Recently I've noticed a strange thing - people tend to be more willing to add a stranger on Facebook than give them their phone number. How stupid is that? Your phone number says nothing about you. You're not obligated to answer your phone or reply to texts, you can always blacklist the really annoying people, you retain full control of your privacy. Facebook on the other hand, tells the whole story of your life! Your social circle, your photos, your likes, comments, status updates and all other types of activity give away details of your life you don't want strangers to know.
This made me think - who am I friends with on Facebook? It turns out I have lots of people I've never really had a deeper conversation with and still I allow them to observe personal bits of my life. I've decided to remove half of the people from my friend list over the next couple of weeks. If i remove you - sorry, nothing personal, I just don't feel that comfortable sharing everything with you. You can still call me.
This reminds me of another topic - Facebook Chat! You probably heard about non-verbal communication. They say words account for mere 7% of a message, followed by 38% for vocal characteristics (tone, volume, speed, pauses, etc) and whopping 55% for body language (facial expression, movement, posture, etc). Chat cuts out the latter 2 leaving you with only 7% of effective communication. According to Online Schools, 57% of people talk to people more online. For me it seems that soon lots of people will not be able to develop basic social and communication skills!
Facebook is great, but it's a really bad substitute for going out and just having fun with your friends. Now who's up for a beer tomorrow night?
It's so true, Robert, so true. Facebook is obviously widely known communication channel, suitable for sharing or inception of some ideas, promotional activities, etc. But... you don't have to be caught by its trap as you've noticed. There is also other solution than presented above. You're not obliged to share your life activities there, so don't do it at all.
ReplyDeleteThe advice for facebook users is plain and simple: Do not allow facebook to exploit you, instead exploit facebook upsides to rule the world!
(I don't have facebook account atm, but if I see it's worth to try this channel to back up some of my future concepts/products, then I'll create one and use it.)