The scourge of Facebook

[buksida]

Mod note: I've tweaked the title of this thread so we can use it as a general one to post articles on the negative impact and underhanded practices of Facebook as a warning and reference for those that seem to be blindingly addicted to it.

For a happier life, give up Facebook
People who go a week without using Facebook feel happier than others, a study says Always envious? Got a non-existent social life and struggle to concentrate? All this might be down to Facebook if you believe a study showing those who go a week without using the social network feel happier than others.

Carried out by the Happiness Research Institute, the study involved a sample of 1,095 people in Denmark who were divided into two groups, half of whom continued using Facebook while the others stopped.

"We focused on Facebook because it is the social media that most people use across age groups," Meik Wiking, HRI's chief executive told AFP Tuesday in Copenhagen, the Danish capital.

After a week, those people who hadn't been on Facebook said they were more satisfied with their lives, with 88 percent of them describing themselves as "happy" compared with 81 percent from the second group.

Some 84 percent said they appreciated their lives compared with 75 percent in the other group, and only 12 percent described themselves as dissatisfied, compared with 20 percent among those who continued using Facebook.

At the end of the experiment, the abstainers reported having a richer social life and fewer difficulties in concentrating, while the others reported no such change. "Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have," the authors of the study wrote.

In other words, Facebook users are 39 percent more likely to feel less happy than non-users.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog ... 8E?ocid=sf

Facebook is slowly eating your phone's operating system
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/apps/ ... ing-system

[dalmatiandave]

Don't tweet, blog or do Facebook. Thinking of giving up forums as well to enrich my great life further ........

[migrant]

I use facebook, but 90% is drivel. I've learned to block out most the junk posts of cute dogs, and babies, etc.

I do find it useful for certain things, keeping up with family, getting some links to items of interest for me.

Same with forums, there is a lot of posts that I am simply not interested in. I ignore these, and have found great info, and people on them.

Like my e-mails, a lot is junk (in my usage) but feel it is useful for certain things and, within reason, makes my life easier.

[arcadianagain]

The Happiness Institute? lol ffs.

[Big Boy]

Yes, like something out of Monty Python

[J.J.B.]

I think I'm right in saying that the Danes are the happiest nation on the planet anyway so I don't see this marginal result as anything ground-breaking.

Everything in moderation...

[PeteC]

Yesterday the MU channel had a documentary about the career of Paul Scholes. Towards the end he said something like "...I really don't understand the questions I get.....why does everyone want to know what I'm doing....If I'm going to the pub I'm going to the pub....I'm not telling everyone about it so don't even ask...."

Kind of says it all. The introduction of FB must have made him cringe! Pete

[PET]

Facebook - soooooooooooooooooo much crap written by members - ITG I never started this social media stuff !!

[buksida]

[MajorBloodnok]

Hello,

well I finally decided to open a new FB account.
As my old FB albums were public, I could transfer my photos to the new account
which took me a couple of months.

Then one day I got the shock of my life. My new account was blocked, too.
Obviously someone had reported me doubting my identity.
Fortunately mailing a copy of my passport settled the matter.

Kind regards,

MB

[buksida]

This is quite amusing ...

What’s the real difference between what men and women post on Facebook?
File this under “reinforcing stereotypes“: these scientists use word clouds created from the Facebook messages of 75,000 people to reveal not only the differences between men and women (fighting, football and xbox vs. babies, emoticons, and shopping), but between introverts and extroverts (anime and computers vs. parties and ‘chillin’). If this hasn’t paralyzed you from depression, continue reading for a peek at the rest of the word clouds in all their glory.

fig3.png (220.49 KiB) Viewed 6938 times

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/serio ... skU5-a2aHs

In my experience ... (I loathe FB and use it rarely but these are my findings):

Men
Football
Motorbikes
Beer/nightlife
Politics

Women
Selfies
Food
Cats/dogs/babies
Shopping (shoes/bags)
More selfies

[buksida]

How Facebook swallowed journalism and is eating the world
Something really dramatic is happening to our media landscape, the public sphere, and our journalism industry, almost without us noticing and certainly without the level of public examination and debate it deserves. Our news ecosystem has changed more dramatically in the past five years than perhaps at any time in the past five hundred. We are seeing huge leaps in technical capability—virtual reality, live video, artificially intelligent news bots, instant messaging, and chat apps. We are seeing massive changes in control, and finance, putting the future of our publishing ecosystem into the hands of a few, who now control the destiny of many.

Social media hasn’t just swallowed journalism, it has swallowed everything. It has swallowed political campaigns, banking systems, personal histories, the leisure industry, retail, even government and security. The phone in our pocket is our portal to the world. I think in many ways this heralds enormously exciting opportunities for education, information, and connection, but it brings with it a host of contingent existential risks.

Journalism is a small subsidiary activity of the main business of social platforms, but one of central interest to citizens.

The internet and the social Web enable journalists to do powerful work, while at the same time helping to make the business of publishing journalism an uneconomic venture.

Two significant things have already happened that we have not paid enough attention to:

First, news publishers have lost control over distribution.

Social media and platform companies took over what publishers couldn’t have built even if they wanted to. Now the news is filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictable. The news business is embracing this trend, and digital native entrants like BuzzFeed, Vox, and Fusion have built their presence on the premise that they are working within this system, not against it.

Second, the inevitable outcome of this is the increase in power of social media companies.

The largest of the platform and social media companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and even second order companies such as Twitter, Snapchat and emerging messaging app companies, have become extremely powerful in terms of controlling who publishes what to whom, and how that publication is monetized.

Full story: http://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php

[J.J.B.]

I think the old adage still applies: don't believe everything you read.

There are incredibly lazy, gullible and dumb people who do believe what they read, most from selected sources that appeal to their particular world view. Social media hasn't destroyed journalism and in many ways has made unbiased, factual reporting more relevant than ever.

The new kids on the block mentioned above (buzzfeed, upworthy etc.) rely on the most dire form of click-bait nonsense aimed at morons with the attention span of a gnat and the critical capabilities of one of said gnat's balls. They deserve each other. You know the sort of nonsense I'm talking about: "His Schoolchildren Thought He Was Unwell But You Wont Believe What Happened Next" (they can't punctuate either). If this sort of crap floats your boat then the demise of journalism is not something you need worry about.

I know very talented and dedicated journalists whose knowledge of language and skills of crafting stories is remarkable. They aren't worried about facebook and happily use twitter to steer readers to their content. This, for me, is the key point: facebook may be the largest media company in the world but it creates no content. Joe Schmo who is blogging on about some inane subject with no structure or any real point is no match for trained professionals. Journalists who learn to use the size and scale of social media to their benefit will prevail; it's simply an additional channel.

[GLCQuantum]

"There are incredibly lazy, gullible and dumb people who do believe what they read..."

You have just described 70-80% of the world population. The human race has become a self-obsessed, narcissistic, money loving, sinfully uneducated version of its former self.

The sooner the human race is wiped out - the better for planet Earth.

How dare we take it upon ourselves to destroy a whole planet! Social media is a big part of this. Everyone wants more, needs more and gets more without a single flicker of the eyelid as to the consequences of such aspirations.

The fact the Mark Twatterburg is now one of the richest people on the planet just epitomises the drastic collapse of the human mindset.

Take a look at Cheltenham... every asshole and his cling-on trying to do something outrageous to get there face on the World Wide Web.

It's pathetic...

Things like Facebook encourage this.

[arcadianagain]

The sooner the human race is wiped out the better for planet earth? Is there a full moon again>?