The reality is that socializing on Facebook consists of posting memes and arguments. No one is closer together for it. Facebook doesn't meet it's promise (to the user, advertisers expectations I'm sure are met).
I tried with much effort to weed out memes and garbage content via the share feature. I'm interested in personal photos and status updates(not twitter-esque complaints). But I had little to no success.
Give me a "disable memes & politics" button and I'd probably be back that day.
Who else is tired of hearing that worthless piece of advice? I don't dislike these people. Most of them I even strongly agree with-morally and ethically for the most part. Some I even disagree with. But they also wouldn't be on my "friends list" if I didn't value them enough to see their life shares and posts (Oh man Johnny took some amazing pictures of his new house, his new job must really be going well, good for him.)
But holy cow how disposable do you view people to just up and remove them out of your life because of a disagreement (cue someone replying to this post with a morally furious statement about some nebulously defined out-group they personally despise and why disposing of friends is okay because $group is bad)? Never thought I'd see the day where I actually miss pictures of babies, cats and food.
And no, this isn't an appeal to my friends to be apolitical and just stop having beliefs. I'm just fatigued with being bombarded with other people's vociferation at something $group did.
Give me a "disable memes & politics" button and I'd probably be back that day
Co-signing this statement.
All our posting habits are up for criticism. And I'm not a fan of feeds that are entertainment or content consumption based. I just want to keep up with what's going on in my friend's lives and have the benefits of that network effect and their tools.
I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy. "Just get new friends" is definitely callow, but muting someone for a while on Facebook isn't the same as shutting them out of your whole life forever. I have a cousin I follow about half the time. He's usually positive and funny and I love to see what he's up to, but sometimes he gets on a really bitchy tangent about his job so I unfollow for a week or two while he and his flight-attendant friends talk about what inferior beings we passengers are. I'd never unfriend him, because I value the connection FB helps us maintain. Sometimes a bit of distance is part of maintaining the health of that relationship. Similarly, my "new friends" are often just humor/meme pages that help me get through my own difficult times. Curating my feed works. Telling people that it might work for them isn't at all the same as telling them to get new friends.
How disposable do you view people to just up and remove a connection to all of them because you don't want to take responsibility for your own experience on a site?
Maybe I've misunderstood what the implication was supposed to be-in lived experience when told "just get new friends" that suggestion very often stopped short of offering anything further like "use the snooze function" (which I'm already doing quite a bit) or other recommendations to better 'curate' the feed.
It very rarely feels like a recommendation to improve the experience and a call to action, instead to sever personal connections.
If your friends are putting it that way, then get new ... oh, wait. KIDDING!
But seriously, I'm sorry to hear that. IMO the "unfollow" button needs to be more prominent, and its significance more clearly explained e.g. by a rollover tip. I find it incredibly valuable. Groups are handy too. I have one that's basically everyone but my religious family members, for when I swear or get political myself, and I use it quite a bit.
I'd also like an "equalizer" to turn certain topics up or down, but that's a lot harder.
Because I know a site isn't the only way to connect with those individuals. I didn't really interact with them much on the site to begin with. Said site has other exterior issues attached to it such as tracking and potential employers invading my private life. Ultimately the site has little to nothing to offer for me.
It's not about viewing humans as disposable. It's viewing and understanding that a website is a thing and in itself it is disposable after it no longer fulfills a purpose.
Thank you for helping me illustrate the false dichotomy. The great-grandparent didn't seem to be allowing any space between full engagement and full disconnection. In reality, there are levels of connection. At my age I have family and friends scattered all over the world, some of them still moving to new cities every other year. I have friends from a ski club and a family camp who I will not see in person except during those respective seasons. Many others have similar networks. In terms of interactions per year with the entire set, "get new friends" and "leave Facebook" are in the exactly the same category. They're both ways of telling others to socialize less, to fit the speaker's own notions of right ways and wrong ways based on their own unique experience. I think that's presumptuous. Rather, I think we should help each other work with the tools we have to find something that works for our own individual circumstances. It's too bad other people are too doctrinaire to accept that.
I found curation of my FB feed was ineffective. Glad you've had luck though!
I’ve never de-friended anyone over a disagreement over particular policy but I have erased people from my life whose style of debate is just to shout personal insults at anyone who disagrees with them. There is unfortunately alot of that about these days. But I would still recommend it, you will be happier, and anyone who repeatedly called you “Nazi” or whatever at the drop of a hat probably didn’t take your friendship that seriously anyway.
Personally I'd prefer that to be two separate buttons, but otherwise I'm right with you. Some days, I really need those memes.
i'm still puzzled why there are entire domains that I am simply unable to block/hide, though. For example, I never ever want to see any content from en.nametests.com on my feed. Not now, not ever. Yet I am unable to block it or hide it. 100% of their content is useless surveys and "what block of cheese are you?" quizzes, which I have zero interest in.
At the same time, Facebook actually tagged a URL from npr.org as spam when I tried to share it.
My only regret is that some people choose to do funeral announcements and other types of events on Facebook, which I miss.
As imperfect as it it, group iMessages have replaced Facebook for me.
I have completely depopulated my feed and repopulated it selectively, and to get the effect I'm seeking, it usually means deleting pages from my list pages that I follow. There's no way to follow a page, but keep it away from your feed. Thus to discard a follow feels like a ban/forget/delete action.
To grasp what that means, you may wish to follow thousands of pages, but only permit two or three really good sources to supply your automatic home page feed. Then, browse your follow list and cherrypick based on mood.
But facebook doesn't work like that. A follow is a follow, and 1,000 follows results in a randomized firehouse that ignores the idea that you might feel like browsing one thing in the morning, and another in the evening.
The result: people hate their own feed, even though they might not hate any of the 1,000 follows.
Trying to curate one's feed has strange, unexpected effects. Facebook's behavior is non-deterministic. I have completely depopulated my feed and repopulated it selectively, and to get the effect I'm seeking, it usually means deleting pages from my list pages that I follow. There's no way to follow a page, but keep it away from your feed. Thus to discard a follow feels like a ban/forget/delete action. To grasp what that means, you may wish to follow thousands of pages, but only permit two or three really good sources to supply your automatic home page feed. Then, browse your follow list and cherrypick based on mood. But facebook doesn't work like that. A follow is a follow, and 1,000 follows results in a randomized firehouse that ignores the idea that you might feel like browsing one thing in the morning, and another in the evening. The result: people hate their own feed, even though they might not hate any of the 1,000 follows.
And they have the audacity to test out charging for groups.
The only reason I use Facebook: events.
I wish someone invented an alternative for it.
It's probably the main thing that keeps me from deleting my account entirely.