I just read an insight into what makes Facebook addictive: It's the fact that you don't know when you'll get correspondence or a response to a post, but it could happen at any time. I know that, in addition to clawing desperately at distractions from my job, I compulsively check to see if anyone liked what I said. That's my addiction.
At the same time, over the last couple days I've been "hiding" most of my Facebook friends. Partly because I realized that the things a lot of people say are contentious and make me sadder rather than happier, and who needs that? It's also because, with so many posts, I found myself thinking, "Wow. I am SO not interested." It turns out that unless someone has something funny to say or a video to post, I really don't need to know about it. It's interesting to learn that a dude from high school hosts a radio show or that some improv buddies are making it in L.A. But your work hours today? The fact that you hung out last night with a friend I don't know? The fact that the weekend is coming up? Good gosh, I have a calendar for that.
You know what makes me want to put a bullet in my head? Reading about what somebody just cooked and/or ate.
Says the girl who assaults your eyes with blog posts about her own internal minutiae. But at least I put some interesting big words in there.
Siderolite.
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4 comments:
That's how I feel about Nantucket Nectars bottle caps; only those can be more easily ignored.
Maybe status updates could have a mandatory waiting period like a handgun purchase. Instead of 24 hours, it would be ten minutes.
Imagine this: after you type a status update, Facebook holds the update for ten minutes. If you are still confident after ten minutes that there's even a single person on earth who cares about what you ate, you can click a big "Yes, I'm sure this is not utterly boring" button and your post will appear. If not, click "Never mind" and the status update will vanish and your friend's feeds will be that much less cluttered.
I just sign up the google bolg!
It's honored to meet you!
Awesome.
But isn't part of the addictiveness of FB the fact that our friends can embarrass themselves via implusive posts? The "waiting period" Ben suggests would diminish those odds--and make FB less seductive!
But surely you want to know what happened to me (and/or my child) AFTER I ate, right? :)
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