Boy, I'm reall starting to hate Facebook!

[kserg]

And I question yours, sir, being as you failed to answer my question.

I asked "why is facebook a must for coleege students"

Plenty of people, including noncollege students, know of and use facebook. Its known enough that IT at my work has blocked it. (yet they havent blocked talkbass )

Oh, FB, i thought he said TB... Never-mind, i don't know... TB though, that's another story...

I am just going to assume he was talking about TB and question your logic anyway!

 

[jmattbassplaya]

I have a way of doing that without having to sign on to a computer.

Facebook just makes it easier. I can 'see' what my friends are up to without having to have a phone conversation with each and every one of them. It also allows me to keep in touch with people who I don't see daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly. I don't talk to or see my best friend for months at a time, but thanks to FB I can at least know what's going on in his life. It's nice.

As far as why it's a 'must' for college students. It's really not a must, but it does make being social with people a LOT easier. If it weren't for FB I wouldn't be aware of a lot of good bands playing around town, what some of my buddies are doing on a weekend, and I wouldn't have an easy way to hit up kids in my classes or arrange study groups. FB makes this easy because everyone is ALWAYS on it.

 

[Strat-Mangler]

Lately they seem to be on a kick to try to "improve" things. Instead it's a lot of unnecessary stuff. They had a fairly simple interface, now it's a cluttered jumble.

Exactly why a lot of people fled MySpace. What started out as a simple idea turned into this gigantically convoluted assault onto the eyes.

Their final nail in the coffin was allowing users to customize their profile to the point where it was a true assault onto your senses.

FB hasn't done that yet and I doubt they will, but adding a million new things doesn't mean they're things people want.

Good thing I only stay on it for Scrabble.

 

[champbassist]

I have a way of doing that without having to sign on to a computer.

But social networking is cheaper for someone like me. I can text chat/audio chat/video chat with my cousins on the other side of the country for virtually no cost, whereas I'd have to pay through my nose were I to converse with them over the phone. (Plus, with the current tariffs for 3G here, you can assuredly eliminate the possibility of video calling becoming common anytime soon)

So people dont make new friends on facebook, they only keep in touch with people they already know?

I can say so for myself. I have a policy of not adding people, unless I know them beforehand to a considerable degree, through first hand conversations.

 

[Actium]

"F yea, screw facebooks. I refuse to sign up for that meaningless social networking site." -posted on any web forum ever, which is a form of social networking.




f-ing lawl @ you

 

[baalroo]

So was the big shift from everybody using Myspace (me included) to Facebook a movement for people to be less social and focus more on people they know in real life?

I just dont see the necessity to the whole paradigm shift. Myspace, to me, was great for what it was and the reason I didnt want to move on to facebook. Because everyone else decided to use fb instead of ms wasnt a good enough reason for me, and I really wasnt using myspace much anymore either, in favor of real life social interaction.

ah, I see what you were getting at now with your question. I would say the move from myspace to facebook was based on two things:

1. major interface improvements. Facebook is just cleaner, easier to use, and had a better UI for communicating. Myspace kinda sucked as a communication tool, way too cluttered and clunky.

2. it was a "reset button." a whole lot of people's first foray into "social networking" in which you choose who you are interacting with was myspace. People tended to add WAY too many people,bands, companies, etc and then felt overwhelmed by their friends list. Moving to facebook was an easy way to start fresh, and as you said above, "focus on people they know in real life." It becomes difficult to find the things you actually care about when there are 500 people posting things you could care less about. It's similar to having to weed through pages of threads here on TB to find the ones that interest you. Moving to facebook was a way to only keep the posters who's input you really liked. It was like if there was a TB 2.0 and you could just add all your favorite TB posters and leave out all the people who's threads you always skip over.

 

[Chebass88]

So every conversation you have with your friends is deep and on another inhuman level? Or when your friends go "I had the best burger in the world yesterday" you just stop talking to that person?

Not at all. I started out with FB trying to get as many "friends" as possible. I ended up with a several hundred people I barely interact with in real life, but am exposed to their daily lives, and expose them to mine. I culled my "friends" to only those who I want to hear about, basically just my good friends and family, or people who are entertaining.

It is one thing to hear about the "best burger ever" from a good friend. Former high school classmates or college classmates from 10-15 years ago or people I only met once? *Making onanistic gesture*

Mid-post, I realized that most people could give two ****s about what I post here, so I posted that statement instead.

 

[Internet Police]

You can revert back to the older interface by changing your language to English (UK). The Internet Police save the day!!!!!!!!!!_

 

[fjadams]

This.

++ Like ++

 

[Internet Police]

Nevermind, it doesn't work anymore. Dadgummit

 

[baalroo]

oh also, can someone explain to me what these major changes are that everyone's so up in arms about? I can't figure out what the problem is, all I'm seeing are some extremely minor UI changes that affect almost nothing except to make sharing a bit more targeted and user friendly by making the "lists" option a bit more obvious and easier to use. What's the problem exactly?

 

[MatticusMania]

What's the problem exactly?

people fear change

 

[cjmodulus]

. it's more intent on FB showing you what FB wants you to see rather than you having control over that.

this is what it seems like to me. On the mobile app it looks like I'm seeing more updates from pages I liked than from my friends.
I love how a bunch of my friends on there complain every time the layout changes, but instead of deleting their account in protest or something, they continue using it. If you really don't like it, send a message. If enough people deleted their accounts, maybe they'd listen and change it back.
Me, I just use it to find out if girls I know are single or not.

 

[Staccato]

Ive resolved this problem by refusing to sign myself up for social networking sites, aside from one that isnt very popular. I spend enough time on the computer as it is, trying to make friends online is the last thing I want to do with my free time.

Some people think they will be judged harshly by their friends (as not worthy) if they have fewer than 100-200 friends showing on FB.

 

[MatticusMania]

Some people think they will be judged harshly by their friends (as not worthy) if they have fewer than 100-200 friends showing on FB.

I saw an episode of South Park that revolved around this theme. I thought thats all anyone cared about on those sites (I remember people having similar thoughts over Myspace). But apparently, most people here say that is not the case.

 

[baalroo]

I saw an episode of South Park that revolved around this theme. I thought thats all anyone cared about on those sites (I remember people having similar thoughts over Myspace). But apparently, most people here say that is not the case.

morons will be morons, there's no helping that... so I'm sure there are people out there somewhere who have this opinion. Honestly though, I never saw this phenomenon on myspace and I don't see it on Facebook... I assume it's a highschool thing and I'm an adult that doesn't have highschool aged friends.

the important question is "are your friends and family that you would likely add morons?"

 

[nclinsey]

I think one of the biggest advantages to sites like facebook is using them to network with people in the same industry as you that you may not normally have a chance to interact with.

For example, for a musician facebook is an invaluable tool in that I can add a person to my facebook friends list that I met at an industry party or an event that I may want to use in the future to further my career.
To take a step further, say I play the CCMA's (Canadian Country Music Awards) with a band. At the same showcase that I'm on, there are several other artists that are using a house band.
The bass player for the house band is a heavy hitter who plays with a major label artist/star.
Said bass player likes my playing and we chat/exchange info/add each other on facebook.
We keep in touch over the months following the CCMA's and as the next years CCMA's approaches, awesome bass player finds out that he/she can't do the house band gig, but because we've kept in touch and bass player knows my playing, he/she asks if I would like to sub for them on the gig.
All of a sudden using facebook has payed off in that I now get to do a high profile gig/get a decent paycheck and the opportunity to step my career up a notch.

While I have never been part of the house band at the CCMA's, I have absolutely gotten hired for gigs because of exactly this scenario.

For this reason alone I feel that it is totally necessary to maintain a social networking site profile.

Also, this is only my opinion, YMMV, whatever, etc...

 

[J. Crawford]

Can you explain how its a must for someone enrolled in college in todays society?

Well, I'm a "friend" with all the clubs I'm in or looking into on campus, have met many of my now real life friends via FB, see what girls are with who, easy way to spread the word on homework, studying groups, etc.

IMHO, IME, etc.

The times are a'changing.. don't shoot the opinionated messenger.

 

[BioDriver]

 

[ShredderMaximus]

Even after having moved halfway across the country away from my friends and family, I still don't feel a need for facebook, I stay in touch with who I want to stay in touch with.