I've gone beyond not understanding "how" and never understand "why". I guess this sort of thing has just become compulsive for younger people.

God knows what kind of privacy law erosion is going to come around the next decade.

This entry was kind of weak =\

There are definitely legit uses of Facebook, like one of my old friends was serving in Afghanistan and posting crazy-ass photos on it. On the other hand, I've taken 90-minute train rides & seen grown adults spend the entire time playing Zynga games (there was no actual game, just sending and receiving "gifts" from your friends, I think?)

After a few years on facebook I'm putting it down. After a week or so I find I don't miss it.

Thanks to Facebook I got into the local speleology and rock climbing communities (which I didn't even know existed before then, much less that I'd have a shot of learning from others at virtually no cost), I managed to get an illegal tour of the Paris catacombs from some crazy graffiti art kids when on vacation and I am regularly exposed to obscure old soul and r&b records thanks to a group of vinyl collectors I joined. I am 35 years old and Facebook has improved my life significantly.

Amen. What a waste of time.

My impression of twitter is that it's for stalking celebrities.

Facebook seems useful if you want constant reminders of how boring and frivolous the lives of you and your loved ones are.

This wasn't a very good NMA btw.

"Passing me by" isn't an entirely apt description of the phenomenon. It's a big sprawling changing virtual world, and like the big sprawling changing real world, nobody can understand all of it.

There was an old sketch on Saturday Night live where Father Guido Sarducci sold something called "Mr. Tea", which was essential a funnel on a tripod, about the size of a Mr. Coffee machine. You put a cup of tea with a teabag under the funnel, pour in hot water, "and Mr. Tea" That's Facebook. Facebook is like blogs and email, only... I dunno. It's like blogs and email. It's an intranet withing the internet If I could only look up the email addresses of everybody I've ever known, there would be no reason to ever go to Facebook.

Twitter is much cooler, because it seems more willing to interact with the rest of the internet, and it doesn't seem to collect as much information, but everyone I've ever known is on Facebook, so Twitter is mainly for communicating with Strangers

The biggest use I've gotten out of Facebook is watching people I thought I knew gradually all turn into conservative shitbags.

My suggestions for a better Facebook:
#1 hide from your timeline everything posted by most of your acquaintances, relatives and boring work contacts.
#2 some of your close friends are also boring on facebook, hide them too.
#3 find interesting pages to like: artists, journalists, events, places. This one seems kind of obvious, but if they are super popular, chances are they they are not run directly by the original person/entity, and in any event, you'll always find out about superpopular stuff anyway. On the other hand, lesser known people/establishments are usually run directly by the interested party and post interesting stuff. Send friend requests to interesting people you don't know in person, if you send them a message, they'll most likely accept. Many lesser known authors, independent filmmakers, scientists, journalists etc. have facebook pages they use themselves, and they tend to have interesting stuff to post.

Now you have a decent feed of information all in one place, with a single password, and your acquaintances and boring friends won't get notified that you hid their posts.

Which is partly my point; it takes a fair bit of management to change it from an ad platform/bumper sticker forum into something one might find useful. If you like it, God bless.