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Comment by Chaebixi | Hacker News Reader

> but why is it hard not to use facebook for people? It's a serious question. Everybody I know (me included) who is not on facebook has no problem with it, and it certainly isn't getting harder.

You'll get left out of real life. If your social circle organizes events on Facebook, and you're the only weirdo that can only be contacted by email and phone, you'll be forgotten by all but your strong friends (who don't need Facebook's friend-menu to remember you).

That might not be a problem if your social circle doesn't rely on Facebook much or you're (for instance) an introvert who doesn't care about parties thrown by acquaintances (which are a nice way to meet new people), but there are a lot of people who those don't apply to and who would have to sacrifice to avoid Facebook.

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That assumes a lot about what one considers "real life." My social circle has never included "people who only remember me because I'm in a list curated by Facebook". Whether or not these people invite me to parties makes no difference to me. I think as one gets older one finds that "Partying" with distant acquaintances becomes less and less an important part of one's social life.

> That assumes a lot about what one considers "real life." My social circle has never included "people who only remember me because I'm in a list curated by Facebook". Whether or not these people invite me to parties makes no difference to me.

I already covered that in my original comment: it might not be a bad thing for you, but you are not everyone. There exists a significant number of people for whom quitting Facebook would have some real negative costs.

> I think as one gets older one finds that "Partying" with distant acquaintances becomes less and less an important part of one's social life.

Also getting invited to a party was just an example, and not all parties are booze-fueled keggers where you "party."

It's also not "distant acquaintances" I'm taking about. The group I'm talking about are the people 1) who you like enough to want to hang out with, 2) who like you enough to invite you, but 3) don't like you enough to always remember your special communication preferences unprompted.

This happened to me: I quit Facebook some while back, but there is an alumni group I wanted to connect to. But their events are organized on an FB page, which I can't even access. So I had to find someone else who's a member of the group and ask them when they are assembling.

I'm reminded somewhat of certain websites only favoring a specific browser or being written in a manner that seriously messes with accessibility.

> you'll be forgotten by all but your strong friends (who don't need Facebook's friend-menu to remember you).

How is that a bad thing?

It's not normal or healthy to try to maintain hundreds or thousands of "friendships" with people you barely know. You don't need to keep in life-long contact with some guy you spent 4 minutes talking to at a bar while on vacation 5 years ago.

>> you'll be forgotten by all but your strong friends (who don't need Facebook's friend-menu to remember you).

> How is that a bad thing?

I already covered that in my original comment: it might not be a bad thing to you, but you are not everyone. There exists a significant number of people for whom quitting Facebook would have some real negative costs.

> It's not normal or healthy to try to maintain hundreds or thousands of "friendships" with people you barely know. You don't need to keep in life-long contact with some guy you spent 4 minutes talking to at a bar while on vacation 5 years ago.

That's not what I was talking about at all. I was thinking more about the kind of friendly acquaintances that you see regularly. For instance, you might have 3-10 close friends, 20-30 more distant friends, and 500-2000 Facebook non-friends. I'm talking about the second group of 20-30 friends.

> I was thinking more about the kind of friendly acquaintances that you see regularly.

If you see them regularly, why not just exchange phone numbers or e-mail addresses? I just don't understand why Facebook is needed to keep in contact with them.. unless you somehow feel it's necessary to always know what those distant acquaintances are eating for lunch at any given time.

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