Watched the documentary Inside Facebook last night. It was an interesting insight into the workings of the social networking site. Zuckerberg is clearly a technologically brilliant young bloke, as are many of the people who work there. But he struck me as being emotionally immature. And the whole enterprise seemed strangely soulless.
He kept talking about how he wanted to help people connect with each other more, but I think his site might be having the opposite effect.
If it's about keeping in touch with old friends, and making new ones, then why do people spend so much time looking at their stuff and checking their updates online? Why not spend time with them in the real world?
And the fact that so many people spend so much time playing games on there is a bit of a worry. In the doco an overly keen gamer happily bought a flashy container for the poop of one of his favourite characters. It was as sad as it was funny.
Many pundits have said that spending so much time on the site -- almost as if it's a parallel life -- is damaging the psychological health of millions of Facebook addicts. I think they've got a point.
While you can also go overboard on Twitter I think it's a far better site. It's not a replacement for social interaction. It's all about connecting with others who have the same interests, and sharing information. It's much more serious and focused.
On Twitter you can learn heaps, connect with experts, promote blog posts and do a whole lot of other productive things. But on Facebook people seem to waste their time piss-farting around, playing stupid games and "poking" each other.
There's no contest as far as I'm concerned.
"But he struck me as being emotionally immature."
ReplyDeleteI think facebook is for people who want to stay teenagers forever.