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I have a confession to make: I hate social media.

It's that special kind of hate best reserved for when you've immediately dismissed a trend as stupid, then society goes mad with it, and subsequently everyone "gets" it and you're still there ranting about the dumbing down of modern society whilst refusing to participate.

I don't want continual banal updates beamed into my brain, I've got enough aggro pecking at me all day long, thank you very much. I don't want fake friendships and an artificial life, I want a real one which is enough of a challenge.

I mean really, it's not "social" and it's barely "media" so what is is the appeal?!

PS

cos its built by geeks who don't have a shitting clue about social

I've nothing against geeks - I have geeky qualities myself

sure between us we could re-invent social media and knock twatter of its perch

Facebook is good for three things. It makes it really easy to organise last minute nights out with large groups of friends. A simple status of "Pub?" is generally enough to get 10-20 people out, at least in my circles.

Another thing it's good for is photos, I wouldn't get to see half the photos taken of me by other people if not for fb. I do quite enjoy seeing just how drunk I was the night before.

It's also good for finding people you may have fallen out of touch with.

The rest is just procrastination of seeking the attention of other people through "likes" or comments on how good you look in x posed for photo.

If none of the first 3 are your kind of thing, you don't need a facebook account, use your phone, interact with people properly, you build real connections that way.

Not inconsiderable benefits you mention actually, but still doesn't fit with me Jay. As far as I'm concerned social media should only be the preserve of gossipy 12 year old Californian girls, and the occasional nascent political movement.

PS

Oh don't worry, I agree. I visit my page once a day at most and generally treat it like my personal emails, I check it and leave it.

There's very little social media has given the world that it didn't already have. The most amazing thing that it's done is probably cloud noise and increasing the speed with which information travels. As you rightly point out regarding political movements, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya - without social media I doubt whether they would have seen the same things occurring.

Information travels at lightning speed on twitter, it's incredible to watch when the hivemind gets focused on one particular event, thousands of people actively spreading information to different sources around the web.

Social media tends to get hold of the news before the news does these days.

Is social media necessary? No. Is it a bad thing? I'm undecided on it, we don't need it but it has it's uses. The forum members that use couch surfer(or whatever it was called) would probably attest to that. PoF and the various dating sites are also technically social media sites.

so glad you posted this I've been wasting so much time on facebook recently and just realised thanks to you guys I'm banning it's use.

social media is to socialising as masturbating is to sex

Most people with a facebook account do not socialise on any level with the vast majority of their contacts.

People post such banal shite its unbelievable, especially if you happen to be a bird you could put stuff like "im tired" im bored etc, and watch all the men who have secretly wanted to shag them for so long post stuff like "aww you ok bbz" its laughable.

Then there are the people who have hundreds of contacts, ive seen people with over 1000, im pretty certain they dont actually leave the house.

I rarely use it.

How can a social media (e.g. facebook) be considered as fake friendship and artificial life? I must be thick to understand your argument or your conclusion.

I move to England 20 years ago. And through facebook I got back in touch with class mates I had not seen for 30 years or people I had completely forgotten. We had a fabilous reunion last year. Now if it wasnt for facebook, such a reunion would not have happened.

Let me tell you a story. Before facebook, internet SOCIAL FORUMS on different subjects and topics were very popular. There was a baby girl, Megan who at nine months, was told she had a malignant brain tumuor. After 10 months of operations and chemotherapy, her parents were told to take her home to die. Her dad was a stubborn old git. So he went on one of these internet support forums on brain tumuor. Was directed to a world renown surgeon in New York. The parents raised £200k, moved to New York. Cut a long story short, the surgeon and the oncologist saved her life when the local doctors in Manchester had given up on her.

Ten years on, MY daughter Megan is still alive today. The power of social media!

I think facebook can be a fantastic resource. The story about baby Megan being one of its good points (thanks legend) and I'm sure there are countless others, but it seems to me that for some people it enhances their social life, whilst others it can become obsessive to the point where they rely on it for most of their social interactions just because it can be easier than 'real life'

maybe we should all just give up on real life and join the Matrix. You do know that The Social Network was a prequel to The Matrix... note to self: watch less movies

less or fewer? I never could work that one out