It's not popular to say and generally makes you sound old, but I really don't like Facebook. Really.
Once in while I check out the timeline, almost always on my iPhone when I'm a little bored. I get a lot of messages through facebook because I have my twitter feed going into the facebook so people I know comment on my tweets. That's all fine. Some of my cousins are on Facebook so I find I know more about what they are doing which is interesting. One of my daughters is on Facebook and Lura is on Facebook which is interesting.
Outside of those corner cases, I get no value from Facebook. In fact, I find it super annoying. Part of why I find it annoying is its incessant need to connect me to people I don't care about. Just because I 'know people' doesn't mean they are my 'friends'. I once worked with a guy who was one degree away from being a total psychopath. He lied, cheated stole things, misrepresented everything and was generally an immoral turd of a person. He would always name drop about how everyone was his friend. Literally everyone he met was a "Friend".
Some people are "people collectors". They are connector type personalities who enjoy meeting lots of people and connecting them. I'm not a people collector. It seems a little militant to say, but on average I generally don't like people. I like the small group of people I like, the others – I have no need for them. I probably put 30 people in my entire life into the 'friend' category. Some people put thousands of people in that category. I think Facebook is designed for people like that.
I like Twitter but it's because I almost never read it. I tweet because it's kind of fun, but frankly it's just for me – I have no expectation that anyone reads my tweets. I only have my follower list dialed into people who are interesting. Not usually my "friends", although some of the 30 are in there. With twitter it's more about interesting concepts and thoughts.
Facebook constantly crams stupid shit up my ass.
I don't want to play games, I don't want to connect with a dude I once met in Missouri, I don't want a message from "Danny" about the Denver Zombie Crawl (whatever the hell that is).
I'm pretty sure I don't care about ROCKtober !
AND, no IM not Todd Vernon that lived in San Antonio..
Why not just bail out?
Because it's kind of like a phone. You can disconnect the phone but it doesn't serve you well to do so.
Facebook is like a phone that won't stop ringing. No matter how many stupid calls you get.
People tell me, just don't friend anyone. Good advice, I "thin" the friend herd all the time. But Facebook hates that. Facebook wants to talk about my day and won't let me watch TV while I eat dinner. Facebook is like a bad wife who just sits around talking about senseless dribble all day long. "You know what Annie did today?", "Jimmy just posted a photo of his Kitty".
Now Facebook wants to change the privacy settings everyone so it can send more senseless bullshit into the crap-o-sphere.
That's enough, I have to Tweet this post so it will go into Facebook now.