Ask HN: I had more friends before Facebook. Anyone agree?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2589697

by jneal • 15 years ago

19 15 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

First, I don't have a blog, and if I did no one would read that blog...but I had an interesting thought today, and having been a daily reader of HN for about 2.5 years, I felt this was the most appropriate place to share it, and ask if anyone else agreed.

The title says it all, but I will explain. Before Facebook, there was Myspace...but to be honest, most of my real friends weren't even on Myspace, or if they were, they weren't constantly updating their status on a daily basis...maybe every couple of days at most I would see something from them. Before Facebook, when I wanted to know what a friend was up to, I had to call them. I could text, but it would take so many texts to have a decent conversation that I would simply prefer to call my friends. I can remember as early as 4 years ago I would talk to many friends on a daily basis for sometimes many hours. Actually talking to my friends would cause us to want to meet up for lunch, or just to hang out. So I would constantly be hanging out and talking to people, I was just way more social to be honest.

If you fast forward to today, in a Facebook-minded society, all of my friends that I used to call on the phone now update their status on a daily basis, and even provide me with pictures which before I could only see on my tiny 2 inch cell phone screen.

I know what all of my friends did yesterday thanks to Facebook. I know what all of my friends are doing today thanks to Facebook. And I know what all of my friends are doing tomorrow, thanks to Facebook. It seems so much more social right? I mean, it is called a social network? Yet, I feel more anti-social than ever! I can still call my friends - but what will I talk about? Hey, saw you went to the movies, how was that? .... I'm sorry, but already knowing the details of everyone's life just makes it impossible for my analytical mind to justify calling them.

I wonder if anyone else agrees? If anyone else has any further thoughts they could add to the discussion? Is it just me...am I the one being anti-social?

jamesbritt2• 15 years ago

I've help organize a number of events in and around Phoenix, AZ, and my favorites have always been the ones where there was little planning and lots of room for socializing and discussion.

Most of the time the info presented at these events could be found on the 'Net, likely faster and in more detail.

If information efficiency were the goal then that would be the way to go. But at the better gathering the talks or presentations are just a ruse to trick people into getting away from their homes or cubicles and interact in real-time with actual flesh and blood people. Serendipity takes over from there. That's why the best conferences have short talks and lots of breathing room; you want to prod people into talking to each other.

I can see the same thing with getting all your social info from a Webs site. Sure, Facebook will tell you when someone has seen a movie, but without that real-time, F2F (or even phone )conversation you miss the meandering dialog that bounces around into all sorts of areas you didn't even think to talk about until that moment.

The digital life can end up being awfully clinical. Lots of data, not much information.

missn• 15 years ago

One might argue that knowing all these "catch-up" details beforehand (through Facebook) could allow for more deep conservations when people meet up - they can immediately dive into the deep stuff and skip the catching up part.

Yet, as you've mentioned, small talk leads to many more tangents than what you'd usually get online. And, if you actually eavesdrop on conservations (or even look at your own), they usually start slow with small talk but eventually build up momentum towards deeper issues.Sometimes we just need time to settle in a conservation and those "what's up" starters usually help in that regard.

_delirium• 15 years ago

That's more or less the thesis of Sherry Turkle's recent book Alone Together, which you might find interesting. It's also interesting because Turkle was quite techo-optimist in the '80s; The Second Self (1984) was much more positive on the role of computers (and things like the then-new BBS scene) for interpersonal relationships.

jneal2• 15 years ago

Interesting..I will definitely check that out especially if I can find it on Audible. I would say I'm the same way. I love technology and I love social networks...I've got many friends to join Myspace back in the day, and even Facebook today...And it's only now that I've even had this realization.

cydonian_monk• 15 years ago

I agree with you completely, and I've even said it before here on HN: Facebook (as it is now) inhibits active social behaviour. (At least among those that aren't your close friends.) Why chase down or call up "random friend X from college" to see how they are and what they've been up to when you can get the digest version on Facebook?

deweyusa• 15 years ago

Finally, we're starting to see through the mess that Facebook is causing. It seems so innocuous and fun at first, but it takes years until we look back and realize exactly what you're saying now. I remember having hours of conversation with friends prior to Facebook via the phone. Now, it's like it's expected that I'll "just know" what my friends are doing (after all, they took the time to post it, so they almost take it as a form of offense if I don't know what they're up to. "What? You didn't see my post about my gardening project?").

I really hope our generation figures out how to get out of this quagmire somehow. I fear, however, that just as innocently as we started this project now known and accepted as "social media", we will be too far down the rabbit hole to reverse course, let alone even recognize what we've done to our true relationships with internet communication.

starter2• 15 years ago

I really hope our generation figures out how to get out of this quagmire somehow." What is one thing we could do the reinvent the Social Network concept?

I recently asked What to build into a better social network (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2586836) I'm on a mission to build a bigger, better network.

I'm starting to see that people are longing for a social experience that is truly social. Better algorithms just aren't cutting it. What will?

jamesbritt2• 15 years ago

Better algorithms just aren't cutting it. What will?

Make things harder rather than easier.

I mean, I do not want 5-line bot scripts slurping up my associations. I do not want it to be easy for Joe Blow to learn what book I last read or what foods I like. I do not want to be fodder for every Social Media expert.

Having some sort of speed bumps might help filter out the frictionless-friends from the real friends.

Facebook had that initially, to some extent, by requiring a school. Now they're icing the roads.

I don't have a clear idea on this other than a gut feeling that making some things at least slightly troublesome might go a long way to helping evolve real social networks.

achompas• 15 years ago

How old are you? I'm tempted to chalk this up to cointegration between you losing friends (like many others) while growing older and Facebook's popularity increasing.

Its harder to make friends as you grow older, and you grow apart from friends over the years, so your net # of friends declines with time. Meanwhile, we're growing up while Facebook becomes more popular. Thus, it's easy to blame FB for a traditional phenomenon related to the passage of time in one's life.

jneal2• 15 years ago

You may be right..although I do believe Facebook is partially to blame at least. I am 26...and I've got friends who have moved away, friends who have gotten married, etc...BTW I've been married myself, but I never allowed marriage to keep me from having friends

petervandijck• 15 years ago

It's likely the age. At 26, friends start drifting away and it's hard to make new ones. People have less time and inclination to spend hours on the phone at this age.

Mz• 15 years ago

I hardly ever log in to my facebook account. It's not really my cup of tea. Nonetheless, I can somewhat relate to your experience in that at one time I had a good friend online who stopped emailing me and then popped in out of the blue to comment on something I had posted on my website. It turns out this person had begun following my website and that apparently met their needs and they felt no need to actually engage me in conversation. This was kind of an icky moment for me. The friendship later ended.

I continue to wrestle with my relationship to such things. You can only have so many actual close friends. There are only so many hours in the day and close friendship requires sustained, on-going interaction to maintain. For this reason, I tend to think "social networks" are doomed to be shallow affairs. Yet, paradoxically, I find that I share a lot more info online than I do with most folks I know in person. I'm not shy there just isn't enough time in the day to explain some things to everyone I meet, so I just don't want to open up some can of worms. Still, I wrestle with this process where I seem to gradually be working on developing an online audience where the relationship is inherently lopsided: Other people often know a great deal more about me than I know about them. But this isn't really what I think of as friendship and I like having friends, which have been a tad scarce of late (remaking your life usually causes you to shed friends).

I don't have answers for you. Just sharing some of my own internal questions, FWIW.

galuggus• 15 years ago

could it be you were younger?

to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld (badly) you get to a certain age and don't take on any new friends. that's it you're full

seangeo• 15 years ago

I can relate. I have an old high school friend that I used to maintain pretty regular contact with via email since I moved interstate. Early on in the Facebook rise we both had accounts, she still uses her's but I lost interest in it. However, to her online social interaction = facebook and we no longer email each other.

I find Twitter is a bit different though, since it is not like putting your whole life up on a page, it can just be short catchups fairly regularly. Maybe it's better in this respect because it doesn't try to take the place of things like phone calls and email in the way Facebook does.

Ask HN: I had more friends before Facebook. Anyone agree?

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