Yet another FaceBook annoyance

[muck_a_luck]

My brother made me join FaceBook back in the fall. And because of FaceBook I have reconnected with and am in regular contact with several people from my past and from my family and I am thrilled about that.

However, overall, I think the FaceBook experience has been a negative one, especially compared to my LJ experience, which has been 98% positive.

I think the difference is, on LJ I have selectively made friends with a group of people mostly by my own choice, or because they found me by their choice. These people are friends by reason of common interests in the world and shared interest in each other. In many ways, although you all live in my computer, you are actually my friends.

Juxtaposing this to FB, where quite a lot of people there are people who life threw me together with. Reconstructing high school, as it were. Who knew that would be a bad idea.

Though today's gripe is actually about a more recent RL acquaintance who posted a photograph that keeps popping up on my "Home" page and inflicting itself on me over and over and over again til I want to stab myself, or better yet HER, in the eye.

Ah. The joys of virtual existance.

Possibly should click a few more X's on my Home page (as I cannot figure out how the HELL to unfriend people on stupid FB).

Comments

[catzslave.livejournal.com]

I hesitated a long time before joining FB for similar reasons. I have friended (and been friended back) by "strangers" that have more in common with my interests and make for better reading than my RL friends/co-workers sometimes. And LJ is a lot less upsetting if you unfriend someone while if you unfriend/block FB friends they'd pick up the phone and want to know why. (There's some people I'd love to unfriend/block on FB but they'd flip on my head if I did. For now I just ignore them. o_O; )

LJ is cooler and FB is overrated in my opinion.

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, I have stopped accepting friend requests from people I don't remember from high school. I mean, their names sound vaguely familiar, but I'm pretty sure they are only friending me because they noticed me on some other person's friends. One person I would be *delighted* to unfriend, if only I could figure out how. What a snot. But ignoring is working OK for the people I didn't think to ignore the first time 'round. But yeah, there are people I failed to ignore who now I would feel bad unfriending. I don't hate them, I just find them irrelevant.

I'm not going to label anything cooler or less cool. I think it's more a reflection of how I use my "virtual networks" and what I want from them. I'm sure there are plenty of people who want what FaceBook offers. What I *really* wish is that I could get the people I care about in RL to come to LJ, but that isn't happening. Alas.

[fearandloathing.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the FB issues.
I was thinking about the whole idea of FB and how sometimes when people come and go from your life, their absence can sometimes be just as relevant as their former presence, and that re-connecting with some people might not be the best thing.
Somehow it seems it might take away the poignancy of their "there" and then "not-there" status. I don't know.. do I sound crazy? Sometimes... when someone fades into the distance, and their abscence is felt over years' time, there is a weight about it that adds to the weight of experience and memory, and it seems that re-connecting with someone that perhaps you had a significant friendship or even relationship to have a superficial connection with feels strange to me..
but I dunno... again... not sure if I am making sense here.

FB to me seems to promote a superficial sense of what it means to be connected to someone, and creates a sense of connection that is pretty much a facade.

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

That's why my facebook is utterly fake. I don't want to talk to anyone from my past. Uh, I think just go to the friends section and it will have a remove function? I can't look right now.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

The unfriending button is kind of rather buried, innit?

[alpha-strike.livejournal.com]

I've spent years ditching my "friends" from high school. I'm not certain I'd want to reconnect with any of them, let alone the ones likely to seek me out. I don't use my real name online, and I'm always delighted when an ego search on Google only reveals that I live somewhere in Northumbria.

I feel your pain.