Research Question: Social Networking Disenchantment

For those out there who ever had an account on a social networking site(Face Book,My Space, etc.) but who barely touch it nowadays, or, alternatively, never had such accounts in the first place, why is this? What reasons do you have for not connecting with these sites?

Computer security. Facebook, My Space and others are notorious for being full of holes and plugged malware (intentionally or unintentionally). To say nothing of privacy issues with the sites.

Those outweigh the benefits, in your view?

Very.

Just plain laziness for me. Don't have anything interesting to write, and when I do - can't be bothered to.

Oh, and I won't touch any site that requires me to use my real name with an 11-foot pole. Anonymity is one of the main advantages of internet conversation, and I don't see any use in them otherwise

For me it was more about isolation, one can claim that social networking is acting as part of the community or whatever but in the end you are siting in front of a computer screen at home, at work, at a computer-lab whatever. Besides I get enough of computer-time here.

It's probably the same reason that I don't join MMORP Gs, second life, etc. despite there growing popularity.

So, time constraints, security concerns, privacy, It's Popular, Now It Sucks!... Go on, please.

I have a Facebook account but I almost never log in. It's just that there's nothing interesting to do on Facebook.

I've hardly ever actually logged into Facebook, but I use their chat service with an external program. Do I count?

Oh? Could you please elaborate? Isn't the site designed with various entertainment features, along with the basic premise? //

eYes Tzetze.

edited 29th Oct '10 11:33:58 AM by Colonial1.1

So- are you affiliated with one of these sites? Is this part of a marketing study?

Who said It's Popular, Now It Sucks!? if your referring to me that's not what I meant at all.

Conducting an official marketing study on TV Tropes' fora would probably not be an approved methodology - I'm just throwing that out there.

I did not use Facebook for a long time, then got on it because my wife was. I mainly use it to play games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, and only incidentally for chatting, because it just doesn't seem worth my time to constantly post "I just went to the store", "I just took a dump", and similarly inane things. For that reason, I probably post a status update once every couple of weeks.

It is nice to hook up with old friends, though - I found my 6th grade class through FB. What got really annoying was when people started spamming me with friend requests; I had to disable "Everyone" invites in privacy settings because of that.

No official capacity. I'm working on a research project. University.

Why do I need a Facebook, Myspace, or other such account?

Seriously. Every explanation I have received for "needing" such an account is sketchy, at best. I have yet to hear one that makes me say "Hmm... You might be right."

Games? I can play games without Facebook. Socializing? Meeting new people? I can do both downtown.

I honestly fail to see the plus in the social networking system. Perhaps if I were self-absorbed and felt everyone needed (and wanted) to hear about anything and everything I've done for the past twenty minutes I'd feel differently.

In short, I am not disenchanted with Social Networking... Because I was never enchanted to begin with.

@Swish: Amen

I feel no need to announce to the world at large what I'm doing, listening to, reading, wearing, or how I'm feeling right now. If I want to talk to a friend, I e-mail them or call them or go over and see them. I'm on mailing lists for the groups I care about staying in touch with, so if there's something I want to tell everyone in that group, I use the mailing list.

Like Swish, I'm not disenchanted because I was never enchanted to start with.

edited 29th Oct '10 1:14:57 PM by Madrugada

Same as Swish and Madrugada. I have (I can't honestly say I "maintain") a Facebook account so that people who know me from my past for whatever reason will have a way of finding and contacting me if they need to for whatever reason, but I almost never bother to check it, and have occasionally considered simply shutting it down because the information on it is years out of date and I don't have enough of an attachment to it to actually want to revise it.

Mmhm. Would you say that the things that make many other people obsessed with it are the things that make it an automatic bore?

Every once in a while I get really motivated to start promoting myself as an artist. These sparks of motivation have only lasted, at most, two weeks. My Facebook account exists because of one such rush of enthusiasm a year ago.

Not really facebook's fault as general lack of ability to stick to anything I don't care about as much as drawing and my family. Also, I've been immune to everything MMO like since I inoculated myself against it playing Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds from 1997 to 2002.

edited 29th Oct '10 2:17:48 PM by Roman

Pretty much what foxy mod said.

If I want to share there are more private means.

My mom was using my Facebook account to spy on my sisters' Facebook accounts, so I deleted my account.

About the only thing I ever use my account for is to keep track of a few fellow classmates for our group projects. Beyond that, almost anyone I want to communicate with, I can arrange a telephone call at the very least just as quickly as it takes me to log into facebook.

I didn't (and still don't) really have a method of communicating with some people I enjoy talking to, outside of facebook. Sure, I could get an external chat client and convince them to use it too, but we're both already on facebook so why bother?

Other than that, I don't really use it.

So, what makes the traditional methods of communication preferable?