[corin_]

*"It was my Birthday a couple of weeks ago. From my 527 friends, I received 52 birthday wishes on Facebook. That’s 10% of my friends — more activity in one day than I saw in an entire year prior. Who are these strangers posting on my wall? I haven’t spoken to some of them in 5 years. What a wonderful treat to hear from them on my birthday."

This paragraph pretty much sums up why I deleted my Facebook account - either two or three (bad memory..) years ago on the 10th of January, the day after my birthday. I never hated Facebook, I never had any problem with the company... I just realised, having got a bunch of emails telling me that people who don't know me well enough to tell me in person, or on the phone, or on skype/msn, or via sms, had left birthday wishes on my wall, that I hadn't had a use for it in quite a while before then.

[rhizome]

I wish Happy Birthday to people I haven't spoken to in 25 years (apologies for being old). I wish it to people I don't really know (members of a creative collective I belong to). I wish it to any of my friendsters that have birthdays on the day that I happen to visit FB. It's not so random as it sounds, either, I have fewer than 200 FB friendsters.

Most people think it's nice to receive birthday wishes, and if you're simply not getting them from the people you want to get them from, that's not their fault.

Then again, I turn off email notifications for this stuff so I don't get that kind of inundation that I saw in years past. The only email I get from FB is, coincidentally, the one that tells me whose birthday it is this coming week.

[mstefanko]

It's a nice sentiment, but sometimes I wonder what is the point as well. I've often thought of deleting facebook for similar reasons. Not necessarily because a flood of emails regarding people of whom I'm not invested in decided to jump on a birthday band wagon. But I think a piece of what he's saying, is why bother. It's just a reminder that the majority of people you've told yourself you're there for(facebook that is), you know to keep up with these peoples lives, aren't really all that important to you. If it takes a flood of copy and pasted "happy bday!" messages from people who don't talk to you on days facebook doesn't tell them exactly what to say..To open peoples eyes to that... so be it.

[rhizome]

Why does a nice sentiment have to have a point?

[mstefanko]

Could probably rephrase this, as a nice sentiment can be very nice with no point at all. But the "happy birthday!" messages on facebook, imo, have lost their meaning and relevance a long time ago. There's no thought or effort that goes into this action. In the early stages of facebook, there was still a couple more steps that had to be taken to get that message to the old acquaintance. Thus, albeit small, a little more meaning. "Oh, frank, he actually took those couple steps, thats so nice."

Now, as a society, as well as on facebook, we're a step away from automating our wishing people happy birthdays. That progression is what is slowly chipping away at that "nice sentiment." For all I know, you write heartfelt messages to old acquaintances, leaving them feeling awesome that you cared to write to them on such a day. But the vast majority don't, facebook tells them to say happy bday to these people [list of names]. Without even leaving the page, and following exactly what facebook tells you to say, you've said the most generic thing you can possibly say to someone on their birthday.And to top it off, you haven't said anything to that person since last year on that day. And again, by "you", I mean the majority of people, not you personally.

The occasional person will go the "extra mile" sticking the persons name at the end of the message, or saying something like "hope you're doing well!"..It's just an illusion that that doesn't mean much of anything. I'm not saying I hate getting 100s of "Happy bday's" from people I don't talk to or, in a lot of cases, even know. Or that people are assholes for routinely wishing every single person on their friends list a big happy birthday. But the sentiment really isn't even there anymore, to me. All facebook has done for us, as far as birthdays and keeping in touch with old acquaintances in this manner is concerned, is make the actual efforts, like phone calls and real personal messages, even more valuable.

[rhizome]

That's all in your interpretation. You have devalued the birthday wishes you receive, you feel your birthday wishes are insincere, your friends aren't sending you the kinds of birthday wishes you want. None of this mentions your wishes for other people.

Now, as a society, as well as on facebook, we're a step away from automating our wishing people happy birthdays.

The dystopia you imagine is already here in the form of Christmas Card lists.

[alphakappa]

It's not for any real point. It's like saying hello or goodbye to someone you meet on the elevator, or saying cheers to someone in the coffeeshop. You don't have to know anyone particularly well to do that - in the end it just brightens up the general mood.

[mihaifm]

there are apps that just send automatic messages so it's not even a sentiment sometimes

[corin_]

Oh God, nothing annoys me more than that.

> We at Random Forums just wanted to email you to say happy birthday!

Who. Cares.

[corin_]

Yeah, it is a nice thing to do - I didn't mean to sound like I found it annoying that they did it.

Essentially it served to remind me that I hadn't been on the site, or had any email notifications, for quite some time before that. The reason I mentioned that the people wishing me happy birthday were people I didn't know particularly well was to make the point that, by deleting my account, I wasn't losing out on a method of communicating with good (or even faint, but still kinda) friends.

[ja27]

I hide my birthday on Facebook anyways, but I also locked down my wall so people can't write on it. That cut down tremendously on the amount of account-hijacking spam that was getting posted to it from my Facebook friends. I still got 3 Facebook messages about my birthday and my wife posted it on her wall for another 20+ birthday comments. I'm tired of it. I only wish people a happy birthday on Facebook if I either know them really well, they're hitting a milestone like 16 or 50, or if they're really sick.