FACEBOOK!.... Yawn, Yawn - Can I have my life back please?

Facebook!!

It's almost becoming like a swearword to me!

I detest Facebook with a passion and the only thing stopping me from deleting my account is that forgotton friends may be able to find me there one day if it still exists.

I am sick and tired of all the ridiculous and draining friend updates, invites and putting it bluntly jaw dropping BORINGNESS.

We've all been there - set up a facebook account, become addicted and then it wears off.

You then sit back and analyse what facebook really is.

It's flooded with Ads, full of time-stealing applications and bombards you with rubbish. Then there is the rather disturbing competitivness over friendships - the 'my contact list is bigger than yours' and 'I've got more friends - I'm more popular and somehow better than you' attitudes. Very disturbing stuff.

I dont have a problem with companies profiting from personal relationships.... telephone companies and dating agencies have been doing that for years - it's just the all encompasing, swallow up every bit of info in sight type mentality that facebook represents - It's that I disagree with.... and very strongly.

This is taken from Facebook's terms:-
"Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (eg, photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience."

Roughly translated, they are trying to gather up as much info as they can, to sell for as much as they, and to make ads appeal to you more. This kind of power is dangerous for a site who's total userbase is approaching the size of the UK population.

Whenever you read the word 'facebook', you should substitute the words 'big brother', because thats exactly what they are aiming for, and exactly what they have.

Facebook's growth is slowing and more and more people are deleting their accounts - perhaps they have finally come to realise what I'm sure everyone must in the end - I want my life back, my privacy, my 'peace and quiet' and perhaps my sanity??

Strip away all the useless crap from facebook and you are left with a very very powerful framework atop which applications can communicate with each other. Bearing this in mind, I forcast that it will over time become more of a social business network as opposed to a social network for the common man. It's framework will connect businesses and services together mostly for the corporate world. I might be wrong, but something will have to change and this is the only direction I can see it surviving in, and perhaps thriving in long term.

Facebook claims to connect people and whilst it's true in once sense, in another it's far removed. Why would I want to connect with friends via facebook and waste hours upon hours of trawling through a plethora of meaningless crap when I can use more 'niche' sites (like webforumz) or services such as MSN. These REALLY connect people and what's more they do not kill every ounce of productivity in the process.

Facebook has zapped many of my hours in the past, and because of facebook I felt inclined to write this blog post (yet more time lost).

Thanks facebook.... thanks for nothing.