back to article I've got 99 problems, but a Facebook boycott ain't one

A marketing campaign to convince Facebookers to quit the social network for 99 days has failed to thrill – even though many netizens expressed outrage at the website's recent, highly questionable emotion-furtling study. It turns out that Facebook is more addictive than an electronic crack pipe, if the response to a bunch of …

  1. Jad
    Unhappy

    Emails and Announcements

    I set up a facebook account to see pictures my family uploaded online. I turned off all notifications and all emails, I don't want that stuff

    My brother invited me to his sons christening on facebook.

    I didn't log in to facebook until the day after the christening, missing the entire event.

    He didn't get it when I told him that I have email, 3 phones and a physical address that he could have sent the invite to; why did he have to use facebook as the only medium ...

    He's my younger brother, so I guess I'll just have to leave it at that ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      coz everyone else he knows was on it and it was easier to just add everyone there and if it worked perfectly well for xyz number of people why shouldn't it work for you?

      1. beep54
        Unhappy

        Re: Emails and Announcements

        Did this really need a snark/Poe's/whatthefuckever label.....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      I have an account for the very same reason since in most cases that is all my younger siblings will use. I have told them that if they want to contact me use my normal e-mail because if they use facebook I very likely won't see it - I log on maybe once a month just to see what they have been doing and that generally boils down to 'not a lot'.

    3. tfewster

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      ..content free ad network...

      FTFY

    4. Fibbles

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      This is really no different to setting up an email address, not checking your email and then getting mad at people who sent you emails. Though I will admit with a situation such as a close family member inviting you to an important event they should have had the sense to phone you when you didn't respond.

      Footnote: You can set up Facebook so that it emails you when you receive a message or invite on the service. Send it to its own folder if you don't want it clogging up your regular inbox.

      1. Jos

        Re: Emails and Announcements

        Yeah, only it's getting much worse than that. Lot's of people I know have come to -expect- you have a facebook account.

        How many a time have I had someone tell me "oh, I thought you knew I will have a bbq next weekend. I put it on facebook" kind of bullcrap. I don't miss invitations from most of my RealLiveFriends (tm), as I meet them in person at one point anyways. Or use a phone (to call). Or by email (you know, where you actually have to remember the names of people you like to invite for some activity).

        I had an account in the early days, but more out of curiosity, same as when at the time I tried to see what Second Life was all about (remember the time the Reg had a Second Life article almost daily). Both are/were crud.

        Facebook annoyed the shit out of me, and I gave up when I got managers from the head-office inviting me to become their "friends". Good stuff when all the pictures your connections only put your pictures up from those good nights at the bar.

        As for times wasted on FB, I'm amazed sometimes any business gets done at any company. When I walk down open plan offices at various customer premises, a large % of the drones seem to be trawling through their "friends'" latest updates/activities/cat pictures, instead of doing actual work.

        If I were any kind of decision maker on company policy, the first thing would be to block *facebook* in the FW block list. The day FB would become critical for the job at hand, would be the day some other policies would be enforced. (Ok, don't start about "the company FB page", "we need to advertise on FB", or "we need to check our competitors' FB page" issues. I understand horses for courses).

        I can only hope FB will one day soon just be remembered as "that fad from the early 21st century".

        If not, I might become that last person roaming around, trying to behave like the rest of humanity who have been transformed into emotionless drone copies out of flowery plant pods.

      2. Nuke
        Holmes

        @Fibbles - Re: Emails and Announcements

        Wrote :- "This is really no different to setting up an email address, not checking your email and then getting mad at people who sent you emails

        No, it's like someone sending you letters care of the Post Office in town X because they know you go shopping there sometimes.

    5. 080

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      Have you thought that the real reason he didn't email or ring you is that he didn't want you to know?

      The only advert you need to watch on FB is for AdBlock+ then the rest all disappear but even then FB still an irritating diversion. For families to keep in touch there are plenty of "closed" systems available that don't irritate

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Emails and Announcements

        @080

        "Closed" systems.

        The clue is in the name. They are not going to be using these.

        Why would they?

        Would they even know what they were, or give a f*** about them if they did.

        These are families, not business associates.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Emails and Announcements

      <---- wot Jad said.

      I have found the only way to avoid said non-invite is to not be on Facebook.

      Then, when you receive no phone call, email, text, Whatapp, Tweet, G+ or whatever...you'll now how much said organiser really wanted / needed you there.

      The Facebook-only invite isn't just eggs-in-one-basket thickery, it's bloody bad manners, too.

  2. silent_count

    “The campaigners claimed that quitting Facebook for more than three months "saves the average user [...]"

    I question their premise - that without facebook, these people will spend their time on more productive pursuits.

    The kind of people prone to 'wasting' time on facebook would, sans facebook, simply find something else to waste their time on. There is no time 'saving' to be gained.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      indeed, I normally find any time I stop wasting in one place I spend wasting in another place. Like once I've finished the first throng of pointless work I read the reg until all the interesting stuff is done, click on facebook to see if anyone's posted any good pictures of bands I follow, check the old twitters see if any of my mates in Japan have said anything then on with the second lot of work until my brain bleeds, quick check of el reg, then the bbc news, the face book, then twitter, then onto the third lot of work. Rinse repeat until all the work is done and home time rolls round.

  3. User McUser
    Trollface

    It's been difficult...

    But today makes 3,444 days without using Facebook.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's been difficult...

      The problem comes in 1302 days when you turn 13 and become eligible for an account

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's been difficult...

      So far I've resisted signing up for any 'social media' site for 21,960 days. Can't say it has been hard.

      I just say No. (or words to that effect)

      Old git signing off for another week.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's been difficult...

      Not for me.

      Never had an account, never will.

      I can understand the ease of use and enticement of re-connecting with people in your past.

      For me, I've always kept in contact with family and friends I care about, so no need for FB in my life. Why bother getting updates from someone you never REALLY were friends with?

      I can see the idea of running my own "Social" network on my personal server. It could replace FB for family and friends, with no tracking or Ad's to deal with. Use FB for initial connection and move/invite them to the private site.

      It's a thought anyway.

      ~Best wishes and keep in mind nothing is free, so no whining about FB/Gmail if you choose to use the FREE services.

      1. PeeKay

        Re: It's been difficult...

        "I can see the idea of running my own "Social" network on my personal server."

        Sounds like a job for Diaspora - https://joindiaspora.com/

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I needed no marketing campaign

    for me to close my Facebook account.

  5. Shell
    Mushroom

    Critical mass

    I hate Facebook with a passion. But like many, I have less computer literate & ageing family members in far-flung parts of the world to whom Facebook is their only form of shared online communication. There just isn't anything 'better' that I can convince a sufficient number of relatives to move to gain any kind of critical mass :(

  6. Nanners

    All or Nothing

    Something like that s an all or nothing campaign. Either everyone does it or it doesn't work. Unfortunately there are a whole lot of dumb monkeys out there...a whole, whole lot.

  7. Barbarian At the Gates

    Dumb monkeys

    is where the money is at. Smart ones take too much effort to keep happy.

  8. Fibbles

    In other news...

    Crack dealer screws over users. Users get mad but keep buying crack.

  9. nohatjim

    I had an account and ignored it for about four years. Then I found some groups that I was interested and ended up spending hours on the bloody thing. Has a holiday this summer with no tech and have now got rid of the iphone and facebook. Much happier

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least...

    All those jokes and powerpoints presentations crowding my email now are crowding my facebook. Actually those PPP's that repeat themselves every 2 years now showed on Facebook. And I don't even have to read them or to delete them and getting nagged by the sender because I deleted without even reading them all.

    Using FB as spam dumpster... priceless.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    they know more than you know

    I signed up as a practise as I was about to install it at a clients. Within a few weeks old ex's, workmates and people who I really don't want to converse with appears on my 'people you may know'.

    how the F does it know this??????

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: they know more than you know

      I've always assumed the email address is the main thing it uses, as its probably the only thing given that is generally unique to one user and verifiably accurate in the basic sense that you can recieve the verification mail via that account.

      So even a fake name account with a well used personal email address (as opposed to those junk addresses we use) would yield plenty of close contacts after FBs been through the users address books. If that email address appears in others personal address books often enough with your real name attached, I guess FB can also take a reasonable punt at the likelihood that is your name rather than the one you submitted.

      Many of those contact books may/will contain other info you didn't submit like home address, workplace, photo, D.O.B., spouse, inside leg measurement etc. Again, if enough of those agree, I'd imagine it assigns a value for the probability that you are "X", based on the number of 'votes' for each piece of information. If some also have an alternative email for you, the same process can be applied to that, refining the probablility of who 'you' are further and perhaps netting other information.

      All of that can then be checked further across other available sources; ad pimps databases, public records, website data etc etc, and anything new checked again from scratch. Face recognition would provide other potential matches by association too, if they have a starting point. By the end, assuming the original email address was pretty well used to contact actual aquaintances, I'd be surprised if they hadn't build up a pretty accurate picture of the accessible bits of your life, and have reasonable confidence that the core is correct. Obviously how much they can tease out is going to vary massively depending on how widely the address was used and how sociable you are as a whole. Not to mention how much horsepower they apply and storage they have, which would appear to be vast.

      And all that potentially, from one email address and a few fake details. Caveat; there's a lot of guessing here.

      But it gets even uglier when you think that you don't even need a profile for them to do this since your email addresses will already be available, without your permission, via the sucking dry of all those contact books; the so-called 'shadow profile' I've seen mentioned elsewhere, the idea of which I find extremely offensive since I really wouldn't piss on Zuckerberg if he was lit up like a roman candle.

      FB makes the idea of maintaining somewhat discreet identities on the net extremely hard, because of its overarching view across so many data sources and because the discipline required to avoid cross contamination would just be too much effort. So one way or another, participate or not, Zucks sordid little enterprise gets to turn you into a cash cow for their profit, like it or not, either via selling your data, or via your participation in ad-clicking. Very wrong and very depressing.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: they know more than you know

      Not to mention that even those of us without accounts are presumably well known to FB. Our friends have uploaded our email addresses, and tagged us in pictures.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook what?

    Sorry, but I'm one of those who refuse to use it.

    I only had an account active for 90 days or so because it was required as part of my gig at Facebook.

    I know that I'm not alone and that there are several commentards who share this trait with me.

    Saying no to FB is easy.

  13. LaeMing
    Megaphone

    99 days?

    Amateurs!

  14. Pavlov's obedient mutt

    to quote Douglas Adams

    Any tech that existed at the time of birth was OK, any thing that came along before 30 was an opportunity and anything after 30 will bring about the end of the world

    I'm guessing the poo-poo-ers in the comments above (I'm one of them.. so don't flame me!) are in their 40s?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: to quote Douglas Adams

      nowhere near right, I'm in my 60's. Bring back Punched cards I say.

    2. Fibbles

      Re: to quote Douglas Adams

      There are many legitimate problems with Facebook. There is also a sizeable section of the Reg readership that never grew out of that teenage mindset where everything mainstream is bad. Facebook is the punching-bag du jour, eventually it'll be something else.

  15. Terry 6 Silver badge

    I don't mind FB

    I keep an eye on old colleagues people who were on the same volunteer scheme as me 30 odd years ago, and acquaintances. And it's fun to share discussions with family and friends around the world in a general sort of way.

    BUT. Some people out there seem to forget or fail to comprehend that it's just a big chat room and not the source and repository of all information. Nor is it personal.

    So, expecting that putting an important family announcment on FB and expecting that all the family will be aware is just ignorance and stupidity.

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