most of whom spend considerable time on Facebook and will not leave it unless you give them a very good reason (privacy concerns, ethical reasons won't fly here, trust me) to do that or offer an attractive alternative. Good luck trying to convince some teenage girl to live at least a day without social media.
I tried, and ended up losing contact with pretty much all of my family. Facebook is so deeply integrated with their daily lives that they consider e-mails, phone calls and SMS'es to be an unneccesary hassle.
After a while I had to get a new Facebook account, because people kept messaging my wife over messenger, asking her to forward the messages to me.
You can stay in touch with relatives via mobile phone. You can text them and ask how they do. Personally, I created a Whatsapp group for my extended family. Some of them don't use Facebook by the way.
It doesn't make any sense to complain about Facebook's business model and also not want to sacrifice a worthless personal account noone cares about.
We choose what we use and they choose how they make money. You can expect them to be ethical but they have no responsibilities to meet your expectations, as they have never promised to be a platform that respects privacy.
Facebook is free. It is understood that we provide clues about ourselves for advertisers as a way to keep it free. Facebook is convenient. You're seriously suggesting in 2020 that my nieces and nephews correspond with me by letter? That's pretty hilarious actually. I can't move closer because I can't be in 10 locations at once. My family gets along. We agree not to talk about politics. It works for us. I'm sorry about your family.
You wouldn't believe the amount of pressure that people put on each other to sign up for Facebook. In some of my circles I'm next to invisible because I'm not 'on facebook'.
That's never going to work on me but I can't fault people for giving in and going with the flow. Still, in many cases it's not as voluntary as it might seem to be to you, just like it almost is no longer voluntary not to have a phone, not to have email and not to have internet access.
Theoretically you should be able to live your life without those, but in practice it is getting harder all the time and a choice against any or all of these comes with a social price that not everybody is willing to pay.
Look, I'm not a huge Facebook user myself, but why don't you list those tools to connect to your family?
Also, if you use Facebook delightedly, it can be a great tool. The trick is to spread awareness of its danger and tell people to use it at caution. At one point or another I think people are going to have to accept that it is a primary form of communication this day and age. Simply telling people to delete the application without better alternatives and citing it's worst flaws are not going to get you very far.
You can connect with them over email, SMS, or even not at all. Or you can use Facebook and experience the downsides that everyone is mentioning. This is a timeless story where a company provides a service, people get used to it, then complain when the company changes the service against their liking. You are and have always been free to communicate as if FB never existed. They owe you and your family nothing. But in many cases people prefer to pay the costs of using the service. They're not the devil just because you fail at communication without them.
No. The parent comment’s viewpoint is fine, whereas your absolutist viewpoint is not helpful.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are what you make of them. There’s nothing to “present” if you don’t mindlessly scroll but use them the way they were originally intended: to keep in touch with contacts. For some people it’s just easiest to keep in touch with them on Facebook, etc.
There also a lot of good Facebook groups, and marketplace is very useful.
Being able to stay in contact with people is extremely useful. Cutting that out entirely out of spite doesn’t do any good.
The world got along fine until facebook came out all of less than 10 years ago.
Since then lots of people have joined it and lots of people have left again, but arguably lots more have joined than have left.
Just like there is no obligation to join there is no obligation to leave and those that leave should not be made to feel guilty because "literally everyone else in your social circle is on Facebook, you're actually forcing them to go out of their way to interact with you, something that fits the definition to a T. Facebook is the preferred method of communication for most people, and if you're ignoring this and forcing people to conform, they'll resent it. "
If your social circle is defined by facebook then pity to you, there are many more established means of communicating with other people including but not limited to:
- personal contact in real life (visiting)
- the telephone
- letter writing
- email
- sign language
- the telegraph system
- telex
- flickr
- youtube
- fax
- smoke signals
- carrier pigeons
- various instant messaging systems
- sms
- twitter
And on and on, and quite a few of those didn't exist 30 years ago either.
Not using facebook does not force anybody 'out of their way' in order to communicate with you, the volume will drop a bit but those that want to communicate with you will always find a way at no great inconvenience to them, after all if the 'price' of facebook is low enough for you it is too high for me because I'm not an avid user of facebook.
That cuts both ways and the onus is not on the non-users to provide ease of access to the users of a certain medium.
Typically protocol negotiations will settle when a common medium has been found, and facebook is only one of many possibles.
Fortunately there is some freedom of choice left in this life and whether or not you choose to use a certain communications medium is one of the things we're still free to choose.
Just because something is a hype does not make it mandatory.
20 years ago we hardly had cell phones and that was just fine, if you actually loved your Grandmother you'd always find a way to send her some baby photos... and now we start to cry because Diaspora is kinda basic? Even though that would change real quick if only 5% of the FB users would switch to it. I think that's silly, so I for one am reachable by phone and email, and my friends are always welcome to join me "on the actual web". Until then, I'm not supporting them in their self-harm: for whatever reasons people use Facebook, I try to avoid being one of them (edit: one of the reasons, that is).
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