Sunday 31 August 2008

Waste of Space Face Book

well I dunno. I CANT work this place out.And its probably a good thing, or I'd be on there all day by the looks.

I know a handful of people on there (and a handful of their friends, all seem really nice peeps.)

I logged in today cos I has something on email, (I use a defunct Hotmail addy, check it every few weeks. Use it for subs and comps and I'm not doing much of that now.)

And me, this unknown, has this list of unanswered things:

4 friend requests
5 group invites
I human gift request (huh?)
23 li’l green patch requests (double huh?)
4 funwall friend requests
4 smile requests
3 good karma requests
I historical figure request from Susan (who I still don’t know.)
I blog networds invite
2 pies for you requests
1 Monty Python gift request
I mirror blog invitation
I egg from Sharon
I coffee for you
2 super wall invites
1 flower from kate
I2 event invites
I buy your friends invite (huh?)
I own your friends invite (double huh?)
2 I am a writer invites
1 video request
1 smile from Susan request (I don’t even KNOW this person)
I good karma from Susan request (this woman is cuckoo)
1 ireadit invite
1 titaniawrites invite (ah! Someone I KNOW!!)
I vampires request (as if…)
I scramble invitation
2 retro sweets invite
1 Playboy girls for you invite (Susan again!)
1 Have you ever… request (Susan needs wiping out)
3 likeness quizzes (all from Susan, who ought to be locked up…)
1 egg from guess who (Susan!! Wheee!)
1 hatching egg from Kate
I rearranging words invite
1 artistic v scientific invite.



Well it may be the most wonderful invention since the suspender belt, but I just don't get it.

What is all this stuff FOR????

WHO the hell is Susan????

Why do I want or need all this rubbish?????

Why not just email me, huh???

I have cancelled my account.

8 comments:

Douglas Bruton said...

All huh? and double huh? to me... but then I need my teenage son to help me navigate the information highway that is the web.

have just put up a greenhouse... took me three months... I have two degrees, and one of them is in English and philosophy (! you try reading Wittgenstein and Russell) and the greenhouse instructions took some serious interpretation to unpick 'em... and I just wonder how less skilled readers make a way in the world...

Maybe the web-generation are just better atuned to the web speak we don't understand...

Maybe I am just not as smart as I think I must be!!

D

Jim Murdoch said...

I don't get it either. I have my account stripped down to basics but all I ever do is check out the Beckett and Brautigan groups about once a week - there's not much activity on them. So little significant goes on there. At least a comment like this communicates at a level I'm comfortable with.

Or I could just provide a 'Status Update' on Feedbook: Jim is reading his feeds and watching Dexter right now.

Vanessa Gebbie said...

It's insideous. Maybe saddo teens, who haven't grown up with real people, easier with screens, can get something from it. But full people, mature, ... wasting their time doing.... what exactly?

sending each other and people they dont even know, requests and invites, who looks like who, have an egg, play this, play that... it is so MINDLESS.

There is a LIFE out there. Books to read. People to talk to. Real friends, not pictures.

This thing and others like it have changed a generation. Lowered a horizon. Thickened a skin. Burned out a few cells.

Well they ain't changing me. Call me what you like. Old, out of touch.... know summat?

I;m GLAD I'm out of touch if THIS is what being in touch means.

(I'm shouting!)

Vanessa Gebbie said...

D

I am pixillated that you put up a greenhouse.

English and Philosophy is very useful for greenhouses, I hear. Wittgenstein had a lovely double-fronted one in the arbour.

I feel old, washed up, but more than that, I feel sad that the hours of life wasted each day on these sites could be spent enriching lives, growing, helping, teaching (...don't say it) moving forward. Not growing the 'duh' ratings.

It seemed fine when it was just the odd natter. When networking meant something useful, meaningful. When it brought people together for a purpose.

What is the purpose of all this crap? Games for the sake of games. Tat for the sake of tat.

Sermon over.

Sarah Hilary said...

Ha! I had exactly the same reaction! I signed up, got a ton of nonsense streaming in, clogging up my in-box and promptly cancelled my account. Good move, V!

Tania Hershman said...

It's all crazy, but once you wade through all the rubbish and ignore the Smile invites and Good Karma requests, it is a useful tool, I have found, to connect with other writers and new publications, and - of course! - to publicise yourself. My Short Review Fecbook group has over 200 members that I can mail directly, and I am hoping to generate a few book sales from my new White Road and Other Stories Facebook page. As with everything in this life, it takes a while to see how it could work for you.

Frankly, without Wordscraper (Scrabble-ish game), my day would be far duller!

Vanessa Gebbie said...

Of course, T... it is simply the time taken to do all that 'wading'. I know there are a huge number of people who don't mind spending the time, and I know there are fun things to do.

I 'do' mind spending the time, is all...it seems set up to draw you in, make you fathom it out. Like a supermarket, making you engage with products you never intended to buy but suddenly they are in the trolley....

But if you can be disciplined and only use it for certain things, and dont mind wading through the crap to get there, then fine. But I was reading in the paper only this week how theres finally a huge drop off in use because people are realising how addictive it can all become, and in the end, how thin the real value is.

Elizabeth Baines said...

Actually I know young, computer-savvy people who won't touch it, because the whole thing is really a market research exercise and all of your transactions get sold to market researchers and big companies - and when you leave you can't actually erase your details. (There has been a court case about it, I think, but I haven't followed what happened.)

That said, I still use it for the reason outlined by Tania - I'm just v careful what I say about myself on there!