Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
No, I Do Not Want to Play Scrabble
I know I’m a cranky, picky bitch. But here’s the thing: while I like networking as much as the next freelancer, I do not like social networks. Bebo is for children, MySpace is the AOL of its era, and LinkedIn is all very nice as far as it goes, but it’s virtually impossible to find anyone I’m not already connected to – by the thousands of email addresses I already gave them.
Facebook in particular, however, is really starting to drive me up the wall. I know it is incredibly 2007 to pull the Oh My God, I Hate Facebook and Am Leaving! drama queen stunt, though, so I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to complain about it instead.
First of all, while it’s nice to get in touch with old friends and colleagues, I want to be able to find you, see what you’re doing, and keep up with the handful of critical changes likely to happen with you in the course of a year: new job, new city, new spouse, new kids. If you want to know what’s up with me, I have a blog. What I do not have is the capacity to conduct the exact same “Hey! Long time no see! What are you up to?” conversation 30 times in a month.
Second of all, I do not want to suck your blood, take your quiz, or play scrabble with you. It’s nothing personal, but I can probably play Scrabble by post in less time than it will take me to kick your ass on Facebook. On a professional level, I am disgusted that Hasboro has put the kybosh on Scrabulous because it’s an increadibly stupid move on their part. On a personal level, however, I will die a happy woman if nobody ever challenges me to play Scrabulous ever again.
And last but not least, I hate to be the one to break this to all of the many Facebook whores out there but: your mama is ugly. Facebook was no beauty queen of a website to start out with, but there was always the hope it would get better. The recent redesign has proven that for the foreseeable future, at least, that’s not the case – it’s still cramped, still frustrating to navigate, and still a glowing example of grody-arsed ad placements.
But of course I’m staying. Mostly so I can log in once every three months to discover all my new friends I’ve never heard of. And then have them ask me what I’m up to.
30 Jul 2008
| In: Crankypants + Social Networks |
You’re not alone in hating all those really annoying Facebook apps. I think I’ve already blocked all of those ones that everyone kept spamming me with…
Either that or I’ve blocked the people themselves :?
30.07.2008, 1:30 pmHeh, Facebook bores me. I don’t have time or inclination for all the furry animals and quizzes you have to harrass your friends with if you want to do them.
Except for the Scrabble. I went there for the Scrabble, I stay for the Scrabble.
30.07.2008, 7:51 pmYes to all the above, with the note that of course vanilla Social Network sites are just poor substitutes for having your own site.
Focused ones are a wee bit different, mind: last.fm is great at what it does, even without the social networking stuff. And Linkedin is a professional directory that can lead to all kinds of interesting offers. None of them local to me, though.
31.07.2008, 10:34 pmI think the apps aspect of facebook has really died off recently, the initial novelty was fun but now it seems people are just using it to chat and post pictures. Is linkedn useless then? I was considering signing up.
01.08.2008, 5:53 pmLike you, I hate the apps and never bother with them. I’ve grown tired of FB and don’t really go in that much anymore. But….
I do love it for the random people from the past it throws up. Like last week – a good buddy from London in the 1990′s found me and we’re chatting again. It’s really nice to hear how he’s doing and to know he’s alive and well. Our lives would never have crossed again if it wasn’t for FB.
04.08.2008, 5:55 pm