Watching the news or reading HN, I get the impression that FB has become an essential part of people's lives. However, no one in my immediate circle, myself included, used facebook since college. I'm wondering if I'm living in a bubble or if others are hyping the effect of facebook ...
Let me add one carveout: for those who work at startups that write facebook apps, that time is NOT counted.
Maybe I'm just odd, but social networks don't really bring me any value. I have a few close friends who I stay in touch with no matter where we are, and I do it on a medium that is a little more personal than the digital equivalent of an announcement to all your friends. I thought maybe I just didn't like Facebook, but I saw the same thing with Google+. Sometimes I wonder how many people on HN are the same way.
Likewise. I don't have a million friends, just a few that really matter to me.
The friends that I really care about require no electronic mediums for meaningful interaction. If I didnt hear from them for a year, it would only take 60 seconds to get back into the comfort zone.
Given the number of people who don't have or don't use Facebook, I think there are a lot of people who don't derive social value from social networking.
I'm on facebook everyday, but for no more than 5 minutes total.
There's really no need to be on facebook all the time to get the major benefits (messaging, event invites). The iPhone app alerts you when anything happens that involves you so I don't see the need to waste any time browsing the site.
I thought about it, but I found that most people who say that actually spend more time than they think. Its like instant messaging insofar as it's easy to think you spend a few minutes but in reality you are spending hours. I'd recommend you time yourself (and confirm you really are only spending a few minutes a day)
Yeah, I visit Facebook a couple (maybe more) times a day for 1-2 minutes to check if I have any notifications and quickly scroll through the feed to see if there's anything interesting, there usually isn't.
When I'm out, I just rely on my phone vibrating when I've got a notification.
I don't see how people can spend hours everyday on it.
I spend a good portion of time logged into Facebook (in Chrome, which I don't use for anything else, and is the only place Flash is installed on my system).
It started with old friends from high school, which was sort of nice, but obviously if I'd have really wanted to keep up with these people, I would have made more of an effort to do so.
But now it's the only way that the majority of my friends communicate. None of them use email anymore, almost none of them have blogs, or websites.
I can totally understand why nerds find Facebook's popularity confounding (as they were already doing all of the things that it facilitates in a more customizable fashion without the lockin of one company), but for every single normal person I know, it's the de-facto way they use the internet.
I'm surprised and somewhat saddened to hear that most of your friends only communicate through facebook.
In my case, we still mostly contact via phone calls, resorting to text messages for less urgent messages and email for longer and more persistent messages
That is exactly the way almost every non-tech/nerd I know uses Facebook. Setting up a website is too much work. And I can understand that for them having to remember several logins and unconnected accounts (one for photo sharing, another for email, yet others for IM, blog etc.) is a lot less attractive than one site that lets them do all of the above (albeit with much less control and privacy, neither of these cause them to lose any sleep).
As for me, since most of my non-tech friends are on facebook anyway I have to keep my presence there to keep in touch. I have to admit, facebook is a pretty effective way of keeping in touch. I know I can call/email or meet in person - which I do for my inner circle of close friends. But the fact of the matter is a lot of my friends live abroad and international calls are expensive. Also, we seldom feel the need to make a call or send an email unless there is something specific we want to talk about (but that could be just me). OTOH, placing a small comment on Facebook seems a lot more effortless. The other party can also not feel compelled to answer. And there are a lot of friends I have on facebook who I don't want to lose contact with but don't want to have a day to day relationship with either (i.e. saying hi or meeting up once in a while - but not hanging out every weekend or constantly IM-ing every day).
Another thing is, apart from facebook chat, all interactions on facebook are semi-live at best. I can post a comment and the reply does not have to instant. This is good, especially if the other party lives in a very different time zone.
I am also on G+, but unfortunately most of my non-tech friends find it rather confusing, empty or just ignore it altogether. Which is a shame because liked it from the start.
Their privacy issues are really starting to bother me, enough for me to consider deactivating my account.
The one that has really gotten my goat is when you tag a photo with your friend on it. Even if you have privacy set so that only your friends can view your photos, if you tag your friend in one of your photos, ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS CAN NOW SEE IT.
You can't change this setting. It's called something like "Friend of friends can see tagged photos." You have no control over this, and the only one who can change this is your friend that you tagged.
This is now forcing me to never tag any of my friends, because I don't want strangers seeing my photos. It means effectively that I've lost control of my privacy on my photos, and that's something that is enough to drive me away from Facebook permanently.
In my opinion we have seen quiete a positive development on FB in regards to the control and usability of the privacy options recenttly, most likely triggered through the appearence of Google+.
Most, if not all the people I know, have long restricted their profile to a minimum visibility level for non-fiends and non real friends.
At the moment I do not see the privacy problem as big as it used to be 12 months ago.
You're right that sucks. But if you think about it it's probably more of a technical issue than evil policy, just imagine the permission graph for visiting one of your friend's profiles -- FB would have to do a reverse lookup of all of you friend's friends and filter ones with closed photo sharing (or what if you are a friend common to both?). Further, scaling that out to 750M people is non-trivial.
Anyways, I'm not excusing their policy, but I expect they'll fix it whenever it is technically possible to do so.
I found a fun way to use facebook. I change my birthday once a month to the upcoming calendar month and then wait for the same "friends" to wish me another generic "happy birthday".
So I know I use facebook precisely once per month.
To everyone who thinks he or she spends five minutes a day or some other short burst of time per day: please time yourself. Please! I insist because, as I mentioned a few times in a few replies, I found that people who say they spend 5 minutes actually average about 1 hour, be it on aim Facebook or blogging or slashdot or HN. If there are enough people who truly spend 5 minutes a day, I'll add an option in the next poll (which I will ask during the work week to control for the time of day)
For some reason my Nexus One comes pre-installed with Facebook and it can't be uninstalled without rooting (which for laziness sake I don't want to do). I don't have a Facebook account. The Facebook app periodically tries to authenticate and obviously can't. Instead of gracefully giving up (or allowing me to uninstall) it brings a Facebook login page to the foreground.
So every day, two to three times a day, I have to exit out of Facebook which has given itself focus. To me this defines the Facebook experience and their focus on quality software.
I dislike Facebook not for all their privacy concerns (which are annoying), but because I was always genuinely frustrated using the site.
It sounds like the app has some credentials set up in it that are just not correct. You could try checking your account manager (under Settings) to see if you have a Facebook account listed there, which you can then delete.
I have the Nexus One, with the Facebook app, and can confirm that this is not supposed to happen.
My worked started blocking it, which totally pisse me off at first. And when I get home, there are so many status updates I can barely follow them. So I mostly stopped using it, and you know what? I hardly notice.
I know this is off topic, but your "work" is stupid.
Not only is motivation more important than some time "lost" due to FB usage.
If you cannot get some of your private stuff during work hours, chances are you are going to leave earlier or come in later.
Lastly it is ineffective, you can always "stunnel" via port 443; they would be none the wiser.
As a high schooler, it has become a mandatory part of the social experience. I can count on one hand the people in my grade without a Facebook, and many real life conversations will start with "so did you see X on Facebook last night?" Although its for the most part a large waste of time and I don't really want one, I use it because I would like to have a social life. Its sad, however, that many of my friends fail to see how superficial it is.
Facebook usage can be helpful to entrepreneurship in that it can make it easier to understand people outside of Silicon Valley. I have nontechnical Facebook friends from high school, college, and my local area and by following their lives on Facebook I can regularly put myself into different peoples' mindsets to think about how they use technology, what things are problems to them, how they perceive things, etc.
It is also great if you are involved in a hobby where Facebook usage is high such as dancing argentine tango in the Bay Area. All of the instructors are on Facebook, lots of dancers friend each other, and event listings and photos can be found there.
it can make it easier to understand people outside of Silicon Valley.
That's part of the value for me, getting small reminders that people exist outside of my urban liberal bubble, and that while I might not agree with those people on a whole host of things, I can at least respect them and their perspective.
I voted how I use it for personal use. I probably spend at least 60 hours a week on Facebook in the Ads platform.
I've got a rather stupid-large number of people sharing with me on Google+, but only one person actually shares anything. I've checked it once in the last week and still see nothing outside his stuff (and I'd rather just read his blog).
I'm not saying G+ is a failure, just that for me, it isn't compelling. I still enjoy FB and staying connected with my family through it...and it make me a metric-ass-ton of money :)
"Let me add one carveout: for those who work at startups that write facebook apps, that time is NOT counted."
I specifically added that to make sure that people voted based on personal use. I suspect a lot of people work at startups or jobs that require use of facebook
I had to create a facebook account to allow my wife to have a 'married' status (not allowed to be set alone).
Felt pretty much like a damned if you do damned if you don't situation
I was going to opine that the stupid facebook firewalls (you have to login to use a service) were the worst things I've seen, but definitely marital pressure takes the cake
You can set your relationship status to "married" (or "in a relationship") without linking it to a particular person. My mother does exactly that - my father isn't much of an online sort of person.
It's interesting to consider "spending" an hour a day on the service. What if I pop in like 10-15 times a day to check notifications. I feel like it's a lot of usage, but total time is actually quite minimal. In addition, I have Adium signed into Facebook chat 24/7. Being a developer by trade, I'm online nearly every waking hour, so usage may seem even higher than it really is.
I thought about it, but I think anyone who says they spend "five minutes a day" in reality spend much more time. Years ago I thought I spent 5 minutes a day on aim until I really started clocking myself (old school way, with a stopwatch). That 5 minutes was actually an hour :(. That being said I highly recommend timing
That's a good observation. Facebook is becoming like TV in that lots of people spend a ton of time with it even though almost all of its content is trivial, while really productive people tend to spend relatively little if any time with it.
This story posts on a Saturday night. Also pro-facebookers aren't likely to care so much about yet another usage poll. The ultimate poll is Facebook's site stats.
In 2007 I created an account and used it for a few months but it wasn't very interesting so I closed it. I found that it was maintaining artificial relationships with people I wouldn't be in contact with otherwise. It creates an illusion of connection, not real connection.
About a year ago I had to create an account for development that I use when clients require Facebook integration. I found the API to be slightly annoying to work with.
My view on social features is that they can add a lot of value to sites that have a real purpose beyond just being social: Delicious, StackOverflow, Lang-8, SoundCloud, GitHub, etc. are great.
I check in weekly. And only because ever member of my family (except for the kids, oddly enough) are on it. I"d love to ditch it. But I kind of want them to stay on FB. So I can be on Google + without the family and their drama. :)
[+] [-] spiffworks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitops|14 years ago|reply
The friends that I really care about require no electronic mediums for meaningful interaction. If I didnt hear from them for a year, it would only take 60 seconds to get back into the comfort zone.
Technology is no substitute for heart. : )
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrScruff|14 years ago|reply
I'm on facebook everyday, but for no more than 5 minutes total.
There's really no need to be on facebook all the time to get the major benefits (messaging, event invites). The iPhone app alerts you when anything happens that involves you so I don't see the need to waste any time browsing the site.
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AD7863|14 years ago|reply
When I'm out, I just rely on my phone vibrating when I've got a notification.
I don't see how people can spend hours everyday on it.
[+] [-] m0nastic|14 years ago|reply
It started with old friends from high school, which was sort of nice, but obviously if I'd have really wanted to keep up with these people, I would have made more of an effort to do so.
But now it's the only way that the majority of my friends communicate. None of them use email anymore, almost none of them have blogs, or websites.
I can totally understand why nerds find Facebook's popularity confounding (as they were already doing all of the things that it facilitates in a more customizable fashion without the lockin of one company), but for every single normal person I know, it's the de-facto way they use the internet.
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
In my case, we still mostly contact via phone calls, resorting to text messages for less urgent messages and email for longer and more persistent messages
[+] [-] mak120|14 years ago|reply
As for me, since most of my non-tech friends are on facebook anyway I have to keep my presence there to keep in touch. I have to admit, facebook is a pretty effective way of keeping in touch. I know I can call/email or meet in person - which I do for my inner circle of close friends. But the fact of the matter is a lot of my friends live abroad and international calls are expensive. Also, we seldom feel the need to make a call or send an email unless there is something specific we want to talk about (but that could be just me). OTOH, placing a small comment on Facebook seems a lot more effortless. The other party can also not feel compelled to answer. And there are a lot of friends I have on facebook who I don't want to lose contact with but don't want to have a day to day relationship with either (i.e. saying hi or meeting up once in a while - but not hanging out every weekend or constantly IM-ing every day).
Another thing is, apart from facebook chat, all interactions on facebook are semi-live at best. I can post a comment and the reply does not have to instant. This is good, especially if the other party lives in a very different time zone.
I am also on G+, but unfortunately most of my non-tech friends find it rather confusing, empty or just ignore it altogether. Which is a shame because liked it from the start.
[+] [-] steve8918|14 years ago|reply
The one that has really gotten my goat is when you tag a photo with your friend on it. Even if you have privacy set so that only your friends can view your photos, if you tag your friend in one of your photos, ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS CAN NOW SEE IT.
You can't change this setting. It's called something like "Friend of friends can see tagged photos." You have no control over this, and the only one who can change this is your friend that you tagged.
This is now forcing me to never tag any of my friends, because I don't want strangers seeing my photos. It means effectively that I've lost control of my privacy on my photos, and that's something that is enough to drive me away from Facebook permanently.
[+] [-] pandaassembly|14 years ago|reply
Most, if not all the people I know, have long restricted their profile to a minimum visibility level for non-fiends and non real friends.
At the moment I do not see the privacy problem as big as it used to be 12 months ago.
[+] [-] dreamux|14 years ago|reply
Anyways, I'm not excusing their policy, but I expect they'll fix it whenever it is technically possible to do so.
[+] [-] Pieater3141|14 years ago|reply
So I know I use facebook precisely once per month.
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukejduncan|14 years ago|reply
For some reason my Nexus One comes pre-installed with Facebook and it can't be uninstalled without rooting (which for laziness sake I don't want to do). I don't have a Facebook account. The Facebook app periodically tries to authenticate and obviously can't. Instead of gracefully giving up (or allowing me to uninstall) it brings a Facebook login page to the foreground.
So every day, two to three times a day, I have to exit out of Facebook which has given itself focus. To me this defines the Facebook experience and their focus on quality software.
I dislike Facebook not for all their privacy concerns (which are annoying), but because I was always genuinely frustrated using the site.
[+] [-] buro9|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felixc|14 years ago|reply
I have the Nexus One, with the Facebook app, and can confirm that this is not supposed to happen.
[+] [-] RK|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msluyter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuxhansl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godarderik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredsohn|14 years ago|reply
Facebook usage can be helpful to entrepreneurship in that it can make it easier to understand people outside of Silicon Valley. I have nontechnical Facebook friends from high school, college, and my local area and by following their lives on Facebook I can regularly put myself into different peoples' mindsets to think about how they use technology, what things are problems to them, how they perceive things, etc.
It is also great if you are involved in a hobby where Facebook usage is high such as dancing argentine tango in the Bay Area. All of the instructors are on Facebook, lots of dancers friend each other, and event listings and photos can be found there.
[+] [-] MartinCron|14 years ago|reply
That's part of the value for me, getting small reminders that people exist outside of my urban liberal bubble, and that while I might not agree with those people on a whole host of things, I can at least respect them and their perspective.
[+] [-] kposehn|14 years ago|reply
I've got a rather stupid-large number of people sharing with me on Google+, but only one person actually shares anything. I've checked it once in the last week and still see nothing outside his stuff (and I'd rather just read his blog).
I'm not saying G+ is a failure, just that for me, it isn't compelling. I still enjoy FB and staying connected with my family through it...and it make me a metric-ass-ton of money :)
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
I specifically added that to make sure that people voted based on personal use. I suspect a lot of people work at startups or jobs that require use of facebook
[+] [-] hrktb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsmith_hacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bherms|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] veyron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sidcool|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bfe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfischer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|14 years ago|reply
This story posts on a Saturday night. Also pro-facebookers aren't likely to care so much about yet another usage poll. The ultimate poll is Facebook's site stats.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cubicle67|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome31|14 years ago|reply
About a year ago I had to create an account for development that I use when clients require Facebook integration. I found the API to be slightly annoying to work with.
My view on social features is that they can add a lot of value to sites that have a real purpose beyond just being social: Delicious, StackOverflow, Lang-8, SoundCloud, GitHub, etc. are great.
[+] [-] crag|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ha470|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyler_ball|14 years ago|reply
If I've been on Facebook a lot during a given week, I know that I haven't been that productive.
If I sign on, see a bunch of notifications and realize that I haven't been on in a while, I know that I've been busy, and feel good.
Unfortunately, though, it's how just about everybody I know communicates and shares their photos.