Facebook keeps you alive | Hacker News Reader

Facebook keeps you alive

refaelos.com

12 pointsrefaelos5 comments

New post i wrote about how people need to feel alive!

"When you upload a photo to Facebook from your last trip to NYC, you get excited ... you know that people will see your photo and acknowledge your existence you feel alive."

This is absolutely crazy! That feeling of excitement is often nervous insecurity bubbling up. I used to be desperate for digital validation on Facebook and it made me miserable. Since leaving Facebook and focussing on email, Skype, Twitter and HN I feel a lot more relaxed. I enjoy those forms of social networking. Every now and then I still catch myself thinking: 'I wonder how this will look on Facebook'. But not often. Facebook invaded my mind and made me feel naked in front of a thousand strangers. On Twitter I know I am public. I shape my tweets accordingly. I do not seek validation. I seek connection and a desire to share interesting things with those who take the time to follow me. On Skype I connect deeply and privately with real people in sync. On Facebook the privacy slider was always moving and I was communicating with the people I love in an asynchronous, abstract way. On HN I enjoy the concept of karma but I am far more interested in connecting with people I have never met. I love reading the comments and reactions. I love creating content.

I could not agree more with this statement though:

"We see people come and go from our world. Some of them leave their mark and some of them just enjoy the ride."

I have started hanging out more on HN because it is filled with people who want to leave their mark. They want to change things. Facebook encourages us to consume, not create. That is fine if you want to enjoy the ride. I felt passive and insecure on Facebook. I feel energised and excited connecting with people on Twitter, chatting with people on Skype and writing this comment on HN. This is my social network. This makes me feel alive.

Started out promising, with a good observation about human motivation. Ended badly though, with one-sided and biased commentary about Google+ streams being "dull as dishwater."

Well, now. That's entirely dependent upon the stream of the user in question, isn't it? Someone like moi who has been circled by over 5k other users on Google+, but has 650+ friends on Facebook, clearly doesn't fit that stereotype. In fact, Google+ is far more "active" for me, in terms of interactions and posting, than my Facebook wall is.

Not only that, but Google+ has about 150 million active users now. So generalised "Google+ is dead" riffing doesn't impress me much:

http://www.webpronews.com/google-hits-150-million-active-use...

I can't vote this story up since it's ridiculously distorted.

Agreed...

It was a pretty thin article - but the G+ criticism was just completely irrelevant to it and add nothing to the idea being explored...

Also - in general I find the g+ bashing is weird generally... My stream is full - my conversations endless and awesome.

I may sound asocial saying this, but I couldn't care less if other people acknowledge my cyber existence. What does it matter if someone commented on my new photos or wrote on my Wall? It doesn't add any value to my life, and fortunately I don't need people's validation to feel good about myself. I'll log in once every few days to see if I need to reply to someone, but other than that it's just another website. It kinda scares me how Facebook is now such a central aspect of people's lives. I know a lot of people who obsess over not having enough "likes" on their profile or whatever and they start questioning their personalities, friendships, etc. It just seems silly to me.

Very well written! (Unfortunately I don't know if you look amazing)

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