seems to me that she just wants to keep her life private and she wants her friends to be real friends. if that’s her choice, then so be it.

believe it or not, oprah doesn’t have a cell phone and it doesn’t affect her life.

[Reply]

Vince
Twitter: vincegolangco
Reply:
July 13th, 2010 at 10:14 pm

This was just a satirical piece.

Also, I wouldn’t need a cell phone neither if I was Oprah and had 50 personal assistants taking care of everything for me. I’m sure her assistants have cell phones to call the people that Oprah needs to call.

=)

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Hahahahahaha!!! Love it!

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I have a pretty good eye for humor, and this didn’t seem like humor. For starters, it just wasn’t funny. It also didn’t actually satirize anything. Some part of you really believes that not being on Facebook means excluding yourself from a social activity. It’s the equivalent of not drinking alcohol, or not being into coffee, or, in the Bay Area, not pretending to like hiking ot rock climbing, or being a Republican. It’s a very valid argument, though I have to agree with an earlier comment that it’s, ultimately, vapid.

The fact is, Facebook started out as a place to connect with friends in a way that was closed off, secure and private. As they’ve been trying to grow more and more relevant, they’ve been encouraging more sharing and more openness. This has had the inadvertent side effect of making Facebook less relevant, as users start to filter their sharing and begin holding back. What was great about Facebook was that we *didn’t* have to hold back, not in front of our friends. This is dying. See failbook.com – instances where crossed social personas cause instances of TEEHEE, OWNED are posted for laughs (it’s also a good place for you to get some pointers on how to be funny). Check out this presentation about the real life social network:
http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2. Dead on.

Now, your arguments are valid. I’m speaking as someone who has quit Facebook for all the reasons I’ve mentioned: I unfriended everyone, deleted all my content and set all my settings to max privacy – I didn’t outright delete, unfortunately, because I have relatives overseas that check Facebook messages more than email – but I don’t use it the same way everyone else does. Do I feel like I am missing something from not being on Facebook? Absolutely. I’m missing the ability to have an “ambient awareness” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html) of people I have met once or twice. I’m missing low resolution photos of events that are uploaded almost in real-time. But guess what? Wow, I’ve forced myself to IM, email, call and actually communicate with people I care about. Facebook opens up opportunities just as it cripples us from being able to make meaningful connections. It’s like putting training wheels back on your social bicycle. Am I looking back? Not at all, not yet, at least (we’ll see what happens when Sid Meier’s Civilization Network comes out, I anticipate recidivism).

I still network online, except I do it under the banner of explicitly public networks like Twitter. Facebook stopped opening up opportunities for me a long time ago, but Twitter – wow, Twitter has simply blown things open in terms of meeting new, interesting people and keeping up to date on the work they are doing in a way that Facebook never did. Twitter also doesn’t expose me in the way that Facebook wall posts or tagging does.

Lastly, teens are experiencing Facebook fatigue (http://mashable.com/2010/06/30/teens-social-networks-study/). Facebook is still always going to be around, but I question their ability to innovate faster than people can get tired of them, which leads me to ask: maybe you’re the one that needs to join us in 2010? You’re like the 28 year old guy that was popular in high school that still thinks he’s cool working at the AM/PM, trying to get his band off the ground. Facebook is passe.

[Reply]

Vince
Twitter: vincegolangco
Reply:
August 18th, 2010 at 12:43 am

LOL. You’re taking this way too seriously dude. Thanks for the insightful and seemingly time consuming comment. I really appreciate the time you took to write all that.

But really now….? I had lines like: “It’s absolutely capricious to assume that we are indeed friends, or even mere acquaintances, without as much as a “poke” or a photo tag of some useless item you’re selling every other week.”
and “Not having a Facebook account put you on the same lowly level as people who still use their Hotmail email addresses.”

So not sure how anyone could really take something like that too seriously.

I couldn’t care less if you had a Facebook account or not. I could never imagine that a Facebook “poke” would ever be better than a real hug. I just don’t have many friends or acquaintances who don’t have a Facebook account so when I did meet one, it kinda caught me off guard, and I thought it was funny. I do believe there are advantages to having an account, like keeping in touch with friends and family, promoting your events and beliefs and I also find it cool to see what my own friends are up to. But cavemen have survived without Facebook and I’m sure these people who don’t have one will survive as well.

Again, just a humor piece I wrote on my own personal blog. Humor is never universal and not everyone will like the same kind of humor. And no, I was never cool in high school nor do I think I will ever be… I can’t play any instruments to save my life, I still like kittens and think that everyone should be nice to each other. So definitely nowhere near the “cool” types from high school or for those who work at AM/PM.

Thanks again for the comment =)

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