[harel]

Social networks and Facebook in general are a certain aspect of "progress" in society. Yes, it's not perfect, but it's ubiquitous enough that it's considered a primary contact channel that reaches many people at once. Not liking it/hating it/etc. is fine. It's one's own prerogative. But don't complain other people find it useful and you will be left behind because you don't. An exaggerated analogy is like saying "I don't like computers/cars/aeroplanes/internet. I hate that. It's not right I am left behind for not wanting to use it".

[ethics_gradient]

It's not that the author didn't get to chat about people's lunch on Facebook every morning. It's that the author wasn't invited to things he should have been invited to because to many people, "I invited everyone from my FB list" sounds like they invited everyone they reasonably could. Which is not true. The author explicitly says that he is easy to find. And his school friends should take the extra several minutes to searchengine each person they didn't have on facebook if the event is relatively big and organized. It should be the default response. And the author is rightly frustrated that it isn't, because people are lazy and can unintentionally be careless.

That isn't comparable to not being invited to a spontaneous dinner in 2 hours at 9PM by someone clicking invite all of their contacts list tagged as classmates because you're living in the mountaints a one-hour flight and a two hour hike away without any communication tools around you and you don't even believe in flights.

I don't mean these examples to sound flippant, they're here because I'm trying to underline how there's reasonable compromises between convenience and being a good friend / event organizer, and not being on facebook doesn't make you hard to contact. It definitely didn't in the case of the author.

[harel]

All fair points and an indication to the quality of 'friends' sometimes who might or might not make the effort. One point I'll make is that being on LinkedIn, to me, as what being on Facebook is for him. I don't like LinkedIn, but I'm on it, reluctantly. I am only there for potential business and 'presence'. My "contacts" are mostly former colleagues, and recruiters. Every button click on LinkedIn requires a second thought as it might be a contact harvesting trap or worst. I really don't like it, yet I'm there because I realise that sometimes this is a viable channel for this or that purpose.