I don't do FB. The problem is, at least the community here at campus seems so saturated with it that about every interaction I have with new people begins with inquiry about it or some other social media thing.
I decide to look into some new club or political group or about anything? Primary communication method: FB. This monopoly over our communication they have, I think it sucks for non-users.
edit.addendum. I realized monopoly is poor choice of word because it is not total: Instagram and Snapchat and whatever is the social media thing du jour exist. However, as alternatives they are quite similar. I wonder how young adults used to socialise, say, a decade or two ago?
Two decades ago we went to parties at people's apartments or houses. We also met at a few different diners and bars where you could wander in and run into someone you knew, or wait till someone you knew showed up. We ran into each other walking across campus -- there was no "distance learning" in the mid-80s (to speak of, anyway). We went in big groups to movies and concerts.
People in these sort of shifting sub-groups would split off or join new sub-groups as they were introduced by and to others in the larger social scene. It was quite interesting, actually. I met people from very different backgrounds and with very different interests than mine, which made the world a much bigger place.
And somehow this math and science geek ended up with a history and Russian degree, friends who make movies in Hollywood and have active roles on TV, a publisher, a bunch of artists who do their thing quietly, homemakers, lawyers, social workers, professors, and a guy who helped discover new elements with the Russians and works at Lawrence Livermore. Do all of them know each other? No, but a bunch of them do.
I had a facebook account for about a month six or seven years ago but quickly deleted it. I don't stay in touch with all these people still, but at least two dozen of them would open their home to me if I showed up on their doorstep. When I got divorced 10 years ago, I got some phone numbers and called a few of them. One even asked if I needed money(!) since the divorce led to bankruptcy, foreclosure, and lots of bad poems.
I honestly feel sorry for my daughter's generation (she's 27) because I see the reality of her social life and it's pathetic compared to mine - and I'm basically socially inept.
In sum, f* facebook and all the others. They contribute nothing of value compared to real interaction with real people in real places.
This is funny to me because all I did last summer was meet new and interesting people. I didn't follow the news at all, no TV, no movies; my entire life was meeting new people and living in the moment.
And I used Facebook a dozen times a day, to add new friends and message them. But I never looked at my news feed.
I love Facebook and technology. What makes me sad is American culture. If we were taught critical thinking and better philosophy, maybe Facebook would look different.
Your experience is exactly like mine was 10 years ago, but ... we didn't have facebook. We had icq, then AIM, and SMS. We could call each other. We went to hang out places and lived solidly in the moment. People were also in constant contact, but maybe spent a bit more time in their thoughts or reading books and magazines than they do now.
IMO nothing has changed except now we have someone trying to convince the world that all communication should go through them. We are human... the talking ape. There isn't anything more basic than communication. Why should we send it through one company? What's impressive is how easily people accept this; they think you're an alien if you say you don't use facebook services. Maybe that's what you mean by philosophy. We need to develop our social immune system or we will be overrun by these robber barons.
I recently found a newsfeed eradicator extension that hides the newsfeed whenever you visit Facebook but still let's you check groups, message, and see notifications. I've found it to be a pretty happy balance between continuing to use facebook as a communication tool and not letting it suck me in time-wise.
I was at university in the 90's (before people had cell phones). It sucked - you would put physical flyers up for events (which was kind of ok, but you had no idea who was turning up, or of any questions), and to meet people you had to arrange it 24 hours in advance, and if they weren't there (because of transport or whatever) you'd have to wait until that evening to call their landline.
It was dreadful, and people who complain about social media have no idea how much simpler things are now.
No one is saying that internet communication is bad. The application to describe is not "social media", it's using tools designed as social media services as organizational software.
I think it's interesting that despite Facebook being vastly uncool, it still fundamentally meets its original need, which is socialising in a university environment.
I'm in college and Messenger has pretty much replaced texting unless it's something urgent/an emergency. I've recently made friends with some people (a few weeks) and I still don't know their number. I just talk to them on Messenger. It's honestly an interesting shift.
> You are receiving this email because you recently registered for Facebook
...received in May 2006, at the end of my second year of university. A friend had been bugging everyone to sign up, but he was one of the less social/outgoing people, so this is months after Facebook was available at that university.
In November "Alternative Music Society" created a Facebook group — this was the people I spent the most time socialising with. Typically, someone would be organised and would have found an interesting gig, and perhaps negotiated discounted entry, either by phone or email to the gig promoter. They'd let everyone know using a university mailing list, which every club or society was given — joining a fairly casual society like AMS was basically a matter of joining the mailing list. We'd meet up in the student union bar (student-run bar) before heading to the gig; if people were late they'd text.
Then we'd go to a nightclub (perhaps also with a discount), and impress ourselves by getting home afterwards. No-one had a smartphone, though almost everyone carried a mobile phone. A small part of the appeal of the group was confidence in getting home easily: if we went to a gig in some obscure bit of industrial wasteland, someone would know a decent way home by night bus. (Actually not that difficult, London has very good public maps etc, but it would be daunting for freshers.)
Things like houseparties or groups of friends socialising would be arranged face-to-face, by email, or by SMS. Computing students checked their email more often than was healthy, but someone studying maths might manage a couple of days without using a computer, and was best contacted by SMS.
Regarding _finding_ the interesting gigs: most often by word-of-mouth (i.e. SMS/email/face-to-face) but otherwise by being handed a flier while queuing to get in somewhere, from the listings poster on the door of a venue, from venue / band websites, or by subscribing to a mailing list run by a promoter (the person who books a band + venue and sells tickets). Bigger events would also be in the TimeOut magazine listings, or the student newspapers. Last.fm's events section was useful too, they were a new startup but based in London.
A list of all student clubs and societies was on the student union website[1] and was also distributed as a booklet to all freshers.
Online maps and a public transport journey planner were pretty mature, so you'll need to ask someone 10 years older than me how they managed before that :-) (Well, I know: everyone in London would own an "A-Z" — a street map + street index of every street in the metropolis. For night-time public transport, I think the general method was to take a bus to a particular central location — Trafalgar Square — and know the way home from there.)
I had a small digital camera for taking photos, but very few photos went further than my computer. I probably put a few on my LiveJournal, which I used for a while for keeping in contact with friends from secondary school.
Having said all that, just like now it wasn't difficult to find students who moved between lectures and their residence and rarely ventured elsewhere.
I decide to look into some new club or political group or about anything? Primary communication method: FB. This monopoly over our communication they have, I think it sucks for non-users.
edit.addendum. I realized monopoly is poor choice of word because it is not total: Instagram and Snapchat and whatever is the social media thing du jour exist. However, as alternatives they are quite similar. I wonder how young adults used to socialise, say, a decade or two ago?