I have to call shenanigans on this. My social circle regularly has huge debates via Facebook links and wall posts; off the top of my head, I can recall discussions about birth control, existentialism, web frameworks and the impact of video games on our culture. Social networks are tools; there is no prescribed way to use them beyond the actual codebase they run on. Yes... Facebook's design affords phatic throwaway talk more easily than it does discussion, but that doesn't mean you can't use it any other way.
Exactly, I had one of the best discussions about race, class, and privilege I've ever had on Facebook.
But not all conversations need hardcore gravitas to be valuable. There's actually a lot of information in a "cool stuff" RT. It says that the person read your status, and liked it enough to share, that tells you a lot about where your tastes align, which has been a facet of friendship as long as humans have been making friends.
Social networking isn't about a conversation, that was 2007's cute mantra. Social networking has devolved into a self-promotion platform whose only existence is to advertise. The conversation ended years ago. Don't worry, though, the bubble is popping. Soon we'll have some new ridiculous hype so that silly people can make lots of money being doofuses online by calling themselves "web 3.0" evangelists or whatever.
I disagree. There may be plenty of things to complain about with facebook, but I still find it plenty useful to stay in touch with friends, family and acquaintances. We plan events, share photos, keep current with what's happening in each others lives and occasionally have long discussions on specific topics. For me it works exactly the way it's supposed to and it's easy to ignore the ads on the side of the page.
I worry that the real "hype" right now is buying into the recent anti-facebook trend.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-facebook. I think it's just as much of a case of silicon snake oil as the rest of the silly social networking sites out there. Facebook hasn't made my life better, it basically became a place where my annoying extended family started spamming me once I had finally blocked all of their email addresses, so that I wouldn't receive their mass forwarded emails about jesus sitting on your shoulder while speeding. Yay.
> Soon we'll have some new ridiculous hype so that silly people can make lots of money being doofuses online by calling themselves "web 3.0" evangelists or whatever.