Sadly, my experiment proved a bit of a damp squib, but after 5 months of hardly using my FB account, coupled with the latest privacy debacle, I thought now was as good a time as any to throw in the towel.
I can’t even say it was fun while it lasted.
On reflection, FB didn’t kill me, but I didn’t like it either. I didn’t like the way it had clearly rooted through previous acquaintance’s address books as there were friend suggestions by the dozen from people I used to be in touch (via an Hotmail account I’ve not used since 2004!!).
Facebook proved naggy, often irrelevant and was a UI disaster in my opinion, appearing far to cluttered and overly busy. It was only when I came to deactivate my account that I realised just how evil and tenacious the Facebook tendrils truly were.
At least three separate warnings popped up trying to guilt trip me into not quitting, saying repeatedly how I wouldn’t be able keep in touch with all of my contacts (what, all 6 of them?) if I de-activated my account. The final screen displaying the profile picture of 3 contacts (Andro, Travis and Oliver Smith) saying how each of them would ‘miss me’, had little effect of dissuading me, I’m afraid. But the manipulative effect wasn’t lost on me. BTW, it’s nothing personal, guys. Besides, I follow you all on Twitter anyway – where I am a least a touch more active.
So yeah, it’s all over. I can go back to being a regular Facebook hater from now on.
Thank God for that!
i hate twitter, you hate facebook... i guess we all have to hate one of these social somethings!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering why my friend count appeared to be a lot less than usual. I blame you Michael :P
ReplyDeleteLAL: Yeah, I guess so. I feel so much better now I'm back to being a regular facebook hater though!
ReplyDeletePooni: I might be a small part of the problem, but that's all! Maybe you're 'poking' you FB buddies too often? :p
The Oliver Smith Facebook account is now pretty much irrelevant since the Pseudonym has now died (not that I used that Facebook Account often)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think you just had a particularly horrible time to come into Facebook. Even XKCD's started to make jokes about Facebook being evil now.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of social networking - what has happened with the new iPlayer beta UI? I don't really want to show Facebook and Twitter how much I watch Top Gear repeats (I'd be embarrassed).
Great question... I saw the plans for a pimped-up version of iPlayer last week and immediately felt it was a bad idea. I guess they're going for a scattergun approach and playing to those who like to discuss a show in real time though I'm not sure those type of people are worth pandering to tbh.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen any screenshots yet but it was pretty cluttered as it was.
And I'm pretty sure my twitter followers couldn't give a fat rats about what I've just watched on iplayer (not that my internet connection is fast enough to stream content on there :-( ). That said, I *do* download shows at work for the iplayer desktop version and bring back to watch :-) !) Curiously, 4OD streams OK for the most part.
But yeah, bad move for iplayer. Hopefully you'll be able to turn that kind of social networking functionality off in later builds?
You were doing it wrong, Michael! :P
ReplyDelete