Facebook is very useful for messaging, and that would be sufficient reason for me to use it.
I find that it is also useful for following local businesses and organizations that are of interest to me.
Facebook reminds me of the birthdays of people I am friends with, which is the only way that I can remember anyone’s birthday; this has sometimes been useful socially.
Once you collect some interesting friends, you may learn stuff from Facebook feeds that you don’t learn elsewhere. This is hit-or-miss though. Facebook was how I discovered Wait But Why.
I also post to Facebook, primarily because I am friends with a lot of people who are part of a very limited culture—most of my coworkers and local friends get exposed to very few ideas outside of church and office gossip, which means that many of them never see a rationality blog post, see anyone they know support marriage equality publicly, never see anything interesting regarding technology (other than consumer products), etc. I doubt that many people enjoy my posts who don’t have other sources of finding interesting things, but I think that it is probably useful to expose as many people as possible to things like this—otherwise they might go through life thinking that football, dieting, and pictures of their kids are all that anyone ever thinks about. Yes, I realize that championing Facebook as an agent of social change is totes feeb, but whatevs.
Isn’t facebook strictly inferior to email for messaging? By a wide margin? It’s not archivable, sortable, filterable, searchable, forwardable, or manageable. It can’t be sent to multiple recipients. It has no BCC, threading, prioritizing.
From a technical perspective. However, many of my friends respond to fb messages and not emails. Near as I can tell, they’re young enough that, when establishing a “best way to contact me,” they chose “website I’m going to be on anyway.”
I think, now that they’re graduating college, they’re going to have to get themselves a professional email, but the best way to contact them socially is going to remain fb because, for most social stuff (or at least, social stuff my friends and I get up to), we don’t really need any more features than fb has, which I find disappointing, being in the minority who could really use everything you listed.
Yes to this, but also I use Facebook for PM type things—quick clarifications of who will be where when and things like that. I rarely care to have these things archived. It is actually useful to have these things out of my email account, simply because I get so much kipple there already.
I want existing friends to be more aware of my preferences and interests so that they’ll be able to match and meet them more often (ie suggesting an activity I will like). I guess I can do that by constructing a profile with just likes and such. I will do that.
I also want to meet people who share those interests, so I will begin joining and participating in appropriate groups.
I also want to interact more with other rationalists, but from what I’ve seen nothing of merit comes from rationalist facebook groups (based on LessWrong associated groups).
Thanks for your extremely actionable suggestion and question. I don’t know how you came up with the appropriate question to ask me!
How should I use facebook, assuming I have a facebook but don’t post anything, just message as of now?
Post information of value to yourself or that you think would be valuable to other people.
post milestones, post learnings, post successes, post thanks or gratitude, post relevant life photos (dogs you see or whatever)
Do not complain about anything ever.
Discuss things; but carefully. Remember politics is the mindkiller.
Facebook is very useful for messaging, and that would be sufficient reason for me to use it.
I find that it is also useful for following local businesses and organizations that are of interest to me.
Facebook reminds me of the birthdays of people I am friends with, which is the only way that I can remember anyone’s birthday; this has sometimes been useful socially.
Once you collect some interesting friends, you may learn stuff from Facebook feeds that you don’t learn elsewhere. This is hit-or-miss though. Facebook was how I discovered Wait But Why.
I also post to Facebook, primarily because I am friends with a lot of people who are part of a very limited culture—most of my coworkers and local friends get exposed to very few ideas outside of church and office gossip, which means that many of them never see a rationality blog post, see anyone they know support marriage equality publicly, never see anything interesting regarding technology (other than consumer products), etc. I doubt that many people enjoy my posts who don’t have other sources of finding interesting things, but I think that it is probably useful to expose as many people as possible to things like this—otherwise they might go through life thinking that football, dieting, and pictures of their kids are all that anyone ever thinks about. Yes, I realize that championing Facebook as an agent of social change is totes feeb, but whatevs.
Isn’t facebook strictly inferior to email for messaging? By a wide margin? It’s not archivable, sortable, filterable, searchable, forwardable, or manageable. It can’t be sent to multiple recipients. It has no BCC, threading, prioritizing.
From a technical perspective. However, many of my friends respond to fb messages and not emails. Near as I can tell, they’re young enough that, when establishing a “best way to contact me,” they chose “website I’m going to be on anyway.”
I think, now that they’re graduating college, they’re going to have to get themselves a professional email, but the best way to contact them socially is going to remain fb because, for most social stuff (or at least, social stuff my friends and I get up to), we don’t really need any more features than fb has, which I find disappointing, being in the minority who could really use everything you listed.
Yes to this, but also I use Facebook for PM type things—quick clarifications of who will be where when and things like that. I rarely care to have these things archived. It is actually useful to have these things out of my email account, simply because I get so much kipple there already.
You need to be clearer about your goals.
Do you want more interaction with existing friends? Do you want to meet new people? Do you want an easier way to interact with other rationalists?
I want existing friends to be more aware of my preferences and interests so that they’ll be able to match and meet them more often (ie suggesting an activity I will like). I guess I can do that by constructing a profile with just likes and such. I will do that.
I also want to meet people who share those interests, so I will begin joining and participating in appropriate groups.
I also want to interact more with other rationalists, but from what I’ve seen nothing of merit comes from rationalist facebook groups (based on LessWrong associated groups).
Thanks for your extremely actionable suggestion and question. I don’t know how you came up with the appropriate question to ask me!
In consulting and in policy analysis, one of the first steps of problem solving is laying out the problem clearly.
As a start, I recommend Ken Wanatabe’s fun and readable “Problem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People.”
Thanks Davidmanheim. I’ll look for a copy of it. :)
Remembering that you are a product, something that Facebook sells.
Facebook’s revenue in 2014 was 12.5 billion US dollars.