The delusion of Social Networks | Hacker News Reader

The delusion of Social Networks

12 pointssifarat8 comments

As an entrepreneur, who runs a logistics business, or for that matter, what you may call an 'offline business'. I have deleted my twitter/facebook/linkedin/Goolge+ accounts.

I was expecting, I am going to bankrupt or out of business. But 'surprisingly' nothing has happened.

I am not an old-fashioned guy, I am perhaps of the elite of 'early adopters' just to put emphasis. The kind of guy, who always keep OSX/iOS up to date, and would buy any App that appears here ;) just to summarize.

However to my astonishment, the old-fashioned way of getting things done and promoted is far more worthwhile than these stupid things. (social networks).

I am more able to put focus on my real job, and while still being better informed. There is no information overload. Previously even though I was following 100 blogs on twitter/facebook. But truth is, I would barely click any of the links. And I was being deluded, that since I am following all these cool websites, I will be better informed, and that information will help me somehow.

Now I have bookmarked few sites, and randomly check them 1 or 2 times a day. I get to read couple of articles too which are worth my time.

As for Social Networking, clearly Facebook is a failure, It's just a show off and you would never know if your friends are actually in good shape and conditions. Because everyone just would pretend, he is a billionaire and having the best ever time of their life. But sadly and mostly it's not true.

You can never know it, until you meet them in person or at least make a phone call, fuck skype too. I don't know but Skype does not convey true emotions for reasons unknown, Perhaps it's internet related service, and people still pretend the same way as the do on other internet services like Facebook.

Finally, I am feeling much better and relaxed and more focused on my work. end.

>As for Social Networking, clearly Facebook is a failure

It is hard not to dismiss your entire post as trolling, but I'll bite because I'm particularly curious about that sentence. If you're not trolling, I'd be curious to hear your definition of success and why Facebook so clearly misses that mark. I quit Facebook more than a year ago, but I'm not myopic enough to claim that a billion monthly active users spread across the globe from different social and economic backgrounds is a failure.

Handsdown Facebook is a massive monetary and startup success.

I was merely calling it a failure, to fail to deliver what it is known for. Social Networking. And it's just not facebook all other social networks. Hence the topic of this thread is named 'delusion of social networks'.

to be more precise, the facebook is no replacement to meeting in person somone, or calling over the phone.

He didn't say Facebook was a failure, he said it was a failure as a social network site, which is 100% true if you want social network to be a vehicle for genuine human connection (instead of superficial self-promotion).

Exactly.

> genuine human connection (instead of superficial self-promotion).

You can move the goal posts with that definition all you want, because it is incredibly difficult to define "genuine human connection" I personally know friends and family that found long lost childhood friends through it, and connected. I myself have made valued, genuine connections while on using it. That's just silly.

facebook is quite good for sharing family pictures with whoever wants to look (grandparents want to see grandkids).

It's also pretty good for keeping up with your children's school, provided they have a facebook page and update it with info about activities.

As you mentioned, there are better ways to keep up with your friends+family regarding specifics, but facebook is really good at things that can be broadcasted.

I work in technology, I am a geek who has worked for big companies and yet I don't use Facebook, I think is a waste of time. I realize that most people there are just self promoting, I use linked in which is more useful for me to make connections.

It depends on your industry and target market. There is no one size fit all.

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