Why is a social network needed. Maybe because I am mostly a loner so I don't get it. I was on Facebook for few years as more people that I knew got on it just made get off it.
I like Facebook to keep up with friends who I don't get to see very often. One on one communication with everyone would be untenable. The broadcast nature of Facebook (and Instagram) makes it perfect for keeping up with what my friends are doing.
For example, I literally haven't seen some of my high school friends since we graduated 22 years ago, but I know all about their kids and families and their recent successes at their jobs. I like knowing that I'm still connected to people I spent literally every free hour with in my youth.
It's especially salient for me because Facebook didn't exist when we graduated. Many of them I've only reconnected with in the last 5 to 10 years, so I remember what it was like when we didn't have Facebook to keep in touch.
> I like Facebook to keep up with friends who I don't get to see very often...For example, I literally haven't seen some of my high school friends since we graduated 22 years ago, but I know all about their kids and families and their recent successes at their jobs.
Why is that so useful though? If they were really important to you personally, you'd have kept in (active) touch with them. If you don't live in the same town as them, then you're not likely to encounter these people outside of a reunion.
I'm not trolling or criticizing, I'm genuinely curious why "staying in touch" in this way is so valued. I can see the value of LinkedIn (it's always possible you may develop business or professional relationships with passing acquaintances from your past and I take care to prune my connections occasionally) but the draw of FB is a bit mysterious to me.
I can't really describe it, other than to say it makes me happy to know that the people I grew up with are thriving. That all that time we spent together in our youth was building a strong foundation for ... something.
I've also gone 20+ years not seeing friends from high school and college. I suppose I could be more informed about their lives, and they about mine, if I were sharing that stuff on Facebook. But I also think that if any of us really cared, we'd take the time to make a call or send an email every once in a while. A few of us do, but mostly we don't. If that effort is too much, how important is the friendship?
Facebook to me feels like those xeroxed summary-of-my-fantastic-year letters that some people stick in their Christmas cards. Mildly interesting, maybe, but also kind of tacky and pretty impersonal and low effort.
I interact with at least 100 people on Facebook in a month. I suppose I could switch the time I spend on FB with phone calls, except that would require us to be available at the same time, and also, I use FB in very short bursts between my regular life. I'd be making a bunch of one and two minute phone calls.
The asynchronicity of the service is what enables me to keep in touch with so many friends.
I'm not a loner, but I did find that it wasn't that hard to adjust to not having FB. One imagines all the things you'll miss out on by not having it, but honestly, you don't need to see what the deepest crevices of your social network are up to.
People you're actually close to matter 100x more, and you're going to stay in touch with those people regardless.
Very true, wasn't there an adage about to find out who your real friends are just post that you need help moving and see how many show up. It's like being a cable cutter, at first you think you will miss out on a lot but you quickly realize that it ain't so bad and that the world didn't end.
I also find that (at least in my social network) many friends don't broadcast their lives (and rightly so), so you need to talk to people anyway to get the real picture. What you see in a social network is limited to content that people want to broadcast.
For example, I literally haven't seen some of my high school friends since we graduated 22 years ago, but I know all about their kids and families and their recent successes at their jobs. I like knowing that I'm still connected to people I spent literally every free hour with in my youth.
It's especially salient for me because Facebook didn't exist when we graduated. Many of them I've only reconnected with in the last 5 to 10 years, so I remember what it was like when we didn't have Facebook to keep in touch.
It has real value for me.