March 1, 2010

I do not understand you, Facebooks.

Due to pressure from the fellow TA camp, and wanting to be more connected with them (they are awesome people) I started to attempt to use my dormant Facebook account, which I mostly made just for games with Facebook connect.

It’s just mostly lead to me feeling awkward and old.

I stare at the Facebook interface, and I just don’t get what it’s supposed to be used for. It has a twitter-style news feed, certainly, so I guess I know what to put there, maybe? But there are so many other things and elements that seem to do the same thing. It’s constantly suggesting I add more friends. You have these kind of nestled comments, so you have to pay attention to posts you were probably done with days ago, perhaps. I just don’t get it. It’s not an “up to the minute” thing like Twitter, and it’s not a slightly more calculated affair like my bloeg here, or whatever. I just don’t really get what I’m supposed to use it for.
On top of all that is the IM service they have built in, but that they don’t let you access unless you are sitting on the page. I thought that hooking Facebook to Flock, here, would let me be online and chat much like I do normally with AIM and whatnot, but no. Facebook doesn’t let you in. They had instructions for getting Pidgin to hook into it, but they were wrong. You have to literally be just sitting on the Facebook page to chat, which just strikes me as completely ruining any utility it may have as a chat platform. Yet people apparently use it exclusively. I talk to people on Campus about AIM, and they stare at me like I’m crazy and talking about something from another planet.

I just don’t get the service, but on top of that comes a social awkwardness I haven’t felt online in a long time. There are no screen names. There are only real names. Maybe I am antisocial or something, I don’t know, but seeing someone’s actual name on posts and friend requests is really awkward with me. I can’t ignore or decline people with a real name. I don’t know who they are, but they have a real name. Maybe they are someone I should know, but have completely forgotten the name of. That is completely likely. Maybe it’s someone I talk to every single day. Maybe.
At the same time, could it be? Because like most online accounts, I set this up with Alexis, not what most of the people around campus know me as and call me. This makes it extra weird when people want to friend me. Do they know who I actually am? Why that’s my name? Or do they expect me to be someone completely different, and they’ll be disappointed when they learn who I actually am?

Man, I don’t know. I don’t like you, Facebook. I’m going to keep trying, but… such worry you are instilling in me. Stupid socializing with the non-internet world. Stop being so complicated.

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