Comments on: Why I Haven’t Joined Facebook

By: Bob Serpentini

Bob Serpentini — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:38:05 +0000

I personally think that you are in denial if you can not keep up with internet social networking. Yes, the preferred method is personal interaction, yet when you are a very social person who travels the world you can not always keep in touch.
I do agree that this may be part of the allure in meeting random people. I always find it interesting when I meet a new person when I fly or some other random interaction. People are drawn to what they don’t know about other people.
People are also drawn to what they can learn about people. The more I find out about people that I hardly know through websites such as facebook, can make me realize that maybe I want to know more.
Any bridge is a good bridge as long as it holds. As many people who have had careers ruined by facebook, twice as many have had them made.
Facebook is like google. Many argued that google was making people dumb. On the contrary, google made information that much more available, thus people did not need to memorize as much material. I agree, if the infinitely redundant capabilities of the modern world somehow all simultaneously crashed, we would be in trouble, however we would most likely all be dead.

By: Rick Dorfman

Rick Dorfman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:48:58 +0000

Eric, Absolutely hysterical…. found you through CNBC… very cool

By: Mark Rose

Mark Rose — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:52:29 +0000

Finally, thank you, a community I can relate to. Me and Bobby Fischer and Theodore Kaczynski and J.D. Salinger – and Eric? Are we connected?

ps: I am not Diane or Eric�s sister or Dan�s aunt. I am also not me. I have not been myself lately.

By: JMC

JMC — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:13:29 +0000

First there was Festivus for the rest of us and now there’s Lonerbook…. life is good!

ps: I am not Eric�s sister or Dan’s aunt

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:33:26 +0000

Facebook, schmacebook. My kids waste their time on it. My neighbors’ kids waste their time on it. And now it seems as though every journalist with column inches to fill feels obligated to put their two cents in and waste MY time on it. Yeah, I can turn the page, and do, but please, give it a rest. Eric’s right–how about doing a story on something that isn’t so “yesterday”? The journalistic herd mentality is boggling.

ps: I am not Eric’s sister

By: Janice G

Janice G — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:34:48 +0000

My brother should only be as adept at keeping in touch with his family as he apparently is with his friends!
(I’m Eric’s oldest sister)

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:24:04 +0000

Eric,
Just because someone is on Facebook doesn’t mean that they spend hours of time there each day, or open their medicine cabinet to the world. I use it to keep in touch with certain people and I occasionally even find it amusing to know that an old friend in Hamburg is eating Craisins for breakfast. Personally, I follow a few simple rules:
1. Don’t accept everyone as a friend (If I haven’t met them, I ignore such requests) … As a journalist (or maybe because they like my fuzzy photo), I get a lot of requests from strangers.
2. Don’t poke or prod people, or join dumb-sounding groups that could be leading me to yet another onslaught of advertisers
3. Assume everything I write can be seen by everyone–including my boss (some of the stuff I’ve seen from others is hilariously inappropriate to the point where I can see why online profiles can doom you in a job hunt)
4. Don’t take it too seriously … It’s another form of presence online, and it’s often an interesting one.

Of course, when I start getting messages from friends, announcing that they just bought a pair of Adidas running shoes (as the latest ad strategy would seem to suggest), I may change my tune on this one.

Cheers, Diane

By: gregory

gregory — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:44:00 +0000

i’m up for lonerbook…. amusing… hadn’t heard of it before your post to techcrunch….

growing up without anonymity is something like growing up in a village in india, it is not so bad, but leads to a different kind of mind…

a generation or two got spoiled in the west…