Saturday 4 April 2015

Face\Off

Seeing the Facebook ads, I'm not sure who they're trying to get on-board, surely we've reached peak Facebook and those who haven't, will never have an account much like those few remaining people who don't have a mobile phone wear the fact that they don't have a mobile like a badge of pride.

Visiting again recently I'm reminded of all the things that bug me about the site, the constant prompting to spill out your life history, interests and location. The fact it insists it knows what news it wants to show on its feed better than you. That it wants you to treat brands as friends. I consider Coca-Cola a very successful company over many years that sells many brands including a sticky sugary liquid which also comes in a cherry variety I like, alongside very well storied anti union practises and environmental abuses. Not a friend I want to have a interaction with.

Admittedly most of these complaints could be targeted at any social media site or social media in general. I add finally, so as not to appear that I'm some grumpy middle aged person, recently I saw a video about parents of trans children using social media for help, advice and support and I could pick on many other examples.

3 comments:

  1. Nothing is good or evil, unless marketing is invoked. Which isn't exactly what Shakespeare said, but he probably would have ;-)

    Social media serves a purpose and from a positive view, it lets you stay in touch, or even reach out to people not in your real world. I think for some, it's a way to be a different person too. That said, how anyone uses it without an ad filter, I don't know :-)

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  2. The think to remember about social networks, and particularly Facebook, is that the users aren't the customer, they're the product. The advertisers are the customers.

    There's a bunch of third party add-ons to help manage your FB experience (I like FB Purity, but held off for ages because of over-zealous fans recommending it for everything). But even so, FB still thinks it knows best. If I don;t log in for a couple of days I get pestering emails reminding me I have notifications, and suggesting friends.

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  3. I do find FB useful for keeping in touch with friends. That said, you have to manage your account, filter out what you don't want and make sure you don't post anything too personal. I choose to keep my friends list to those I've met in real life but at least you can adapt it in that way and use it how you like and that is one good thing about it. Sue x

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