AdumbroDeus said:
DracoSuave said:
One sign of becoming old and uncool and no longer 'hip' is threads like this.
Just sayin'
Somehow I doubt most of the posters in this thread were ever "cool".
There's two groups here.
1. People who are too old and are therefore married to traditional methods of social networking.
2. People who simply aren't social and don't see a point.
I'd have to agree with this post. I can't really think of exceptions to this, apart from a potential third group of hipster-type people who perhaps don't use it because everyone else uses it.
Other than that, I can only think of potential cultural differences as being the cause for the phenomenon of someone not using Facebook. For example, perhaps it's a predominantly British thing to do, and that's why I can't understand many posters' attitudes. However, it's quite possible that this theory has absolutely no substance whatsoever, and that it's far more localised perhaps to age groups in single towns/regions or even single friendship groups.
To the person that mentioned they have a weekly BBQ (or similar) to meet up with friends, I also have a similar arrangement with my group of friends where we always go to a certain club on a certain day every week. However, the logistics of meeting up (including where we're meeting up to predrink and indeed who is actually going) are pretty much all sorted out through Facebook. Without it, I can't even think about how we could arrange such a thing at the short notice that we usually do (perhaps the afternoon just hours before meeting up). The plans for each week were almost always slightly different, as people had work or were ill, or had to get a taxi or bus and thus needed to plan for that and work out where they needed to be and when so they could arrange the timing of dinner followed by going to the supermarket for drinks.
Apart from mass-texting (expensive for those not on mobile contracts, and obviously slower than typing) or trying to arrange something in advance in person (difficult as attendance to lectures was usually nowhere near 100%), I can't think of a better way than Facebook (where we are all in a group and can join group chat at our leisure to talk to one another, without anyone needing to be invited as with MSN and other chat programs).
Facebook certainly makes it easier to socialise. I don't know whether this fact cheapens that socialising in any way, but it doesn't matter to me because before I used the site, I basically didn't get a chance to do any at all, and was left out of most events and meetups. Also, Facebook is an easy way to share news or web links that we know people might be interested in (usually posted to our group wall rather than our public wall, to localise who can see it).
With all that said, however, I do understand that it takes a group of friends all having Facebook to make all this great stuff possible. If a majority do not have it, and instead use (what I personally perceive to be) inferior methods of communication, then the system becomes kind of pointless (as one of the major advantages is ability to communicate with everyone at once). The fact that everyone I know uses it is likely the reason that I can take advantage of so many of the features of the site.
In addition I recognise that many people spam their feeds with a large amount of useless drivel (likely many of those quoted in the original source), though I suspect this is more a problem with the person than with Facebook itself. I should also emphasise that Facebook should not replace face-to-face socialising. It is, more than anything else, a tool to assist in realising plans to meet IRL. It is a tool to assist in one's social life, not to replace it. Perhaps many of these girls do not understand this fact.
Unless this place counts. Which it doesn't right? Totally cool... that is so awesome that I can type and affect the the universe, through my effect on all 4 fundamental forces, WITHOUT EXISTING! I am the most awesome person who does not exist...
