Facebook’s friendship trap | Hacker News Reader

Facebook’s friendship trap

timesonline.co.uk

44 pointsevancaine20 comments

I don't think that Facebook necessarily encourages people to have a second-rate experience. Rather, it acts as a sink for people who would have had a second-rate experience anyway, and still manages to be a tool that serves people who are more ambitious with their lives.

The author compares a very idealistic picture of friendship sans Facebook, with a realistic look at friendship with Facebook, and the former is certain to win, but long before Facebook very many people were busy with keeping appearances and combating loneliness with meaningless drivel.

A better approach would be to research the positive ways in which Facebook can be used to foster real friendship and add meaning and purpose to one's life and publish recommendations to people so that they can fine-tune their use of such tools.

Facebook needs to fade into the background as infrastructure. If they can become the middleman, they can outsource risk and being the target of ire. That would also enable others to experiment as you suggest.

"The psychologist Dr Aric Sigman says that social networking sites undermine social skills and the ability to read body language. Actual physical contact benefits our wellbeing by boosting levels of the hormone oxytocin. In fact, being lonely is as bad for your health as smoking."

Aric Sigman has a previously spoken on the matter and has had most of his points debunked already, see Ben Goldacre's post here:

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/the-evidence-aric-sigman-i...

I don't think this article gives nearly enough credence to the amazing pool of information that Facebook is. It's brilliant for organising social events and keeping track of people, it doesn't have to be a great evil. Used responsibly it is on of the best things about the internet.

"Moderation in all things"

When Facebook is used as a substitute for friendship, it can be very, very bad. The article focused on that side of Facebook -- the teen angst, grass-is-always-greener, add "friends" to get ahead in FarmVille side.

When Facebook is used as a tool to support existing friendships, it can be very, very good. It's helped me stay informed of what my family is up to, reconnect with some old friends, and organize various social events. The article completely missed that side of Facebook.

To those whose experience matches the first paragraph, the problem isn't the tool, it's the users. It's a classic case of "you're doing it wrong".

The very language of sites such as Facebook, with its “Would you like to add me as a friend?” lexicon, undermines what real friendship is. I’m not surprised kids are lonely if a whole generation thinks friends can be made by clicking on an icon, and that it’s normal to have hundreds of pals. We all know that many of our “friends” are nothing of the sort; the bulk of them are acquaintances or people we hung out with years ago or former colleagues or contacts.

Agreed - and hence why I can see my LinkedIn account staying around (and used) for a good while, whereas my FB account should be (finally) deleted any...day...now.

any...day...now.

Like tomorrow? http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

Nice - didn't know about that. I was referring to the 14-day notice thing they have between saying 'I quit' and one's account actually biting the dust. I forget exactly which day I hit the delete link.

This is more an attack on the nature of social networks than an attack on Facebook. Friendster had the same problems (particularly the loneliness bit - because you visit friend profiles filled with happysmiley party pictures and so feel rather left out) and on that I have to agree.

I must note, however, that much of what the writer talks about really only applies to teenagers. Metrics like popularity (measured by friendcounts) are meaningless when you're older.

Disagree. This is exactly why terms like "We're friends on Facebook" exist, which effectively means "I can remember seeing their face online".

Agreed. Facebook promotes a fake friendship that isn't substantiated by any real human interaction; it's cerebral at best.

I don't know about "promoting" it. I've stayed at 30-50 facebook friends for as long as I've had the account; I delete people as often as I add new ones, and the affordances are about equal—there's nothing on facebook that says "add this person and then make friends," only "add this person if they are your friend."

The real problem is the psychological tendency to hoard information—the same reason one ends up with an overflowing Rolodex instead of a useful one. People need to learn to treat their friends list like any other inbox: incubate, act upon, or delete.

Yeah I leave some people on my list that I no longer have any real contact with any more just incase they say something interesting from time to time, relating to my interests. I would actually love it if people I knew and added to facebook could post have have interesting HN like conversations on there but it's usually mostly fluff about peoples day to day lives.

As usual it is what you make it. I only make and accept friend requests with people that I know and have met in real life, and where I am actually interested in knowing what they're doing in life.

I like getting status updates so I get a feeling for what my friends are doing, but serious communication always goes over other channels, phone, IM, email, etc.

I don't really see how Facebook promotes either my use or the friend-hoarder use, to me it's a neutral tool.

Exactly - and anyone on HN should be easily able to use the Friend Lists stuff within facebook. Chat Status, Privacy settings and just the ability to filter down into smaller subsets.. So while I am 'friends' with 320 people.. I see almost everything from the people I'm truly close with, while occasionally dipping into the greater stream from of other acquaintances. While facebook could do some better outreach on some of this stuff (my Dad was overjoyed to find out last week you can block applications -- no more farmville in the news feed), we on HN should be able to use it properly. There's plenty of reasons to complain about fb, but cheapening friendship is not one of them.. it is completely about how you use the tool.

Also - (at least among my general circle - mid 20's, Australia, almost completely non-tech) - Serious personal conversation is now almost predominately facebook. Almost every party (excluding weddings/engagements) is a FB event (with maybe SMS invites). IM = Facebook chat. And email = Facebook PM.

I have to say, anyone who thinks that Facebook has passed its usefulness is not a college student--and if they are they don't have a lot of friends in varied disciplines. Facebook is the social staple of college social life in general and Greek life in particular.

Another article which confuses the media attention a story receives with the actual feelings of most people.

The article forgot to point out the fact that while Facebook is not the ultimate replacement for social interaction; it does connect folks to other areas of interest that their "friends" are doing. Technically, social network users are not lonely; they just tend to be more open to the diversity of culture - strangers or not.

The author states that she adds anyone she has met, then seems off-put that her Facebook feed is full of people and information she doesn't care about. Perhaps she needs to learn to group people. Or just not accept all friendship requests.

What I find strangely absent in public discourse on the subject is that it's still unusual to actually meet people via social technology. I'm not talking about adding people to your Mafia Wars crew, but actually using Facebook as a tool to meet people more compatible than you are ever likely to stumble across in real life.

We nervously broach the subject of online dating, but across-the-board real-world socializing via technology seems to be virtually nonexistent.

This article is so sickeningly off-base that I don't even want to talk about how wrong it is.

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