Following on from A Journey into Facebook I have now come to a conclusion about the vastly popular social networking platform after over half a years evaluation.
The bottom line is thus, 97.34% of it is crap. That's not just a random 97.34%, that's an exact calculation formed using highly scientific research results picked fresh from my mind!
Let's revisit the whole idea of friends discussed in the first post. No doubt, one of the biggest problems between myself and Facebook is that we have entirely different definition of the word "friend". Today I found myself decliding yet another invite from a "friend". At some point I had once been in the same educational environment as this "friend" for several years. This meant I knew more than enough about this person to know I knew more than enough about this person. Oh how overjoyed I would have been to receive yet more status updates, drunken photographs and invites to my favourite Friends TV sitcom character from someone who may as well be a stranger on the street who's likely hood of me encountering her on the street and wishing to talk to her rivals that of changes of being bit on the head by a crazed rabbit deprived of carrots as I sit here and type this.
Of course, I might be more inclined to collect "friends" such as the every growing trend goes if Facebook presented me with two Friend list options. "Real Friends" and "Friends I don't care about and would like to ignore". If this were the case my friend could would have rocketed over it's lowly score of 11 comprised party of people I meet on a regular basis, intend to meet again or family members.
I log into my Facebook account typically once every never. Yet, I'm incredibly active on Facebook, how do I pull of such a stunt you ask? As was stated in the first A Journey into Facebook post. Facebook seemed to rival a few technologies I was already using. Twitter, Flicker, My Blog and so on. Have these technologies been replaced by Facebook over six months on? No, Facebook has been replaced by these technologies. Twitter updates my status feeds, Flickr shows up on my "wall" when I upload new photos and my blog gets imported to Facebook as notes. Wonderful.
So, I'm left with no reason to login to Facebook. Somehow the status updates of my friends don't count as a compelling reason. Status updates are often impressively boring and pointless, I should know I write enough of them on Twitter. If they are there, smack in front of your face, you might read them, would you purposely read them? I doubt it unless you dabble in and are fully entertained by the art of being a nosey git with too much time on your hands. There are photograph updates as well. Many of my friends are either male or family. Now, if I was a "friend" (again loose Facebook term) of many beautiful maidens, then these photograph updates could indeed be worthwhile. As it happens, I have little desire to spend time looking at pictures of men. Why don't people post pictures of landscapes, something artistic or even something someone might want to see on Facebook? It's always pictures of your "friend", pictures of your "friends" friends or pictures of your friend and friend friends all with the with and without alcohol version. I'm bewildered to say the least. I'm yet to find a picture I have deemed worthy of showing Facebook other than the obligatory profile picture. I did once consider putting up some of my better photographs but they are already on Flickr so what's the point?
Invites, games and quizzes. Oh how I despise these. You might think it's fun to take a test which scientifically and accurately surprises you with your top five favourite cars of all time but there are some people who aren't on the dole (Jobseeker's allowance) and who's time is used working or otherwise living. Also not everyone has the mental age of a 12 year old and will be impressed and/or bemused by your choice of top five favourite cars which you spread about Facebook in viral like fashion. These really are my pet hate of Facebook. Status updates, photographs and whatnot I can see some purpose and point in. Silly games and quizzes, no.
Enough of this ranting, time to focus on the positives right? The positives, um... positives. Positives, positives, positives... ah yes! The only positive experience Facebook offers as far as I can see is to act like the Yellow Pages of people. It's great for looking people up if you're a stalker old friend.
I remember bravely equipping my armour last time and setting out as "Sir Purpose Knight of Facebook". My quest being to find purpose in Facebook. Unfortuantly I have returned mostly empty handed but on the way did manage to pick up a few recruits such as Sir Twitter, Lady Flickr and Peasant Blog who have vowed to look after my profile in my very, very long extended leave.
