I think we all can agree that Facebook, although we love it, can be a real tool. If one of our friends treated us the way Facebook does — changing constantly, selling us out to its friends and basically monopolizing our lives with its drama — we would probably de-friend it.
The problem is that Facebook is our popular friend, our link to everyone else in our social circle. Facebook is now indispensable in our technological way of life.
In the beginning, Facebook was a revolutionary idea. Its appeal lay not in its exclusivity as much as its simplicity. When the site became operational in 2004, there was already a social network in place, MySpace. The problems with MySpace were obvious: too much individual personalization and programs that ran too slowly for them to be really successful.
And then came Facebook. The site was perfect. Exclusive and simple, it was the answer to the MySpace problem. There were options to upload pictures, post statuses and friends could look only at other friends’ pages to be in the know.
But in 2006, the News Feed was introduced and so the destruction began.
At first the change was met with disapproval from the general public, but Mark Zuckerberg soon made changes allowing people to control the level of information being thrust in their faces. Since the introduction of the News Feed, there have been numerous changes and just as many complaints, but this year it may have gone too far. Let’s begin with The Ticker.
The Ticker is a module that shows you a constant feed of everything that your friends are doing, posting and commenting on, including things completely unrelated to you or your Facebook friends. Not only is this unnecessary, but it is also truly annoying for those of us who really could not care less.
But The Ticker is not the only new module that’s going to irritate long-time users in the future. There is also The Timeline, set to be introduced within the next few weeks. The Timeline compiles everything you do on Facebook and publishes it.
All of these new features have drawbacks. Users should be aware that any public page that you post on or comment on is a public post, and since these do not get sent to your Ticker, you are less likely to remember that it is public.
Facebook applications are going to become perpetrators of this public posting as well. Soon, every app on Facebook (like music and games) will ask you if it is OK to access your information and publish to your friends. The problem is once you agree to this, it is likely that you will forget just how much of your online activity is actually being broadcast to the Facebook world.
Ultimately, the biggest problem with the new Facebook model is the shift from just having “friends” to now having “subscribers.” Subscribers are people who can choose to follow your public posts without becoming your Facebook friend. If they “friend request” you and you accept, then they are allowed to view your full profile and private posts.
However, if you decide to de-friend someone, they will still be considered a subscriber and will therefore be able to see your public posts.
So now, instead of quietly de-friending someone, you have to also block them in order to hide your posts. Ideal? I think not. It is clear that Facebook is becoming what we all feared, another MySpace with too many complicated features and unnecessary drivel.
It is sad that something that started out so good could become so disappointing in the seven short years that it has existed. Goodbye, Facebook; it’s time I de-friend you. You will be missed.