DISCLAIMER: I'm fully aware that the following blog entry comes dangerously close to placing me in the "grumpy old man" category. It comes off as the virtual equivalent of standing on my front porch and shouting "get off my lawn, you lousy kids" but I've just got to get it off my chest.
As a self-professed geek and someone who tries to be up-to-date on all the latest gadgets, killer apps and other such things, I admit that I arrived pretty late to the Facebook party. I signed-up for an account a few years ago “just because” and didn't really do much with it. Around 18 months ago, several of my friends began using it to post photos of their families and I began to use it a bit more. As originally intended, it served as a great platform for finding and keeping in touch with old friends. Earlier this year, however, Facebook has become an incredible pain in the ass.
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The turn from “cool tool” to “necessary evil” began when Facebook suddenly became an awful lot like the high school reunion you don't want to attend. Sure, there are some people that I'm happy to get in touch with again – namely old grade school or college friends with whom I haven't spoken in ages – but earlier this year I received an influx of friend invites from people I barely knew. Initially I accepted the invitations under the “I think we were in a class together” premise. Then my news feed became filled with “what kind of vegetable would you be” quiz requests and people sending me virtual cocktails. The capper was the request I received that went something like this: “I know you don't know me but we have a mutual friend and I'm trying to beat him at 'Mafia Wars' so can we be friends and will you join my family?” Are you kidding me? How old are you? Go away.
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Speaking of Mafia Wars... I've been un-friending anyone who has been flooding my account with news from the Mafia War frontlines. As an Italian-American, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole Mafia War phenomenon. Would a Crips vs. Bloods game be as widely accepted? How about a game set in Northern Ireland? Tasteless, right? But Mafia Wars is okay? I digress... And what in your right mind makes you think I care about how many acres of virtual corn you've grown or how happy your FarmVille animals are? Don't get me wrong... my passion for video games began with the Atari 2600 and continues today as evidenced by the multiple consoles laying about the house, but I doubt you're interested in the cars I've unlocked on Forza or the number of bad guys I've snuffed on Rainbow Six. Mafia Wars and FarmVille may be the best games ever but some things just aren't worth broadcasting to the world.
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So I've been thinking... is Facebook the next MySpace? Is it on a path to become the next tech roadkill that promised to change the world but instead became the next carrier vehicle for spam or has it already changed the world and we're just ready for 2.0? Or - the far more likely scenario - is it just me?
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I would LOVE to get your perspective on this. How do you feel about the third-party 'community games' part of Facebook? Does it enhance your enjoyment or drive you away? Inquiring minds want to know. :)
I HATE all the little apps and games on Facebook. I have been known to get sucked into a few of the more relevant Quizzes, however, guilty as charged on that. All that to say though, when you're finished accepting that Heart or filling out the umpteenth "My five favorite blah blah blah's", I find it that if people publish every one of their app accomplishments to their profile, that's just obnoxious. I NEVER Do that, BW, and I don't like those that do. I actually DO like the "News Feed" update portion of FB, to see who was up to what all day, but all the APPS and virtual knick knack's being published HIDE the good info, and that makes FB, yes, on the fast track to suck-ville, JUST like MySpace. It's a shame too, since I actually have people on there I truly like and care about, many of them farming-the-hell-outta-the-ville, and annoying me every step of the way.
Added note. The FB Instant Messaging feature has has me more embarrassed as it makes such a tiny sound, and if you have FB up on some browser tab you've forgotten, someone you may actually like thinks you're ignoring them. So, I've learned to immediately set my status on that thing to "Offline" when I surf on in, so if I forget I've surfed in, people don't think I'm being an upppity snot!
Thanks for this post, it says everything about FB I've been thinking, but don't get enough characters on the damn update to say!
Posted by: Run4DaRose | November 29, 2009 at 08:47 PM
Totally drives me away. I hide all that activity, but slowly Facebook is becoming a second job...when I don't post for a few days, I have people emailing me "ARE YOU OK?? You haven't been on Facebook!!". I made my own bed in that respect by going crazy on it for 6 months..posting every two seconds...and now I am paying for it!
Posted by: Kristen | November 02, 2009 at 12:28 PM
I've hidden most of the third-party crap. I have a couple of friends in particular whose purposes in life are to use as many apps as possible and I've had to hide their status updates altogether as I can't keep up with all the "hiding" of crap.
Posted by: Beth | November 02, 2009 at 10:56 AM
Excellent tips, thank you! I definitely appreciate the advice on how to hide those annoying updates and wanted to clarify a point I (probably unsuccessfully) tried to make in the post... there are some people who were in my friends network - people who ostensibly wanted to reconnect - but did very little connecting outside of letting me know which weapon they just collected or how they leveled-up in "the family."
Posted by: BostonWriter | November 01, 2009 at 11:38 PM
You can always just click "Hide." When one of those Farmville or Mafia Wars things pop up in your Newsfeed, mouse over the person's name and you'll see a "Hide" feature appear to the top right.
Or, just use Facebook Lite. It's Facebook WITHOUT the apps. http://lite.facebook.com
Posted by: LondyLondon | November 01, 2009 at 09:45 PM