Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t care that you just “played an amazing game of TextTwist” or that you “took the ‘IQ test’ quiz and the result is: Very Good!” I am not the least bit interested to know what hippy name you have, or that you “took the ‘What is your ministry calling?’ quiz and the result is: Missions and Outreach.” I could have been quite happy not knowing that you just joined the ‘Global Water Balloon Fight’ and that you “really want a KFC” and I didn’t need to know that you’re “on the bus feeling tired.” In short, I no longer want to be your facebook friend.
Facebook is more than five years old now and I’ve had an account since about 2006. At first it was slow moving, using it was like walking into a nightclub so early that nobody is at the bar let alone on the dance floor. Eventually though, I began to accumulate friends, quickly amassing an impressive list of people I knew, kind of knew, had met a few times, knew by association, or had met at a party – once. Some were friends, but most were just virtual connections whom I added in my enthusiasm then didn’t have the heart to delete later.
I don’t really understand where facebook is supposed to fit into my life. Once I had exchanged a few messages with distant friends, checked out pictures of old ex-girlfriends to see how fat they had become, and taken a few of the dumb quizzes sent to me by people on my friends list, I was left wondering ‘Now what?”
So called ‘friend requests’ were coming in thick and fast. Names I had to strain to recall were wanting to add me to their ‘friends’ without so much as a “How are you?” or a “What have you been up to lately?” I would closely examine their profile pictures, squinting at their eyes as if this might sharpen my recollection.
Eventually my account (and my email) was filling up with alerts telling me that this person had just done this thing, or that thing, taken this quiz or joined that group, installed this application or become friends with some other random person. Status updates would tell me that someone who never speaks to me in real life was having a great afternoon, or that another person was “cleaning their house”, or that someone else was “at the hairdressers.” Pretty quickly I found myself wondering why the heck I needed to know this crap?
I decided that I didn’t need to be up to speed with the daily drudge of some old squeeze from back when Bon Jovi were singing about Beds of Roses. I didn’t need to get up-to-the-moment updates of rush hour traffic in Chelmsford, or the benign rants of a clearly depressed ‘friend’ who was having issues with her “fuckhead of a boyfriend” (whom I had never met). It seemed pretty clear to me that the time had come for a facebook ‘friend cull’, and with that I began systematically ‘de-friending’ people.
At first I felt bad, like I was being disrespectful or something. De-friending someone on facebook seems like the social equivalent of telling someone their baby is ugly. But after the initial opportunity to catch up with someone from way back and spend a few minutes curiously peering into their lives like some government CCTV operator, how else was I to gracefully exit the exchange?
Fortunately most of the promiscuous ‘friend whores’ (people with more than two or three hundred people on their friends list) didn’t notice I had ditched them. A couple did, and one or two people even got upset about it, saying more to me in a message expressing their annoyance than they had said to me in the entire time we had been enjoying our new found digital friendship. I did my best to explain it was nothing personal, and for the most part I think people were okay with it.
And that’s just it, Facebook is nothing personal. It’s an endless precession of worthless crap spewing onto the world wide web like effluents from a burst pipe. Yes I know, some people like it because they can keep up with their friends, but if the site were to be switched off tomorrow, how many of those people would make a real world effort to continue sharing crap with one another?
Of course, coming from me this might all seem like a contradiction. As a blogger I am a person who spends a significant amount of my time sharing what some might regard as “worthless crap.” Indeed, one of my friends remarked that blogging was “stupid” and “simply pointless.” She decried that bloggers were “stupid people who wanted to make themselves feel better by writing stuff on the internet.” Oddly enough, my blog hating friend has since become an active facebook user with a long list of friends. She probably gives no thought to the fact that when she makes a facebook status update she does so with much the same motivation as the average blogger.
I’m not the first person to tire of the witless rubbish that swamps my facebook account, but as a web professional myself it’s hard to see where the site is going. Several (real) friends of mine have commented that they like facebook because of the pictures, but if it hopes to cash in on the value of its astounding number of users then it needs to do so sooner rather than later; people can only add so many friends, or do so many pointless quizzes. If facebook doesn’t find a place of real value soon the fickle people of the digital world will leave the site for something new as quickly as they deserted the likes of Xanga and myspace.
I might not have been an altogether early adopter of the site, but I’m going to be an early deserter. My friends know who they are, we email, we talk on the phone, we visit one another. They know that just because I don’t care about their facebook status, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about them.
It was fun for a while, but I’ll be closing my facebook account this week.
—
Facebook is bad for the brain
Judge rules that facebook friends aren’t friends
Facebook’s growing problem
Adbusters : Quit facebook
Quitting facebook gets easier
What to do when old photos of you appear on Facebook
Why I don’t get facebook
Get your face on my comments!
Share on Facebook
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 12:52 am
Honestly, what’s the point of having 300 friends when you only really talk to 10-15 of them? I guess those people with that amount of friend still don’t get the Pareto Principle.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:12 am
Facebook status updates are to the internet what cheeseburgers are to food.
By the way Simon, it’s great to finally see you back writing real material again. I hope this is a return to form.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:48 am
I still want to know which muppet you are. :)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:53 am
Thanks Doug, I’m finding my words again. Stay tuned.
Becky, I would be Kermit, of course!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 2:16 am
Just remember Simon, there is a difference between deactivating your account and actually deleting it. If you want to delete your account for good you should delete your personal information, pictures, networks, groups, contact details and everything before you attempt to deactivate the account.
Change your email account to some junk email account you might have, then give it a couple of days before you deactivate the account. That ensures all the data they will save of yours will be the empty account.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 5:04 am
“checked out pictures of old ex-girlfriends to see how fat they had become”
Ouch!! I sure hope none of your now fat ex-girlfriends read your blog!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 5:05 am
Well. I think its nice on the networking side of things… between the different teen groups I run and all that.
But yeah. I say don’t stick with something you don’t like- sounds like you’re making the right move for you.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 5:24 am
=) You had me laughing out loud. ….though I was sad to realize that I was culled with your list of “friend whores.”
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 8:43 am
You don’t want to see want to see my worthless crap anymore Simon ;) lol.
I gotta say I do love FB. It panders to my insatiable curiousity although I have also culled “friends”…
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Gosh! Just when I was about to ask you to be my friend!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm
As you know Simon I work for bebo and I agree with you about Facebook and the whole field of social networking. Like all the other online fads facebook will reach a saturation point then begin to shrink. We’re already seeing Twitter make Facebook uncomfortable in the marketplace, but Twitter itself will suffer the same fete if they to are nothing more than a fad.
People like the connectivity facebook and other social networks offer them, the trick for the people behind those networks is finding out how to make more than just a healthy trickle of ad revenue from their user base.
I resisted facebook for the longest time, but eventually I got an account because so many of my friends had them. Like everyone else I look at pictures, do a little chatting, and read status updates. I’m not making Mark Zuckerberg rich, and chances are, neither is anyone else here.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:34 pm
What did we do before the internet? Before mobile phones and text messages? How did we keep up to date with our friends? Did we even have friends?
I need to know that my friends are stuck in traffic, I need to know they are playing scrabulous or having a hard time with their “fuckhead of a boyfriend.” I need to see all those old flames filling out the sizes their mothers used to wear. I NEED TO KNOW IT ALL!
I look forward to being in the company of facebook when people will say “Do you remember facebook” like they say “Do you remember Max Headroom.”
Facewhat? Max who? I don’t think I was into that kind of music, what did they sound like?
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 1:41 pm
As you know, i have been wanting to delete my account for a while now. However, i must admit that its the fear of missing out or being out of the loop that has kept my account open, although i am pleased to say that i only access it once or twice a month this year.
There is someone in particular that i count as a very dear friend, yet in the last 2 months i have only heard from them once (and that was on facebook), despite a few texts and phone calls from me. Now i know that we all have busy lives but still?!
I think i am going to follow your lead Simon and delete my account. Those true friends of mine will keep in touch with me in the real world and those who dont……well, we’ll see. :)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Oh Boy- what I wrote earlier made no sense! There that is what FB does to your brain. Makes it rot so you can no longer write coherently…
I have gotten a huge amount of benefit from FB though. It actually facilitates my real social life- not replacing it. It is so easy to arrange a get together by posting a message. That is when it is of benefit.
Although I seriously am addicted I think. I had withdrawals when i was on holiday and couldn’t check my FB (or email!). Now that is a worry!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Hey Simon, let’s go back to snail mail. I love a color envelope in my mail box. I’m sure you do too.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 4:13 pm
facebook kept me sane while in france and kept me connected to my friends at home. but i don’t care for the some of the status updates some ppl post. FB has its good and bad points.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 6:53 pm
512 friends! I love facebook!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Earlier this year, like you, I decided that it was time to look at who was on my friends list and who deserved to be there. (Facebook drama had caused some upset.) I cut my list down from 102 people to 12. I then realized that a few of the 12 true friends I had were calling me less because they were able to get micro-updates of my life via facebook, and therefore were less involved in real word interactions with me. I quit the site and returned to keeping up with my friends in as I had before facebook, not 102 of them, but the 12 who truly deserved the title of friend. Since then 8 of those 12 have also done the same.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Ooh, you’re on FaceBook? I didn’t know. Can I just add you or do I need to read the article? ;-)
I want ignore FaceBook, but it’s a easy place to find people. I can quite easily ignore the ad’s and crap, but it’s like a big water cooler or pub I know almost every one I know will be around at some point.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 15, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I’ve often wondered how on earth facebook was ever worth the $15bn that it was valued at. It must cost a fortune to run and surely there is little if any profit in it.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 12:01 am
According to TechCrunch Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity, $500,000 a month on bandwidth, and up to $2 million per week on new servers!! That how much it costs to keep up with its users who share somewhere in the region of a billion photos every single month! Yet despite this, facebook has never told any of their investors how they will ever turn a profit.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 12:19 am
Ashley, you have nearly 600 friends on facebook! Rachel has nearly 500! That makes the pair of you facebook ‘friend whores!’ :-)
I of course mean that in jest, but come on, be real. Can you really call nearly 600 people your friend? I doubt it. In fact as I recall Rachel got some pretty nasty comments from so called friends last year after she posted something about her support for Barack Obama in the election. And Ashley, I bet you didn’t even notice when I was no longer on your friends list did you? :-)
It’s been my experience that when you’re younger you have loads of friends, but this is in part because you spend a lot more time in the company of people your own age through school etc. However, many of these friends are more like acquaintances, people you know. Their place in your life changes dramatically when you leave the education system, and as one gets older the number of acquaintances they have gets fewer.
Facebook is nice at keeping you very VERY loosely connected with your acquaintances, but if anyone truly believes they have 200+ friends, or that they even know that number of people very well, then they are eluding themselves.
WikiAnswers.com has the question, “How many friends does the average American have?”
The given answer was “This is almost impossible to answer however, individuals vary with friendships and some may have many (so they think) and others only have a very close few. The reality of it is as you become older the odds of you having any more than 2 to 3 close friends are slim and may have many acquaintances as our desire to incorporate new people in our lives tend to slim out, yappady yappdy yap. 2-3 friends period.”
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 1:28 am
I completely agree Simon.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 4:35 am
this cracked me up! I love that graphic of the man on facebook, with all those heads coming out of it. honestly, that picture caused me to read the rest of your blog. incredibly funny. there are about 15 friends i want to ditch. they are people i’ve known for a long time but never ever knew well whatsoever. what’s the point?
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 4:40 am
ps. whoever wrote the max headroom comment (max headroom) – that was awesome.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 8:13 am
Just to let you know Bro, traffic in Chelmsford is crap this morning. I’ll text you updates later.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 8:13 am
Now.. back to cleaning my house…
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 12:57 pm
That is a good illustration isn’t it Marcie. I think that picture really sums up how I feel about facebook.
As for texting me constant updates of your life Bro, knowing your communication track record I don’t think I need be worried ;-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 2:20 pm
you ought to have one of those ‘Share on Facebook’ apps so that I could have posted your blog on my page. But seriously, that is one of the reasons I use facebook, to share things with friends. Yes, agreed that there are other ways, but this is so much more convenient. Esp. when you are geographically apart. And it is true about the no. of friends, 2-3. But till that time you end up having ‘circles’ of friends, red/green/blue/yellow, whatever.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Shri, I have had a ‘Share’ app on my site for ages :-)
At the foot of every post there is a button that reads ‘Share.’ From there you can share this on facebook, myspace, and a ton of other social networks as well as by email. Facebook isn’t the only social network out there so I make my content available to all of them. But I’ll look at some way of maybe making the link a little larger now ;-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I actually like Facebook, because it is a nice way to keep in touch and catch up with people you don’t see often, for whatever reason. It’s kind of funny how people are so addicted to Facebook that they will contact you through that medium even though they have your personal e-mail and phone number!
I just had a birthday and noticed that some people close to me wrote Happy Birthday on my “wall” rather than call me up or e-mail me personally. Some did both, but really? Has Facebook replaced personal interaction? If so, I won’t be far behind you, Simon, in canceling my account. I miss phone calls and snail mail. :(
Wrote the following comment on Apr 16, 2009 at 10:54 pm
My sister is an enthusiastic and facebook user. When I recently told her I was thinking of closing my account she told me that facebook means that I am able to stay in touch with those old friends of mine, but I don’t see knowing what someone’s hobbit name would be as keeping in touch. But when I do chat or exchange messages with facebook friends, those interactions don’t really bring anything meaningful or beyond the kind of pleasantries we might exchange if we met on the street. So really, what’s the point. Meeting those old friends on the street would actually be more enjoyable!
I’m going to join you in this Simon. I too am going to close my facebook account!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 17, 2009 at 3:54 am
Here is an article I read recently about the business side of Facebook. I take it if they go public you won’t be buying any FB stock? ;-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 17, 2009 at 5:21 am
ugh. you name dropped me.
well. if you must know, i think of facebook as exactly what it is- social networking. call me a facebook friend whore if you like… I still use it regularly and am therefore okay with it.
When you dance and encounter people in the swing community, work with 100+ teenagers, attended high school and college in the techno savey age ;), surely you can see how easy it is to amass that many friends? Are they my close friends? no- and some are even acquaintances- but I’m fine with that. Its convenient. I have a connection to them so that if ever I needed to get ahold of them I could. For instance, I know what’s going on with my high school reunion because of facebook. We’re able to all reconnect and and while I’m not amazing friends with my high school class, it serves its purpose and its cool to have that.
Anyways, I almost created a Simon Jones Fan club on facebook just to spite you :) but then i thought better of it. ha
Wrote the following comment on Apr 17, 2009 at 12:18 pm
LOL Rachel. A Simon Jones fan club. That wouldn’t have been a busy place, despite the fact that my name appears in 9th position of the sexiest men in the world! You would be better creating a ‘Simon Jones is evil’ page because at least with that you would be assured of a healthy membership of crazy Christians from an old church I went to at which it was revealed that I was, shock horror, a sinner! :-)
I’ll grant you that I can see some value in having a facebook account when you organise a group or something similar. I assume your youth group has its own page and all that jazz. But in your case, as your friend, I’m sad that your blog has become a dusty old forgotten place where the content has long since gone stale and the path to it has become overgrown.
In essence, like so many others, you’ve had to divert time from writing what was always an interesting and engaging blog, into writing facebook folly, and in my opinion that’s a shame. I can’t imagine in years to come you’ll look back on a facebook thing like ‘which Bible character are you’ and think to yourself “yeah that was a good post!” :-)
I have visited you and others in Houston a number of times. Our connection was made first online, but I doubt very much that a similar connection would have been made through facebook as the medium is very different and not conducive to long rambling exchanges or thoughtful posts. We couldn’t have argued with each other nearly as well on facebook!
Indeed, my Xanga friends (many of whom I met) have pretty much all either dramatically slowed down and simplified their blogging, or they have abandoned it altogether in favor of ‘status updates’ through facebook.
I understand, of course, that this is merely a reflection of the fickle nature of folk. Why write a blog post when you can simply do a quick status update? It’s just the way of the web, we follow trends and ride the waves of fashion. If facebook doesn’t evolve into something useful AND profitable soon then the cool kids may well jump ship for the next thing, whatever that may be.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 17, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for posting that link Matt. The TechCrunch artcile I mentioned earlier put the number of pictures facebook users were uploading in 2007 at something like a billion a month, but according to the the Fortune article you shared users are uploading nearly that same number of pictures every single day!! – WOW!
You might be interested in reading an article in Slate about YouTube in which it is revealed that the burden of hosting all that user generated content is beginning to be something of an issue for the folks at Google who, according to Credit Suisse, will lose $470 million this year thanks to the site which they own.
I beginning to wonder if the profit value of ‘You’ and ‘i’ content focus of the web might actually be not all that different to the sub-prime mortgage market. If the money men can’t make a dime from the Rachel’s of the net, will their be some kind of social internet collapse, a ‘social crunch’ perhaps?
Wrote the following comment on Apr 18, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Interesting article Simon, and some interesting comments too, especially some of those statistics.
I would be interested to hear what, if anything, Rachel does about incidents where young people post things on their facebook that could be potentially damaging to their reputations or attractiveness to future employers?
Young people are particularly naive when it comes to these kinds of online free-for-alls. They often post far too much personal and often security-sensitive information, and are prone to behavior that lacks the kind of critical thinking we gain as we mature. Sexting would be one such example of this.
Do you, Rachel, take a hands-off approach with the young people on your friend’s list, or do you carefully monitor their online lives to the extent that you can? I can only imagine how difficult, exhausting and time-consuming that would be with nearly 500 friends.
My brother-in-law is the CEO of a relatively large company and recently he was prompted by the companies law firm to reconsider his facebook ‘friendships’ with members of staff. Apparently, an employee had posted pictures to his facebook page that had potentially put the company into a disreputable position. However, in a formal disciplinary hearing, the employee pointed out that members of management who were on his friend’s list had aired no objections to his facebook activity. He cited previous comments on his facebook from these people as evidence that there was a fair degree of involvement that led him to believe his actions were not unacceptable.
So you see, I am curious only because I wonder about the implications when an adult charged with being a leader and/or role model fails to identify foolish or dangerous online behavior of a young person who is in some way under their care.
(Sorry for the long comment Simon – I hope that’s okay?)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 18, 2009 at 7:22 pm
i kind of resent that i’ve become the poster child for facebook users on this blog…but whatever. I guess saying anything positive makes me that.
Rustin, first, monitoring a teens blog is really the job of the parent. I am not their parent. second, as i said, i use facebook for networking aka messaging, photos, video etc.. not to be jimney cricket. If I did want to be jimney, I’d have to join myspace, facebook, twitter and blogger to do a really good job of it- and that would be more than a full time job. Thirdly, you know, teenagers make mistakes just like you or anyone else. Not all teens are the same and you can’t judge them all the way you did in your comment above. They’re not all sexting, and honestly, I bet you’d be surprised how much information about you is available on the internet right now, with or without your blogging activity. Take teens out of it, if people are giving their information on facebook, there is at least security on who gets to see that information. The government provides no such security and you’re concerned about facebook?…
Wrote the following comment on Apr 18, 2009 at 9:14 pm
I don’t see anyone making you the poster child Rachel? Your coming out fists raised and I see no reason for you to take such a defensive stance. Or am I missing something?
That’s a good new point you make about security too. However I think that people need to understand that there personal data is completely for sale on facebook in so much as facebook is not a government body, it is a private company run for the sole purpose to make profit.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 18, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Fartbook is a tool for lonely people to stay in touch with people who aren’t important enough to them to spend real time with
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 2:19 am
Rachel, are you kidding? “Not all teens are the same” – Yes they are!
Teenagers are inquisitive creatures awash with hormones and desires to explore. They’re children with deep voices and zero life experience. So yes, they might not all be sexting, but how would you know if they were? If you’re a teacher or some kind of leader do you honestly think they would let you in on this? Come on!? :)
I don’t think Rustin was being judgmental of you or teenagers, I think maybe you misread his remarks. I think his question was interesting. It actually makes me sad that we live in a world where a question like that should even have to be given consideration.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 2:57 am
Farren, you’ve just written exactly what I was thinking. :)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 4:23 am
I just finished watching the online segment about sex-ting that Rustin referred to, and in the report it said that teens are facing criminal charges under child pornography laws for sending nude pictures of themselves, and as a result some of these kids could be looking at some pretty hefty sentences, as well as being registered as sex offenders. Maybe my moral radar is off, but when I heard this my gut reaction was “How ri-damn-diculous!!!! Really, we can’t discriminate between some broken and perverse forty year old lasciviously looking at prepubescents, and hyperhormonal and sagaciously challenged teens who send pictures of their own naked selves to friends. Yes, I do think it is utterly inappropriate what these teens are doing, and it is potentially harmful, both spiritually and morally, to their developing selves, but please, somebody show some judicial nuance when responding to such situations.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 5:31 am
Simon-
Well I certainly didn’t intend to come out fists raised. I guess it was this comment, “If the money men can’t make a dime from the Rachel’s of the net, will their be some kind of social internet collapse, a ’social crunch’ perhaps?” that did me in to being irritated, . I mean, I feel like the Joe Plumber of Facebook… and that’s kind of weird. This on top of you volunteering how many friends etc. I have on facebook in the comments is making me feel a little poster childy. Anyways, not angry… I just don’t care for it.
Rustin- If my comments came across defensive as it has been said above, that’s probably because I spend a lot of time defending this group from the broad generalizations of people who are really disconnected from personal relationships with teenagers (and i’m not talking family gatherings twice a year). Some of your statements I found to be pretty broad, and so I may have done to you what I felt you did to them- made a premature assumption. My sincerest apologies if that is the case. If it is not the case, then I apology if my tone is at all offensive.
Farren and Becky.
I’m sincerely sorry you think that way. I think that teenagers can stand up to a higher standard then you described when you said, “Teenagers are inquisitive creatures awash with hormones and desires to explore. They’re children with deep voices and zero life experience.”
Honestly, I think that the failings in teen culture/behavior that we see today are the product of people not believing much more in teens than what you said above. I mean, instead of calling them forward into the adulthood they’re moving towards, you brought them back to the childhood they’re suppose to be leaving. Teenagers pick up on these kinds of attitudes. I think a lot of the problems with teen culture that we see rising are of our own creation because instead of challenging them and giving them vision for the future, we make excuses for their behavior and say they can’t do much more than, ______ , because of their hormones, or they’re age. That is a huge disservice to any generation and I would encourage you to rethink your stance and take of this age group.
You know, one reason I think I gave up blogging more is not that facebook took up so much of my time as implied in one of the comments above (another comment that I felt was poster childing me)~ but because I spent so much time working out the right way to say things so they wouldn’t be misread~ as often happens with my comments. SO. as a disclaimer to anything that might be misread above, I honestly meant nothing harsh , or mean, or to personally attack anyone. I think to read this comment with a calm even tone would about get it right. :)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 9:49 am
Lol didnt you and James the Lazer make fun of me because I didnt have facebook? How my day is going is not blogging. How Christians are hypocrites and trying to prove that is blogging. Writing whole articles is blogging. Like always you missed the point of what I was trying to say. Sigh. Oh, well, Life goes on.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Rachel, I am sorry for using you as an example in one or two places. I didn’t realise it was an area of such sensitivity and therefore I apologize.
Missy, yes James the Laser and I did indeed make fun of you. We were teasing you over the fact that you were still flapping around with clunky old myspace when all the cool kids had defected to facebook. :)
“How my day is going is not blogging. How Christians are hypocrites and trying to prove that is blogging. Writing whole articles is blogging.”
Maybe I’m being dense here, but I still don’t get that. Care to expand on that a little?
Wrote the following comment on Apr 19, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Rachel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel attacked in any way with my question.
Maybe I can help you with a little bit of friendly counsel. If I were you I wouldn’t expend any more energy defending your youth group from the broad generalizations. People always speak in generalizations, of course they do! Imagine how exhausting life would be if we had to individually identify everyone and everything all the time. So of all the things to consider “not your job” I would suggest that defending your group from generalizations should be among them.
I think that it’s an interesting perspective you have on “the failings” in teen culture. I assume you mean generally of course? ;) In that case I think I would have to disagree with you.
Teenagers are in the middle of a very challenging time of their young lives, crossing from childhood into adulthood, with all the confusions and confrontations that presents. They need careful guidance given in the understanding that they also need to be given space enough to take their own path and learn from their screw ups.
In my experience, teens generally think they’ve arrived into adulthood and that they’re fine, for evidence of this watch a teenage boy drive a car! They are capable of making decisions, of course, it’s contemplating the consequences that they struggle with, which is why sexting is so common. (Though not as common as the media would have us believe, I’m sure.) I mean Rachel, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t sent any naked pictures of me to my friends phones. (And I’m quite sure they’re happy about that!)
I don’t know, but I sense that Farren and Becky weren’t being dismissive, just realistic. It’s one thing to “call them [teens] forward” into adulthood, but as I’m sure you know Rachel, many of them are on the expressway to that place speeding at a terrifying pace to get there, doing stuff they’re not telling you, a leader, about. As adults we need to help them by sometimes acting as passenger, sometimes bystander, sometimes traffic cop. It’s hard wearing so many different hats, thankfully they accept that and deal with it most of the time.
As I wrote previously, at some stage I wouldn’t be surprised if some youth worker is grilled for not ‘seeing the signs’ on the facebook of some hapless teen who offs themselves or others. The media will be all over that, and I guess that’s where my original question came from. But as I mentioned before, I am sorry if that felt like an attack, it certainly was not meant that way.
(Another long comment, sorry Simon.)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 20, 2009 at 6:00 am
513 friends now! CHAAA!!!!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 20, 2009 at 4:26 pm
For the life of me I can’t figure out how to make these damn gravatars bigger!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 20, 2009 at 4:51 pm
LOL!! Funny Max :-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 20, 2009 at 7:27 pm
You are both pigs. I mean that in the sweetest way possible. ;)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 22, 2009 at 12:59 am
had a fb cull and reduced my friends by 2/3 :-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 22, 2009 at 3:26 am
FB rocks, I see it as a valuable tool that makes my life easier. But each to their own- honestly I’m surprised you kept your account this long!
Wrote the following comment on Apr 22, 2009 at 6:29 am
Wilvo –
What does your comment mean? You reduced your friends by 2 out of three? No offence matey, but if you only had three friends to start with having a cull might not have been a good idea.
;-)
Wrote the following comment on Apr 22, 2009 at 4:11 pm
two thirds Peter :-) From just over 100 to 36.
Wrote the following comment on Apr 26, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Hi there
I agree with your comments about FB not serving any real purpose except the photos – in my case it helped me located old school friends but it is obviously missing out the most important element – real human interaction, with people usually going on and on about themselves, is it any wonder why?