The 5 Idiots You Wish You Could Get Out of Your Facebook Feed
You're not even a good Facebook friend!
June 11, 2012 - 7:00 am
4) The Persistent Gamer
Like most people, I don’t have the slightest idea what Zynga Slingo is and I also don’t have a burning desire to play Farmville or Mafia Wars. If you do, that’s all well and good. Hope you have a great time slinging your Zynga and your Mafia pigs rub out the gangster chickens on the other side of a farm. The problem is that some of these people won’t take “no” for an answer. The same people send invites to play the same game five times a week. Add that to the other 10 people who play and occasionally ask and it’s easy for your notifications to fill up with calls to play games you haven’t played and never will play. Have your fun, but stop bugging people in the process!
Facebook? Why even bother with it?! I’ve been Facebook free for over a year and don’t miss it one bit.
I tried to DE-activate mine 2 yrs ago, and still get odd email notices from time to time.
My personal curse is “gay activist guy” – and since I work in theatre, I know about 100 of them.
Bravo Wendy!
How about “people who link to articles that could have been on one page, but are spread out over multiple pages in order to get more ad hits”? I hate those.
How ’bout a link that says “View as a single page.” If only there were such a thing!
How about not having to open every story you want to read on the site in a new tab, go through, hit the “single page” link, and wait for them all to reload before reading. I like the content on this site, but the split pages absolutely drive me crazy.
According to google analytics you’re in the minority. Given the single page vs multiple page option more people prefer multiple pages. And that’s pretty standard. Forbes, Daily Caller — most sites do multiple pages for longer stories.
I HATE it when they make it two pages, and there’s only half a paragraph on page 2.
Do without facebook Wendy? I don’t know how you do it! They’ll have to pry my account from my cold dead hands.
You can avoid all of these things and still use Facebook by fixing your settings.
#4 drives me up the freakin’ wall.
#3 is a close second.
I have never been on Facebook. Facebook has too many privacy leaks. I don’t mix my online life as a conservative/counterjihadist with my life in “meatspace” (also as a conservative/counterjihadist!) because there simply are too many dangerous people online.
FB now gives people the ability to not add someone to a group but “invite” them. Not sure why they did this because the effect is the same: You get notified every time someone posts a comment.
Or you could just NOT go on Facebook and spend more time reading a book. Hey, now there’s an idea!
Are you really that desperate for friends that you have to spend hours analyzing and obsessing over your Facebook account? Get a life.
Just like anything else, Facebook provides an opportunity to use it wisely, or obsess.
I use it to keep in touch with family and friends far away, and to update family and friends near and far about what my family is doing. The things John complained about do inhibit our ability to keep in touch with family and friends because the Zynga invitations and #6) the “if you don’t cry and forward this, Jesus will turn you away from Heaven” posts, clog up our feed.
As Heather noted, you can change the settings, but it does seem that I have to keep going back and re-fixing settings and relearning the new way to fix the settings so that I can keep in touch with people instead of getting Zynga updates (it’s a game, folks; I don’t post incessantly about how my DDO character is doing).
I’ve got a Life Libertyship.
But you konw what, I’m finding people I lost touch with in 1973 via Facebook.
The reason I bring that up, is I wasn’t able to connect with them before Facebook, because all the other sites for doing that kind of stuff no one ever showed up on.
And, oh, By The Way, I do read books, regularly!
jd, perhaps there was a reason why you didn’t contact those people (or they didn’t contact you) since 1973? They don’t sound like such close “friends” to me if you haven’t heard from them in about, oh, 40 years!
Look, I think Americans are getting obsessed about sharing every single solitary moment of their lives with everybody on earth, which is literally what Facebook is all about. It’s like a reality show that everybody can be a part of on Bravo and it sounds a trifle scary and crazy to me. Somehow, I don’t feel compelled to show pictures of my latest trip to the grocery store with the entire western world (and possibly the eastern world, too). People’s lives just aren’t that interesting. And for your real family and friends, people you should be in regular contact with, there is always a thing called e-mail. So if you want to talk to people, pick up the phone or if you can’t talk to them send them an e-mail. But to have a party line in cyberspace so that every insane person out there can comment on your own personal life is just plain silly.
I’ve never been on Facebook and life is grand. The heavens have not darkened and the seas are still there. Children still smile and old people are still old. But life goes on even without my closest 4,000 “friends” knowing about it. In short, it all sounds like a desperate cry for attention to me.
You aren’t describing me or most of my friends and family; maybe you should find better associates, if that’s what Facebook is like in your neck of the woods!
I do enjoy hearing snippets from my nieces and nephews, my cousins’ kids, and my re-found high school friends’ lives. I got to see a picture of my great-nephew when he was only a few hours old, and my cousins’ daughters’ prom pictures. It’s not an obsession, not a narcissistic exercise for most of us, but a way to keep in touch with people I probably wouldn’t have kept up with otherwise. We read books, and talk about them on Facebook! We write letters, and share the nice bits with our friends. I’m a terrible picture-taker, so I get to share my daughter’s friends pictures of my daughter’s rugby games. It’s a neato tool. And I’ll stay outta yer yard
I find all facebook denizens equally annoying, wherefore I hang out on internet sites and inject pointless comments to pointless articles instead of hanging out on facebook posting even more pointless comments to even more pointless posts. Woohoo.
No one keeps their train wreck friends around as a source of entertainment?
Facebook allows you to Block all content you don’t want such as games and notifications that you’d prefer not to get.
It also lets you block comments from Friends of Friends that you’re tired of seening constantly.
You just need to wend your way through the Cryptic Account Settings.
I’ve been a Facebook user for a while now, and I think keeping friends and have them keep you can be accomplished in two steps:
1. Keep it light. I’m sorry if your day sucked, your job sucks, your life sucks, your ex is a jerk and you are in a pit of despair. But I can’t help you. Talk it out with an actual person. My life isn’t a dance party either, but I try not to burden my Facebook friends with my woes.
2.No Religion, No politics. I’m very proud you believe in something, but unless you’re a professional pundit who I follow to hear your views on something, don’t be the guy or girl whose status update is a daily rant about Romney/Obama/Congress/Proposition x/etc. Ditto for religion. You’re an athiest. Everyone who believes in God is a moron. I get it.
Also, if you can cut back on the funny cat and dog pictures, that would be great too.
According to a report in the Daily Rash, a man killed his childhood Facebook friend because of incessant “mundane, day in the life” comments. In a way I can understand. http://www.thedailyrash.com/man-kills-facebook-friend-over-mundane-day-in-the-life-comments
There’s a song about that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kCvveN87KE8
I guess you know you can manage your privacy configuration to avoid all that .
I de-activated my Fakebook account and am the better for it. The kids can email me cute pics of the grandkids. Cut out the middle man.
It has often been said that a television audience are not the customers – they are the product.
Face Book expands on that business model. You put all your personal information on Face Book and then they data mine it and sell it.
I genuinely do not see the appeal in participating in this process.
There’s a better solution to Facebook problems.
Just don’t.
You forgot the Friend Miner. That annoying person who goes through all their friends lists and adds in their friends friends so they can all be friends.