It's eminently possible to just live life without Facebook. I stopped using it a few years ago, although more because I was being drowned with useless information from other people ('hand stuck in toaster again, LOL') than out of privacy concerns.
I agree with you there. I hated Facebook because I made everyone I ever knew a "friend", and it was depressing because of how dull these people were. I canceled my account and haven't thought about it again; Facebook provided me with no value. I still don't see why other people like it so much; if you want to chat with your friends, why not go get some coffee or beer together?
Maybe because not everyone lives 10 minutes from each other and is 100% independently mobile? And gee... occasionally even people that you really enjoy spending time with have to move to other areas of the planet.
As much as I'm not a fan of FB re all the privacy stuff (not to mention a history of horribly under/wrongly-documented and semi-broken APIs), it's done wonders for a large generation of web users in terms of allowing them to easily (and consistently) share their lives with a lot of their friends and family. I see that aspect as a good thing.
I have no car, a lot of my friends are several hours away by public transport (even here in San Francisco), my birth family lives on another continent, and my wife's extended family lives on a different continent again. I couldn't manage without the internet, but somehow I manage just fine without facebook. I've kept a FB as a sort of notebook in case I need to find someone, but I think I've only logged in once or twice this year. At this point, I think everyone I care about is on LinkedIn.
I'm not for or against FB; it's not my cup of tea, but I might not be like the typical user. What I don't understand is the 'forced to use facebook' meme that comes up every time someone is unhappy with some changes there.
People could easily share lives with their friends and families long before Facebook. Email, IM etc. But not a whole lot of people seemed to bother with it. Now Facebook brainwashed everyone that it's almost irresponsible not to share.
As much as I want to agree with that, no, it wasn't as easy.
If I wanted to share a picture with 12 people, I had to send 12 emails, or CC 12 people, or BCC them because they didn't want their emails shared with people they didn't know.
Not everyone understood IM, and not everyone was on at the same time.
The bigger question would be why more people didn't latch on to friendster or myspace before facebook. It's as much a social trend as much as a technical one. As computers got cheaper and more people got net connections (or faster ones), there was more of a need/demand for sharing info. Facebook hit at the right time to capitalize on network effects amongst 'regular' folk.
I'm self-aware enough to know that if I weren't single, I wouldn't use facebook at all. As with many things in life, facebook is attractive to women, and the men follow the women.
I think it's why facebook really rules. It's the most casual place to ask a girl for a cup of coffee. If you sms it's a lot closer to harassing. And you can assume that you find practically any girl on facebook that you have met.
The people I know that get the most utility out of Facebook, are attempting to keep in contact with a large base of friends/family once they've move away from them.
This has always seemed so "burger without the meat" to me.
Unless your friends are conveying intellectual stimulation that stands on its own, you're just reminiscing and should probably just some make new friends and call your mom now and then.
I think you're wrong in that department. It's become a fundamental in online identity, especially for younger people. I watch my younger siblings (teenagers) who depends on that for their social lives. Sure, they wouldn't die without it, but it's an essential part of being a part of their community. I could say the same for myself, I don't like Facebook and what they do, but if I wasn't on it during college and especially grad school - I would have missed out on a lot of the experiences with my colleagues.
I have no idea on how you live, how old you are and who you keep as company, but I think you're going to be in the minority or already are) soon enough. It's a social organizer that everyone has opted into which means breaking from it makes it infinitely harder to remain social.
That's more or less saying: "Let's do this because everyone else is doing this."
There's some merit in your argument. I've argued elsewhere that 500,000 daily Android activations means that the kids growing up now form their first impression of a "computer" to mean "smartphone" and not a desktop. This world-view is totally different, and as people who create products, we have to stop and think, are the things we are doing now relavent in an age where "computer = smartphone"?
Applying this with Facebook, we have kids growing up and learning how to socialize through Facebook. It suggests that that, unless I dive deep into Facebook, I will remain on the other side of this generation gap. As a product creator, I would make products suited for the older generation -- already obsolete. It extends outside of making products. We've already seen policy makers make bone-headed moves, attempting to restrict internet access for its citizens. That's like grounding a teenager from using Facebook. Grounding a teenager and making sure they can't use Facebook? Really?
However, on deeper reflection, this points to a huge flaw. It comes back to, "let's do this because everyone else is doing it."
I've written about this as an answer on Quora. We used to have rites of passage conducted by elders and parents. Now these rites of passage form from peer interaction. That's not such a good thing.
You're trying to describe network effects without using that term it seems. It's a pretty well documented area and the fundamental idea is the more users, the more value generated (with some sort of exponential benefit). I don't think there is a flaw in the logic that the value of the service is immense when every single person in your community is on it. If you do, could you please explain further?
It might be sad or disappointing in your mind that people behave like this, but that's not a flaw in the logic of the behavior, just an opinion on how people tend to behave.
I've never framed it that way. Analyzing this as "network effect" is an interesting thought. But no, network effect is not the key insight I'm attempting to communicate.
I'm talking about a generation of kids growing up with technology. This isn't about the value of the network increasing as people use it. It's about a fundamental shift in one's worldview by encountering the technology during formative years. I'm basing much of this on Clotaire Rapaille's work, as described in his book, The Culture Code (http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Ingenious-Understand-Peop...).
Rapaille conducted a study for Nestle. Nestle wanted to open up the Japanese market for hot chocolate. Using his research methods, Rapaille found that adult Japanese never formed early childhood impressions of chocolate, and so introducing chocolate products to Japan would fail miserably. As a result of the study, Nestle shifted its marketing strategy towards introducing chocolate to Japanese children, with the idea that twenty years down the road, they can sell chocolate products when they become adults.
Half a million daily Android activations means that a generation of children grows up encountering a personal computer in the form factor of a smartphone. Having come from the older generation, I still picture a desktop computer in my mind when I see the word "computer", despite working primarily with web technologies and cloud servers. To make sure my products do not become obsolete, I have to step into the shoes of someone who grew up picturing "smartphone" when someone says "computer". It means that any web/cloud application I make must be delivered on a smartphone first, with the desktop experience being an after-thought. I can live with that. That will mean twenty years from now, software development will mean keyboard-less IDEs, but I can still live with that.
I apply the same frame to these Facebook announcement. What is it like growing up where your first impressions of social dynamics is Facebook? I can separate my online identity because I entered my teenage years in the era of text-based MUDs and email. I had access to the internet when most of my friends do not know what it is. I could and did interact with adults. But a pre-teen or a teenager growing up now, knows that you can't separate the social identity like that. What, are you crazy?
What would a society with the unexamined assumption of "Facebook = Social" look like? One that accelerates the general trend for the past several generation: further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations; rites of passages conducted by clueless peers that end up in tragedy; a new life stage to describe young adults in their 20s to describe an extended childhood, much the way "teenage" was invented to describe the emergence of an extended childhood.
I do not like what I see in this thought-experiment. So while I might embrace the future when it comes with mobile devices, to this ... travesty ... called Facebook = Social, I say, "bah humbug."
(And next thing you know, I'll be walking out my front door with a cane, shaking a fist, "Dang kids! Get off my lawn!")
You make some interesting points and I will probably have to check out that book at some point.
I will skip the computer/phone stuff, I don't really think we have an disagreement about changing consumer behaviors.
Facebook=Social, your conclusions are a bit different than what I perceive. Further isolation from the deep wisdom of previous generations is not the conclusion I would necessarily make. To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them. Sure, not everyone is going to be friends with older generations, but the opportunity is greater, the barrier for communication is lower and older generations are watching them closer than before.
Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen.
"To me it seems they could actually be the most connected to older generations simply because they are sharing a social space (facebook) with them."
You make an excellant point here. I have not seen examples in the wild of the kind of "deep wisdom" being shared across the Internet by private family groups, but that doesn't mean it does not exist. However, I know certain wisdom cannot pass on through the internet, can only pass on by face-to-face. They are typically transmitted through body language, physical motion, and sheer charismatic presence.
"Each generation has to go through its own unique rite of passage given cultural, technological and social standards of the time. I think they'll figure it out and make it work, somehow that always seems to happen."
This has been true only within the past several generation, and only due to Moore's Law. In other words, this uniqueness for each generation is an aberration.
Tribal wisdom used to be told through folklore, myths and initiations. These days, in the mainstream and in geek subculture, we use the word "myth" to mean "superstitious", and "something to dismiss" in contrast to "facts." The surviving stories appear in the better science fiction and fantasy novels and pop-culture TV shows. Comics. Anime. Some movies. A tiny handful of video games. Often tainted by consumer lifestyle values.
An example of what I mean, that's meta enough to discuss this within the story: Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age
It comes back to what I wrote in that Quora answer. Today, peers, not elders, conduct modern rites of passages. Elders today cannot keep up with Moore's Law, so peers conduct them. You end up losing things that still remain true, generation to generation regardless of technological changes (hence, "deep" wisdom), and you learn them from your clueless peers.
Out of curiosity, can you describe what sort of 'deep wisdom' you think isn't/cannot be passed along? It's a rare thing to be deeply moved by what someone is saying (at least in my experience), but I don't think the times I've truly been moved by information being imparted on myself is exclusive to the realm of 'real life.' There are wonderful movies, books, even conversations I've had that have had profound impacts on me as a person. I am not sure if perhaps you think this isn't possible or we are thinking about fundamentally different experiences?
I actually thought about this point when I wrote my response, that perhaps it may be limited to the past hundred or two hundred years. However, I am not sure if that's the case or not, I don't know enough history/sociology to make any sort of qualified statement on the subject. The pace at which technological change is happening has certainly increased since the industrial revolution, and I presume that has been a major driver of cultural change as well.
I am still not really sure what you mean by learning form clueless peers. It isn't as if all the elders in a society disappeared - most children still go to school, have parents, get jobs, are exposed to role model figures. In fact what do you think of most western countries where population is actually getting older and there is a lack of young people?
"Out of curiosity, can you describe what sort of 'deep wisdom' you think isn't/cannot be passed along?"
I assume you mean, "cannot be passed along Facebook, or other Internet-like communications network".
Mindfulness is one example. It's difficult to convey over the internet, and still challenging in person. It's the kind of skill that requires someone present to point out when you're being mindful and when you become distracted. You can't force someone else to be mindful. Hell, you can't force yourself to be mindful. Many stories disguise lessons of mindfulness.
Fear and dealing with fear is the biggest example. All fear roots back to existential fear. Some (not all) older people have a peculiar attitude because they see their own demise coming, accept it, and live on. The TV show, Breaking Bad is a great example, a man who saw the end of his existence, stripped away all the BS and decided to leave behind a legacy.
However, it's one thing to watch characters on the screen deal with fear, and quite another to deal with your own. The mind plays many tricks to comfortably avoid fear. Another person in the same room witnessing your discomfort has significant impact; if they are able to mindfully witness and convey a sense of safety, such interaction helps you gain insight about your fear, and possibly change habits and actions resulting from that.
"The pace at which technological change is happening has certainly increased since the industrial revolution, and I presume that has been a major driver of cultural change as well."
Venkat's blog post led me to a book, Lever of Riches ... which I think has a lot of useful insights yet seriously flawed. But, it is interesting as a survey of technological history and look at changes within culture as well. I did not know, for example, that clockwork mechanisms reached high art before the invention of moveable type. These clockwork mechanisms directly paved the way for industrialization, and accounts for the obsession some cultures have for gadgets and gadget making.
I've also asked this series of questions on Quora. Perhaps you might have some insights:
"In fact what do you think of most western countries where population is actually getting older and there is a lack of young people?"
I have not studied up on Western cultures as much as I did American and East Asian cultures. I'll think about this.
As a distraction, I offer this story. Japan has a cultural value in which the elders (now mostly from the WWII generation) believe that they can and should sacrifice themselves for the future generation, the children. It's a sort of a, strange mix of bushi and Confucian values. Another interesting thing: the Japanese Shinto values of spirit ex machina leads to a great obsession with robots and androids ... and exoskeletons to help the rice farmers continue growing rice. Because many of the younger generation do not want to farm. There's big problems with social recluses.
Yet, I have also read reports of the attitudes of the generation just now entering ... post-high school. Unlike their older siblings (about half a generation older), they ... don't quite outright reject their boomer parents workoholic attitude, yet don't seem to run and hide away in a closet. I look forward to the stories coming out of this generation. Maybe I'm wrong about "rites of passage conducted by clueless peers" after all.
Thanks for clarifying what type of things you think cannot be passed along. I think that's a good example. I guess my biggest question becomes - can we design ways to pass that information along more effectively? Sure the world isn't just facebook, I think of more as a nexus for organizing and documenting social lives. It doesn't take away from the fact that most of the 'actual' socializing happens in the presence of others physically.
The blog post was very long and I think he missed some of the major historical points (especially about finance). You should checkout The Ascent of Money for a good history of corporations and the financial innovations that made them possible. It would argue spain/portugal didn't become irrelevant because they weren't as good, it was almost because they were too successful. The flood of physical wealth prevented financial innovation which allowed the dutch and brits to get ahead.
Japan is especially fascinating to me (I am half Japanese) and the culture is very bizarre in a lot of ways. It's probably one of the most (if not the most) homogeneous society on earth. I do wonder what the effects of that are on determining people's beliefs and behaviors. For instance, would the willingness to sacrifice and contribute to the greater good be diminished in a less homogeneous society? The recluses, while a problem, I am not sure what percent they ever actually made up. There is a lot of social problems in Japan for so many different economics, political, cultural reasons. However, I do wonder how much they were blown out of proportion in the media as a scare versus a real threat to the very fabric of society. I have a number of japanese friends who would be in your recluse age group, even the worst off one (I don't want to tell their personal story here, but it's not good and probably sounds like many great struggles to find identity for young people), ultimately became a salaryman. I think they are finding their way eventually, most of them at least. It's always been strange for me to try and understand Japanese culture. I am Japanese but I don't think I would ever be considered Japanese, so it still feels almost like an outsider looking in, with maybe a slightly less foggy window.
Just want to address your "500,000 daily Android activations" comment.
During the C64's lifetime, sales were around 15 million units in total. The C64 was "relevant" between 1981 and 1991. So, roughly 125,000 units sold a month. "Making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time." -Wikipedia, with sources.
Computers have never sold as much as phones. Phones of any variety. So what?
I don't equate "Skateboard = Automobile" because they both have wheels. I don't change my thinking from skateboard to car because cars sell more.
I like skateboards. I like computers. Neither are going away any time soon.
I think you are confusing "relevant" with "popular" or "big piles of money i'd like to take a bath in." I applaud developers who broaden what they are doing. I applaud investors who want to make money investing in whatever makes money. But, businesses come and go. Commodore, in fact, is a perfect example of botching the business, while others continued to make the product, improve the product, and the product is still relevant.
Furthermore, Facebook didn't invent the "generation gap". It's the same thing over and over and over dating back thousands of years. "Being social" is "being human" and not necessarily "being Facebook." There's a bigger picture here.
Apparently I was not very clear in my writing with what "500,000 daily activations of Android" means. I elaborated my reasoning in a followup post. Feel free to rebut that.
You can be mindful or mindless in "doing things other people are doing." Many people choose to mindlessly "do things other people are doing." Leaders take a step in a direction, and the crowd may or may not follow them. If they do, it's because people tend to follow, rather than to lead.
Which is interesting, considering that many of us are here because we want to take some risk as entrepreneurs, to step out and do what people are not doing. Does that mean entrepreneurs are not social?
It is definitely possible to live without a Facebook account and also have a social life. If that is not the case, there is something seriously wrong with the society you are in.
You're probably not a member of a community which has fully adopted it. I also wouldn't impart your judgement so easily without considering what it would be like to enter into a community that had 100% adoption of a service and how you would behave in that instance. I am not saying it's impossible to live without it, but it certainly makes it more difficult and adds friction to your life that could easily be removed by just joining.
Not only that, but I have a feeling that if Google and Facebook fail at providing some institutionally-derived level of default sharing by users, the next company is going to try something else. And there will be a "next company" to try this, just as there has been in the MySpace > Friendster > Orkut > Facebook > G+ > etc. chain.
This is an institutional desire, probably by the advertising industry, that will not stop.
Yes I agree. I don't currently have a win-win solution in mind. A great solution would be one that allows facebook to still gather information provided that the "correct" privacy controls are in place for users.
I think, since this is so new, there is no clear understanding of what the "correct" privacy controls are. That is why I love the fact that G+ exists. Competition will help solve this problem.
Agreed. Once privacy becomes the driving issue of social networks, either Facebook, G+, or the next evolution, will offer users what they consider to be proper security/privacy. Although we can be seen as the products and not consumers of Facebook, if we are being harvested for social data, we will require proper care and growth to deliver a good product.
