I was planning to write an upcoming post discussing why I am not on Facebook and don’t ever plan to be and then I saw this article in the New York Times on ‘resisters’ so I am writing it now.
I am extremely active in social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn so people are generally surprised when I tell them that I am not on Facebook (usually when they send me a link to something there that I can’t view). Seriously. I am not on Facebook.
Let me re-phrase that. I used to be on Facebook. Yes, I was one of the 800 billion mazillion people that are members of the site but within a year, I had shut down my account and haven’t returned since.
People have said that they enjoy the site because they are able to locate and re-connect with old friends or people they meet but didn’t exchange phone numbers. And yes there have been instances when I may say ‘what happened to my college roommate’. But the last thing I am going to do is login to Facebook to track her down. In fact, I would be more inclined to contact the school’s alumni office.
I have watched my cousin, who is 17, interact with her friends purely through Facebook status updates and text messaging and it makes me a little sad. She doesn’t even know how to have a conversation in real life anymore. And if you haven’t heard the story, my distaste for the site really came to light while I was out at dinner with friends one night and everyone at the table (except me) were on their phones updating their status throughout the meal. It went something like this:
“Hey, did you see my status I just updated?”
“One sec….LOL. That’s so funny. Wait. Hold on and let me update mine. Ok, go look at mine now.”
“Haha! The nachos are here! Wait, don’t eat them yet!! Let me take a pic to include with my status update”
“Are you serious? Im hungry” <- that was me 
I am not kidding. This was my dinner. I couldn’t even tell you if we had a conversation that night that didn’t include having to look up something on a phone or check-in with someone on Facebook. It was really disgusting and I lost all respect for the social network’s ability to bring people together. Sure, we were together all right. Together with all our Facebook connections and their status updates.
I know there are concerns about privacy but that really hasn’t been my problem. I really cannot even pinpoint what my problem is with the site or why I don’t want to participate. I simply don’t see a need; there is no gap in my life that needs to be filled with Facebook. I haven’t at one time – ever – said that I need a Facebook account in order to accomplish xyz. Ever. Quite the opposite really since I was saying ‘I need to get rid of this Facebook account’ (when I had one) more times than I could count.
Will Brennan, a 26-year old quoted in the article indicates that his friends ‘are not always sympathetic to his anti-social-media stance.’ He says “I get harangued for ruining their plans by not being on Facebook.”
I can totally relate Will! If I had a nickel for every time someone said ‘I would invite you but..o wait, you’re not on Facebook, I forgot. How can you not be on Facebook?!?’
So I will continue to tweet and participate on LinkedIn and am even thinking about starting a YouTube channel and creating some videos, but I will not be on Facebook anytime soon or ever at all.
Why? Because there is no need for me to be! If you need me, then please pick up the phone and call me. If you don’t have my number, then email me or send me a message on LinkedIn, on Twitter or here on my blog. We don’t need Facebook to make or maintain connections to people. That’s just my opinion.
Why are you on Facebook or not? What has it done to improve your life? Are you communicating better?
Firstly I have to say Thank you! I haven’t been able to come on here to stalk you for a while and as I come back it’s to this lovely post! I jussssssst deactivated my account last night and was having withdrawals! I guess I sorta got addicted to reading all those mindless status updates about people whining over the weather, the traffic, their boyfriends, their babies, Edward and Jacob and how Chuck Norris would be a better bet (yeah I made that up). I realized, I really could be doing so many other things and just didn’t know what, so I deactivated that bugger to find out. I work in a media company and thought that I should be active in Social Media all around but obviously that wasn’t the reason I joined in the first place. I joined because everyone else was on it, plain and simple.
*oh and I’ve had many of those dinners. We sit down after taking ages to get to the restaurant, and the waiter comes by puts the menu on the table, the restaurant is so crowded and I’m thinking holy crap the food is gonna take aaaages to come, we’d better order quick. But nooooooooo, everyone is busy checking in and tagging each other,and then commenting on the tag and laughing about it. Geeeez, order already!
Now I go on there to mainly read news. I subscribe to a lot of news sites on there and it’s easy for me to be kept up-to-date with things and of course with family members and old friends. I realized though that things have gotten so impersonal now. It’s so easy to send out invites, announcements or even personal messages on there that it doesn’t feel special anymore. I also realized that I had become one of those people that even wished her good friends Happy Birthday on there instead of picking up the phone and giving a nice warm Birthday wish that I would prefer as well. So yes, let’s see how life without facebook pans out. I may be left behind out of many updates and left out of many invites to events but I’ll make it work. I’ve still got twitter and LinkedIN as well as Google+.
I am officially…..a facebook ‘resister’.
@JayNair
Thanks for your comment Jay! Glad you came back to a post you could relate to. So many people ask say to me ‘you’re not on Facebook?!? why?’ so I wanted to answer it. I know that people have found practical uses for it and yes, I can understand the withdrawals you may experience (you are breaking a habit afterall, not disimilar to stopping smoking) but hopefully you will get back to why you joined in the first place and encourage your friends to connect with you in the real world.
Facebook has some challenges ahead. It’s kind of like what ecommerce will face. There will come a time where we hit the ‘glass ceiling’ of people willing to shop online or use their phone to make payments. They need to figure out what to do with that captured audience to make them keep coming back. Not continue trying to convince the non-users or resisters to join in.
As a side note, so many people forgot my birthday last week and said ‘you are not on Facebook so I didnt get a reminder’. Geesh!!
Let me know how it goes!
I never joined FaceBook and up until now I have received lots of flack. Just last week I was buying new designer eyewear with my design partner along… just to comment not sway my preferences. The owner of the Store in Bellevue told of a customer just that morning, who took pictures of his choices and sent them to 50 friends on FB to help him make a decision. No comment.
Our high-end clients would not do business with us if they knew we “shared” on FB. So I never joined and now with privacy issues, I am glad. I am active on twitter and G+ and do LI. I absolutely love your post and already sent it to and read it to several friends and biz associates. CASUDI
@CASUDI
Thank you! I notice more and more people getting opinions from friends on Facebook. Personally, if I HAD to, I would snap a photo and text it to a friend – not post it to a network asking everyone to help me make a decision.
Im surprised that your clients would not work with you if you were active on Facebook. That’s interesting to me.
@C_Pappas These are Design clients (my parallel career) ~ and they absolutely don’t want any images of the Architectural or Interior Design we do for them to end up online anywhere. When we are promoting/branding/consulting for corporate clients….well that’s different of course. Make sense?
@CASUDI
Makes perfect sense! Thanks for clarifying!
I use FB for “stuff” – some of it’s junk, lol. The good stuff I leave for my blog. I have a huge following of 9 people. Woot! I’m new to the social scene and prefer Twitter so far. I will say I joined a closed group of writers and had a blast with that group on Facebook.
I have to ask this though: why, if you don’t like Facebook, and don’t use it; why do you have a Facebook social button on your blog?
Elizabeth Ramer
@techconfusion
I have not heard of anyone taking advantage of groups within Facebook so that is interesting point of view. 9 people is not bad if you are really connecting with those 9. I have only a handful of connections on LinkedIn and I can honestly say I know each and every one of them. Stay away from the numbers game and getting caught up in your following. It’s really about the connections and conversation – this is what I am missing with Facebook.
Love that you called me out on the Facebook button! I honestly had not given it a thought from my point of view (I am certainly not going to be using it). But although I am a resister, there are tens of thousands that are not which leads me to believe I should keep it as an option so other’s can share this blog (if they wish to do so).
Hi,
Interesting to read your views. I am 39 yrs old, work in IT industry with no specific allergy to technology per se. However, I have resisted creating a FB a/c for myself so far, for the following reasons:
(1) Let’s face it – FB, after all, is held by a private firm. Too much of a dependence (by humanity) on just one firm has always repelled me. If ever, a couple of credible competitors come up for FB (may be G+), I may use one of them, with less of a concern. I already have a G+ presence but for non-personal, Knowledge sharing updates only
(2) Right from my Kinder Garten days, year by year, or in places that I have lived so far, if I spend a few hours or days and can’t recall a person with whom I am missing a conversation, chances are that I wouldn’t be delighted to share a conversation online as well. In other words, if a person isn’t on my phone addressbook (a centralised one). It does not motivate me enough that I may discover really old pals with whom I haven’t interacted for nearly 3 decades OR those I interacted only in a limited way.
I prefer Linked In for clear professional network (colleagues, classmates, job recruiters, other professionals)
I use Twitter, with a pseudonym, to ‘participate’ in letting my view count as well OR to benefit from thought/knowledge enhancing few lines of great people. The advantage with Twitter being, though it’s a monopoly like FB, one does not have to lose sleep if the plug is to pulled either by self or by company. The contents shared/ known till that point isn’t going to hold one a hostage for staying much longer..
Abercrombie, Abercrombie and Fitch<a href=”http://www.parisabercrombie2012.com”>, Abercrombie Paris, Abercrombie doudoune Abercrombie & Fitch pourrait bient?t apprendre une grande le?on à des pratiques commerciales douteuses. Un juge fédéral a donné son feu vert à une poursuite en recours collectif contre le détaillant qui allègue qu’il a remis des cartes-cadeaux avec aucune date d’expiration pour and tard dire aux purchasers que leurs cartes avaient expired.In Décembre 2009, A & F a lancé une promotion qui a donné les cartes-cadeaux de twenty five $ à l’écart des purchasers qui ont acheté au moins a hundred bucks de choses à un moment donné. Imprimé sur la carte est un texte qui se lit comme suit: ?Cette carte-cadeau est échangeable dans tous les endroits Abercrombie & Fitch …. Aucune date d’expiration.”
It really depends on situation. for your situation you can do so to not using Facebook (I don’t use Facebook t build relationship either, the only reason I use Facebook is when my work is too stress, I play game to relax), but for some people, it is the best to not even build relationship, but do business as well.
My friend has a candy store in Malaysia. He doesn’t even have a website but through Facebook Fan Page, how he has his own factory!
@Kent Ong As long as we can weigh the value of the time spent there, then there really is no argument. The second it impacts our lives – personally and professionally – I draw the line. Love the use case of success less Facebook
@C_Pappas Agree with you!
@Kent Ong As long as we can weigh the value of the time spent there, then there really is no argument. The second it impacts our lives – personally and professionally – I draw the line. Love the use case of success less Facebook
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