That's just it though: No one has much of an interest of presenting anything less than a "beautiful" life on FB. What you're watching in that news feed isn't reality, it's a carefully curated set of ideal content to make that person look better/happier/richer than they actually are.
Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers.
I think you're focusing on the wrong part of the point being made by notastartup though. Given that people are going to try to make their selves look good regardless, it's wise to be selective in who you let into your newsfeed. Someone who connects with a lot of people they barely know will be worse off than someone who only accepts (and requests) connections to people with whom they have a close enough relationship that the happiness will always be mutual.
My point was to remind people that they simply shouldn't care. It's like getting mad at yourself because you don't look like that perfectly cut (and photoshopped) Abercrombie model.
It's not an accurate representation of reality. I don't use facebook outside of what is required for API usage on whatever random dev project I get thrown into this week. The people that are truly in your circle of acquaintances probably don't need FB to stay in touch.
It's not that people don't whine, it's that when they whine they are always in the right (obviously untrue). It's a part of the creation of an image that the participants want to portray to other participants, just like the cherry-picked photos and favorite media.
A person who strongly follows particular trends and styles on facebook is much more likely to share the same favorite medias as those facebook participants who share similar interests; this is two-sided, though. On one hand, you could say that it's the interests that shaped the person into the trends and styles that they participate, but the other possibility is that the person is emulating people who have the styles and trends that they wish for themselves, and simply merging information from a suitable profile.
Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book?
> Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book?
Or maybe you just didn't know they were interested in the first place. I actually discovered thanks to Facebook that I share interests with many of the people who I didn't ever suspect on being interested in the same things as I.
I'm an active Facebook user with 500+ friends, most of whom I know in real life, and I'm pretty sure almost none of them is consciously trying to "build a better image of themselves" in any other way they don't already do in real life.
Seriously, everybody is "building their image" in "real life" all the time. If you go over to a friend to see the photos from a mountain trip, they will show you the nice one, not the ones when they sleep drunk under the table. Facebook actually makes it somewhat more difficult, because unlike face to face conversations, everything you wrote or posted is there to stay.
What do you call as "spoken"? Does IRC count? If so, than yes, I did. I would have spoken to all of them face-to-face, but I missed last social gathering we have because I'm working on my thesis.
Does IMs like Hangouts/Facebook Messenger count? If yes, then again, I did.
If they don't count, then please explain to me the qualitative difference between talking on IM, texting, talking on the phone, e-mailing, writing letters and speaking face to face as form of thought exchange.
EDIT: now that I think about this... I guess instead of writing this comment I should have just taken your bet :).
Assuming for a second we mean friend the way you're thinking why does it matter how frequently or recently he spoke with anyone he considers a friend? Are you telling me you have people you no longer consider a friend because you haven't chatted with them in X days?
More importantly though is that when people refer to Facebook "friends" they're using Facebook's noun for a connection. I'm sure it wouldn't bother you if he said he had 500 followers on Twitter, or was connected to 500 people on LinkedIn.
I can't believe what I'm reading. I'm flagging you for all those insults directet towards me, because you don't know anything about me at all, and honestly, what the fuck.
Still, to satisfy the curiosity of others who might be wondering about how my Facebook interactions work: I have 500+ friends, around half of them are people who I interact with every couple of months. Call it "weak ties", those are basically people I had fun talking to in real life on various events, conferences, meetups, friendly local Starbucks baristas, grocery store clerks, etc. I sometimes end up helping them with some real-life tasks if I can.
The other half of the people, my real-life friends, family and co-workers, are people who I interact all the time in all the spheres of life. For many of us (myself included), there's no difference between Facebook posts, Twitter, talking on IRC or meeting face to face (which we do regularly). We choose the form of communication that is most efficient at the moment, and we do so fluidly.
Believe or not, there are people who find their lives vastly improved by the pletora of digital communication tools available. Not only I am able to keep contact with many of my weak ties (who sometimes advance to the level of closer friends), conveniently exchange thoughts with my real-life friends who live many kilometers away from me, I also appreciate the fact that there are many scenarios, where textual communication is superior to spoken word.
Even as I write this comment right now, on another browser tab I'm using Facebook to facilitate a new set of workshops for kids for the local Hackerspace; I got introduced to my interlocutor by a common Facebook friend of ours.
What's worse is when people take pictures of the receipt from a sushi restaurant to show off how much money they blew but they will not post anything negative that happens afterwards. #mercurypoisoining #yolo #expensivesushi
I see such people with 500+ even in some cases 1000+ friends on facebook. When talking with them in real life, you can feel that these type of people are social butterflies, placing quantity over quality of relationships. Not placing judgement on this style but when you have so many people on on facebook, it'd be a wonder how one can keep up with all of them, they probably don't. They probably constantly place people in different levels of relationship, far more often than someone with average or little friends on facebook, to filter out the social noise.
It's so easy now to make connection with someone you barely knew in university or college. It's suddenly overwhelming when you like someone's post and he/she has never been close to you. A constant battle for likes, as many as possible, from whoever possible. It's like highschool but you interat with each other with a yearbook only in separate rooms.
I can't even talk to 500 customers in one week by myself, if it was just through email by email basis with carefully thought out custom messages tailored to each individual written on the spot, it would take forever. 500 people alone is a staggering figure, I just don't know how people keep in contact with all 500 people with all the time. It must be exhausting.
You sound like someone who's not a Facebook regular ;).
Facebook for people like me is a kind of glorified address book. You don't interact with all your 500+ friends all the time. But it helps you keep in touch with various "weak ties"; people who you don't interact with on a daily basis, but you might want to talk to every couple of months. That cool barista from Starbucks you used to chat with before she changed her job. This guy with interesting ideas about technology you met on some conference. A person you used to borrow homework from in your high school. Etc.
Think of it as a big party for 500 people who all met each other at least once before. People naturally form small groups and talk within those groups. But every now and then, someone overhears an interesting conversation from the other group, so he might join them for few moments, and sometimes maybe a few groups get together to have a conversation on a common topic. It's how Facebook feels, except "to overhear" means "an interesting post from one of your 'weak ties' somehow ended up in your news feed".
Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers.