Tuesday, September 01, 2009
FADEBOOK
This was predictable.
I have never joined one of these.
Not that I haven't had invites to do so.
From the beginning I have written back something like this.
Dear ............I don't say that "I have enough friends already" or that I regard the whole thing as, at best, juvenile and, at worst, the work of the devil. I was heartened to see that someone's mother already had said this to one of the deserters.Thanks for the email. It is good to hear from you.
I am sorry to say that I have a long-time policy to abstain from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any of the social networks.
I think that they are a spam-magnet and, inevitably, an invasion of privacy.
I would love to hear from you by regular email anytime. (Or, if appropriate, "I am happy we exchange email and I would love to continue").
It is bad enough that there are these cliques and shit. I see, from time to time, some people get bent because they have not been invited to join a site. Jeez. All that.
And now, the inevitable co-opting (a 60's word now so commonly seen in practice that it is no longer thought to be pejorative).
It was clear from the beginning that this would all happen—data mining, viral dissemination of "private stuff", pyramiding of names (think Agway), a social Ponzi scheme.
There is no way that any of these could make money in their original form.
And so on.
It is scary to say "no" to this kind of thing. They use relationships between people as bargaining chips to get more names.
I just grit my teeth and say the n-o word and if the person is hurt and cuts me off, well, they weren't my kind of person.
This has not happened (as far as I know--maybe I have been cutoff and didn't miss it).
In fact a few people wrote to say that they had been sucked in and wanted out themselves. Another told us that the website had garnered all his email addresses and sent the invite out without his knowledge. Knowing the source, I am a bit skeptical about this, but then being cynical about FaceBook, it is believable at a certain level.
Another fad. Fades. Good riddance.
