On the subject of Facebook by Dimafleck

[geomouse]

Facebook WILL undoubtedly be phased out by a newer version of itself. That just seems inevitable. Your iphone is connected to your facebook. Your facebook is connected to your headbone, your headbone is connected to your ego...and so on and so on and so on...I'm not in it, on it or anywhere around it

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

you guys are all dinosaurs.

its not about talking to people you know from 10 years ago...

its not about never wanting to talk to people from years ago.

by equating your arguement to a library card, your claim would be that owning a library card is futile because there is no possible way that you would read all those books. The power of a library card lies in its ability to allow access to a huge amount of knowledge. How effectively you utilize its potential is up to you, not to the card itself. Same goes to this medium. Sure there is no possible way to have 200+ close friends, but is that the point??? The power in facebook is its ability to put you in instant contact with people with in your social netowrk and the networks around them.

Edited August 4, 2007 by Guest

[bagochips]

The difference is that the library is full of books worth reading.

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

whatever old man....and "talkies" will never make it in hollywood.

[bagochips]

No offense meant, I'm just not convinced it's going to revolutionize our culture.

This is a paper your writing for school?

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

it already has revolutionized our culture.

[geomouse]

I don't disagree about it being a large part of the industrialized network/culture. Some people just choose not to utilize this tool. I don't believe it has revolutionized social networking to the degree you indicate. What value is their in having countless cyber 'friends'? I need some help moving in a couple of weeks. I wonder how many plastic pop-up friends I can get to come lift some shit...

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

if you just don't get it, you're already behind.

[geomouse]

Dang it. I'm never going to cache you guys

[d_rawk]

How many invites have you received from people who you didn't or want to talk to 11 years ago?

I would say at least 10 to 20% in my case.

Facebook is great, but this is one of the main reasons I won't join (as 'myself'). If I haven't talked to you in 10 years, I probably don't want to. It is the same reason that if I go back to my hometown to visit my folks, I can't stand the idea of going out anywhere public. Catching up with people you were never very interested in in the first place sucks.

Anyways, Dima, it seems like what you are celebrating is the more general package of good that social-networking sites bring to the table. Facebook is poised to keep up its dominance in that area for awhile (in non-niche markets), but Facebook ain't nothing but the most popular implementation of the day, which changes damn quick.

Everyone laughed at Zuckerburg for turning down the $750 million offer and holding out for $2 billion, but in the end he will prove them wrong .. if he makes the right move at the right time. Rumours are circulating about bids creeping up on the $6 billion mark, but you've got sexier offerings like virb out there and look at myspace - ugly pain in the ass that it is, the wisdom was that it would have the market cornered for a long while yet. What did Murdoch get for his $580 million? A bunch of emo kids, some bad design, and a userbase that is migrating to the "new thing".

(You may or may not be interested in the April, 2006 jambands.ca thread "Why MySpace is a Waste of Humanity" - aka. A Scientific Approach to Myspace’s Failure)

This shit is fickle, and what matters is where the cool kids are. And the cool kids don't stay on facebook once facebook isn't the exclusive domain of the cool. Same reason they left myspace for facebook in the first place. UI and usability is always going to be second place to style and hip. Remember friendster.com?

It is a game of chess now, and what matters isn't the underlying technology or platform so much - as those can, and have been, so easily duplicated - but the moves each player makes. Facebook positioned itself nicely by making itself exclusive to college students, and presenting itself as a refuge from the masses. Once you open the refuge up to those same masses, some of the shiny luster begins to wear off your packaging. Did they do it to early? Too late? Are they so entrenched that they can't be shaken out, or are they vulnerable? It depends only on who moves their pawns where.

The sites that you frequent is the new music that you listen to is the new company that you keep.

Facebook is a unique, powerful and pervasive form of communicating.

This is patently and demonstrably false.

Facebook may survive into the future by making itself transparent, and becoming the mechanism by which social transactions are made, regardless of the overarching branding, rather than the website you go to to make those transactions. Someone is going to become the Google of this technology, and the rest are going to be the Lycos, Altavista, Hotbot, Webcrawler, Yahoos. Facebook could be that Google, but it can't be it by replicating Google's approach. It can't be the brand, it needs to become the technology.

Good job on opening up an API and shifting to marketing themselves as a virtual OS and on the acquisition of Parakey, though, which should all go towards buying Zuckerburg and co. some time on top. But they need to sell sometime, and whomever pays that multi-billion dollar bill is going to start looking for a way to make some money off the purchase. That'll change things.

I agree with your general premise, FWIW, re: the broader trend, particularly the confluence between personal influence and the tools wielded to that affect. And I think you were aiming at the 'network' in that more abstract sense, so this is all minutia .. cause I'm bored .. I guess ..

[shainhouse]

I love facebook.. great promotional medium

[Blane]

Sure there is no possible way to have 200+ close friends, but is that the point??? The power in facebook is its ability to put you in instant contact with people with in your social netowrk and the networks around them.

I'd say you're wrong here. Don't telephones and email allow those things? In fact, facebook has made me lazy about maintaining MEANINGFUL contact with people I'm connected do on facebook. You may have 50 or 250 friends on facebook but how many do you regularly exchange something more than a couple of words with? To me it's little more than a personal broadcast mechanism that creates a false sense of being in touch with people.

I got onto the thing thinking it would be a good way to stay in touch with people when overseas, but short of being able to put photos and notes online easily, it has actually made me send email updates to friends and family less regularly.

anyway, in a year when it has gone the way of friendster and classmates.com you can laugh at yourself for having thought it was the new telephone.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Guest

[Davey Boy 2.0]

personally i thought this site went to shit after the first fifty people joined

Edited August 6, 2007 by Guest
no offence to you newbs

[LXQ42]

I'm not on it. I think Facebook is stupid.

[Birdy]

How is it stupid?

I can understand not wanting to reconnect with every person in your graduating class, but life has a funny way of letting true friends grow apart for a variety of reasons, other than simply not liking them... circumstances change and facebook and other social networking outlets provide an opportunity to reconnect with people that you would want to, and people who without these social networks, you wouldn't think twice about emailing or calling. Over myspace, i like the degree of privacy that facebook offers... a person has to be an approved friend to actually see what you have on a profile... i'd say that myspace is more a "shrine to oneself" than facebook with all the web graphics, blogs and lengthy personal bios. i only wish facebook would stop adding eight trillion ridiculous applications or whatever they call them.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

anyway, in a year when it has gone the way of friendster and classmates.com you can laugh at yourself for having thought it was the new telephone.

Favourite sentence of this thread.

Internet forums are, once you take into account the 5 billion-plus people on this mudball, pretty silly things - at least, in terms of taking too seriously as social forces (only what people actually do becomes socially forceful, not the infrastructures through which they act - people can do fantastic things when they really want to given only the most limited resources). I've been off this board here for a couple of weeks, and have found myself, as circumstance would have it, running into folks from here anyway whose company I altogether enjoy, without the medium having been necessary for it (and for another thing, I haven't posted anything drunk that might catch up with me later). That's here, though; I've poked into facebook in this time too, though, but given the complete lack of anonymity there, I've made a point of not putting anything there that I wouldn't say to, say, my family, or in front of any of my classes (I've had a few students listed on as friends there, which helps remind me to be more discrete than, well, I've been here over the years). It's a bit like what good sociologists understand about polls - people will only give polls the information they feel safe in giving, or inclined to want to give; their reality may be something totally different.

Dimafleck, if you're looking for something that's going to change the world, I doubt it's going to be one computer application; you might want to temper the language you use in the reflection (especially if you're submitting it for academic scrutiny).

I wonder if it's not handier to think in terms of the lowest common denominator. Beta kicked VHS ass as a technology, but VHS won because it was the medium of choice in the porn industry, where all the money was (or is). Maybe that's a good angle for a paper, come to think of it. Facebook seems relatively puritanical, as far as internet media go....

[The Chameleon]

I will never personally be on Facebook. It is waaay to narcissistic for me. In Facebook the entire currency is people and their gossip or stories and how they know people...

I need no part of that... I'd rather meet people in th real world.

Not to mention if I were a girl it would be a huge liability as Facebook is basically a stalkers best friend.

[MamaPink]

I need no part of that... I'd rather meet people in th real world.

Can't say I have ever met anyone on facebook... but I have met LOTS of people on this site. Great people, infact. Hmm... wonder what that means.

I love facebook though... especially for stuff like this:

[Blane]

According to Danah Boyd, Dimafleck likes Facebook because he's a part of the hegemonic middle-class youth that gravitate towards it.

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

////

The look and feel of MySpace resonates far better with subaltern communities than it does with the upwardly mobile hegemonic teens. This is even clear in the blogosphere where people talk about how gauche MySpace is while commending Facebook on its aesthetics. I'm sure that a visual analyst would be able to explain how classed aesthetics are, but aesthetics are more than simply the "eye of the beholder" - they are culturally narrated and replicated. That "clean" or "modern" look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I'm drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year. I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook.

Good commentary on the article This is definately a more clearly articulated interpretation of what the first article was trying to say. Both worth reading IMO.

and yes, I'm off to post this to my facebook now.

Edited August 8, 2007 by Guest

[Birdy]

I will never personally be on Facebook. It is waaay to narcissistic for me. In Facebook the entire currency is people and their gossip or stories and how they know people...

This is quite the loaded statement for someone who 'will never personally be on facebook'.

[The Chameleon]

I will never personally be on Facebook. It is waaay to narcissistic for me. In Facebook the entire currency is people and their gossip or stories and how they know people...

This is quite the loaded statement for someone who 'will never personally be on facebook'.

How so? Just because I don't personally use Facebook does not mean I have not seen it in action and know many people that do use it. I am aware of it's basic premise and operation.

Either case it's creepy and not for me. But if you love it, keep on it.

[andru.]

Dima, that is some boring shit. Yeah whatever, nice writing. Kiss my ass. The information (minus the references) is so on the surface and on the tip of the dumbest human's tongue. So uninteresting and difficult to read. By difficult I mean, so boring again. Quit hiding in your basement and make me a Philly; something you're good at.

[Birdy]

I will never personally be on Facebook. It is waaay to narcissistic for me. In Facebook the entire currency is people and their gossip or stories and how they know people...

This is quite the loaded statement for someone who 'will never personally be on facebook'.

How so? Just because I don't personally use Facebook does not mean I have not seen it in action and know many people that do use it. I am aware of it's basic premise and operation.

Either case it's creepy and not for me. But if you love it' date=' keep on it. [/quote']

I don't love it, but i like how it lets me keep in touch with people. While I won't rule out gossip and stories and all of that, I wouldn't say it's all about that either. Mine isn't.

[bagochips]

I just found a great new use for this revolutionary medium!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6935768.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 8 August 2007, 11:10 GMT 12:10 UK

E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Seeking 'thinspiration'

Social networker

By Jacqueline Head

BBC News

Pro-anorexia websites offering tips on extreme dieting are nothing new, but their growth on social networking sites is a disturbing new twist and brings them within reach of a wider audience.

As a conversation opener, it's as blatant as it is troubling.

"What diet pills work best?" a young female user of a social networking site asks. The responses begin to trickle through from other members of the group which is an online meeting place for those people with anorexia.

"They're all rubbish," says one, before another chips in with her favourite brand, which she says works well with "restricting" and "exercising". It could lose you seven pounds, she surmises.

Another user asks for good tips "for when the hunger kicks in", a request met with a slew of suggestions.

One of the groups on Facebook

One of the Facebook groups

The popularity of social networking websites has opened up a whole new world of interaction, but with it, darker trends are emerging. Groups which appear to extol grave eating disorders as a glamorous lifestyle choice are appearing on sites which claim tens of millions of active users.

Members of such groups post pictures of painfully skinny girls for "thinspiration", compare dangerously low goal weights and measurements, and team up to "keep each other strong" in their quest to lose weight.

They swap stories on how they vomit until they cough blood, are often too weak to get out of bed and how they're scared family or friends will find out and force them into recovery.

Moderated content

Such groups are known as "pro-ana" and "pro-mia" - that's pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia.

Their existence on the net is nothing new. But their presence on social networking websites, which have rules against posting harmful content, raises the groups to a new respectability.

Previously, people on such internet groups remained relatively anonymous, and the groups, being small, were sometimes hard to find. But on some social networking sites, users have real names and faces, and are more accessible than before.

Such groups can be found on many social networking sites, including the biggest:

One of the groups on MySpace

One of the MySpace groups

• MySpace includes groups such as Pro Ana Nation (with more than 1,000 members) which states, under its rules, "no people trying to recover, it ruins our motivation"; and Pro Extreme Dieting, which states: "we are here to support each other in our choices, even if they are to recover, or try to put on, or lose weight"

• Facebook includes groups such as "Get thin or die trying", "Yes, I have an eating disorder. No, it's not your problem" and "Quod me nutrit me destruit" which translates as "what nourishes me destroys me"

While the groups are dominated by American users, they include many from the UK.

Joining one "pro-ana" group can lead you to five more, and so on, opening up a world that, while posing as a means of support, more often tends to glamorise and advocate illnesses that can cause infertility, heart disease and death.

Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness. Beat, the UK's Eating Disorder Association estimates that up to 20% of those who become seriously affected can die prematurely, and are at particularly high risk of suicide.

Wasting away

Andrea Schneider, a 21-year-old from Columbia, Missouri, has struggled with anorexia since she was 16. In the past 18 months she says she has been admitted to hospital 15 times and had six feeding tubes.

'Thinner is the winner', that's a quote that we live by

Andrea Schneider

She used to log on to these groups to seek justification for what she was doing.

"When you are actively in your eating disorder, you desperately want someone to understand, and a lot of time you find groups like the pro groups on Facebook that are supportive of you continuing your eating disorder," she says.

"When you are in the middle of it and don't want to give it up, you cling to these sites that tell you what you are doing is OK. Recovery is hard, staying sick isn't, so it's easier to hide behind these sites claiming that you are making a lifestyle choice, rather than admitting that you are sick and trying to get better."

Recipe for anorexia on Facebook

As posted on Facebook

Many girls in these groups, aged from about 15 to 30, claim their goal weight is below seven stone (45kg), and for some it is as low as five stone (32kg).

"We always want to be the thinnest," Andrea says. "'Thinner is the winner', that's a quote that we live by."

"You will see girls talk on these sites about hitting their goal weight, but no matter what they say, their goal weight is never going to be low enough."

Emma, a 17-year-old from New York who still uses these groups, also believes they fuel anorexia.

"Hearing girls your weight or smaller say they are fat makes you feel worthless. Ana tips can push you to take it too far and thinspirational pictures give you an unattainable goal."

Never alone

Dr John Morgan, a consultant psychiatrist St George's University Hospital, London, who specialises in eating disorders, says these groups run the risk of glamorising unhealthy behaviour.

Young woman with an eating disorder

I have had some patients who have gone on pro ana websites and then gone on to seek treatment

Dr John Morgan

"It's become a lot more interactive, which is more worrying. It much more rapidly reinforces the negative views these people have of themselves and provides an instant response to what they're looking for."

But the impact of these groups is not entirely negative - and if properly regulated, they can be used for positive means. He says they can mirror group therapy, an important part of treatment, and help draw people out of their isolation.

"I have had some patients who have gone on pro-ana websites and then gone on to seek treatment," he says. "It's very daunting, and just having someone to hold your hand and explain the process can make a big difference."

Susan Ringwood, Beat's chief executive, says an eating disorder is a serious mental illness, not a fad, phase or lifestyle choice.

"The sooner someone gets the help they need, the more likely they are to make a full recovery - yet some aspects of the pro-ana world deliberately try to encourage people to avoid treatment.

"But it is a complex issue, because what people who use these social networks often say is that they find an acceptance and sense of belonging that they don't get anywhere else. At Beat, we want to change the way we all think and talk about eating disorders, and that means showing we can provide that acceptance and understanding, so that a pro ana group isn't the only refuge there is."

Fellow feeling

Anastasia, a 19-year-old student in London, suffers from anorexia and bulimia and uses social networking groups for support.

I joined groups to get ana tips and to have a place to share my feelings, rather than judged

Emma

"People around me support me, but I can't tell them everything. In these groups I can ask questions and talk about how I feel to people I know went through the same issues and feelings."

For Emma, social networking sites are her only option for support.

"I would be found out if pro-ana sites showed up on the history of my computer. These groups really connect girls from all over and create true friendships. I myself originally set up my fake account and joined groups to get ana tips and to have a place to share my feelings and be understood, rather than judged."

A spokesman for MySpace says it can be "very tricky" to distinguish between support groups for users who are suffering from eating disorders, and groups that might be termed as pro anorexia or bulimia.

"Rather than censor these groups, we are working to create partnerships with organisations that provide resources and advice to people suffering from such problems, and we will target those groups with messages of support."

Facebook failed to respond to our questions.

[NewRider]

Man, Facebookin' has not done a THING to keep my ass thin!