This article definitely caught my eye because I had noticed the Facebook changes only an hour or so earlier. When I logged on, I saw that someone's status was complaining about the changes, and I liked the status. The writer of this article, however, is suggesting that we should be reminded that Facebook must be controlling us if people really care that much. One of his friends, he says, is now refusing to use Facebook.
To be honest, I think the article is a bit of an overreaction. Unless I'm mistaken, most people who complain about Facebook are just a little annoyed, and their statuses don't really mean anything. After all, they're probably logged onto Facebook when they write their statuses, so it makes sense that that's what they'd write about. This article says, "When we give a single company — whether it's Facebook or Twitter or Google — so much control over how we communicate with others, we're giving up an awful lot." Personally, I think this is a bit silly. Almost everyone I know has a Facebook, and no one I know is completely controlled by it. I don't know who the article is targetting, but I doubt it's going to get through to many people. If it wants people to spend less time on it, it doesn't have a very strong argument, except that the Facebook changes are upsetting people, which hardly seems like an argument to me. However, the article does predict that its users aren't going anywhere, so perhaps the article is just a prediction, not really wanting people to change their habits.
See Article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/blogs/the_angle/2011/09/facebook_change.html
Facebook really is an addiction. The Facebook addict gets a small burst of DA whenever they update their status or poke someone. Just because they change the interface doesn't mean that anything changes. If Zuckerberg is bothering to change the interface, than that means using for the addicts will become a whole lot simpler. Zuckerberg planned this; he will get more money from advertising.
ReplyDeleteI hate facebook, but I do still have an account. I go on "real quick" to check out my wall....Some thirty odd minutes later, I'm creeping through someone's pictures who I do not know, and wonder where the time has gone and how I got there in the first place. It's such a waste of time! Even though I hate it, I still use it. Like Jim said, It's an addiction. It's scary that it has so much power over us. We could being using our time much more productively, and yet we waste it all in cyber space. It's a "social" network, which is ironic because it's making me anything but social.
ReplyDeleteMikaela I do the same exact thing. I feel wicked stalkerish, but it happens all the time. Facebook is an addiction for sure, but I think I could give it up no problem.
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