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Ooooookay.

Most FaceBook "friends" are not real friends in the first place but mere contacts. You may want to follow any given contact for a while, but that doesn't mean you absolutely want to "get married" to this contact for life. With an app like that, it feels like it's a criminal thing to defriend someone one your FaceBook list.

Would I use FaceBook, I would instantly defriend anyone using Defriender !

How narcissistic must you be to even worry about who's de-friending you on Farcebook, let alone actually run an app periodically to see who's done it? Anyone who would use this app, or anything similar needs to turn off the computer and get a life. Really.

Pascal007, on 14 January 2010 - 06:45 AM, said:

That's pretty funny actually. It's like saying, "If I used Facebook, I wouldn't friend you."

Clearly, you don't get Facebook. It's not twitter or LinkedIn. The folks I friend on Facebook, they're really my friends. I intentionally don't friend managers or coworkers. There's a place for that and it is called linkedIn. Facebook is where I can be myself. If I friended "contacts" I certainly wouldn't share some of the things I do on it. (and I have privacy settings specified so that only friends (not friends of friends) can see and read my posts.

All the social media sites do different things. Twitter is a tiny news tip service. LinkedIn is for contacts and business. Facebook is for family and friends. I've reconnected with old friends from 20 years ago, entirely due to my use of Facebook. If you used it, you'd see why it is different, and frankly a lot more fun, than LinkedIn.

This post has been edited by microfud: 14 January 2010 - 07:06 AM

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 07:06 AM, said:

I agree. But one word of caution, don't let to loose in Facebook, because that info is kind of entered in to an archive of sorts, so one has to exercise some level of prudence. Do I care when some one defriends me, not at all, it's there loss, and to be honest, I don't have time or the incline to worry about things like that.

Pascal007, on 14 January 2010 - 06:45 AM, said:

And if you don't, it doesn't matter what you would or wouldn't do there.

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 07:06 AM, said:

Clearly you're in the minority of how people use Farcebook. I don't know, or care, specifically what your friend count on Facebook is, but generally speaking anyone with hundreds of "friends" is clearly not "friending" people who are "really" their friends, though that position pre-supposes a certain definition of "friend". For me, a friend is someone I actually have contact with OUTSIDE of Facebook. For a real friend of mine, a "friend" for facebook purposes is anyone they've ever met in their entire life, even if only a casual introduction at some bar 15 years ago. For others, they're so desperate to appear popular, they'll befriend anyone who has any six degrees of separation type connection at all.

Facebook is whatever you want it to be for you. The biggest issue with Facebook is the constantly changing and UNCLEAR privacy policies, which have often resulted in real-life harm to many many people, if stories are to be believed. Real-life harm includes, but is not limited to people losing their jobs, getting divorced, getting stalked, not getting hired and similar situations.

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 07:06 AM, said:

So you connected with old friends from 20 years ago. Cool, I guess, but if you were really interested in connecting with old friends from 20 years ago, wouldn't you have found a way to do so before Facebook came along? Facebook makes it easy to do so, and because it's easy to do so, and Facebook's paradigm suggests it's something you need to do, you decide to do it. Facebook's existence has created a need that didn't exist before Facebook. Of these 20 year old friends, how interesting, beyond the first few back and forths of "wow, what you been up to your whole life?" do these contacts remain? And are you really interested in seeing their birthday gathering pics full of strangers to you, or them seeing the same of you? I'm not.

Re: the other sites, you're forcing your own usage view of those sites on the world. Each of those sites is, just like I mentioned Facebook above, whatever you choose to make it for yourself. Twitter can be much more than just a "tiny news tip service" if you choose to use differently than you apparently are.

And I still stand by assertion earlier that anyone so narcissistic that they need to track who has de-friended them really has issues with self-esteem and needs to get help.

This post has been edited by distortedloop: 14 January 2010 - 07:42 AM

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 07:41 AM, said:

I disagree. Almost everyone I know or come in contact with who uses Facebook, uses it for family and friends. I ignore "friend" requests from colleagues. Whatever. The fact that you call it Farcebook, tells me how much you use it, in any event.

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 07:41 AM, said:

I agree about the byzantine privacy settings. But if you care about privacy at all, you'll know that and set it up appropriately. Again, this doesn't sound like you use or even like Facebook. So why do you care?

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 07:41 AM, said:

Well, you must live a sad and lonely life then. I have lots and lots of real friends that I've made over many years. Many of these people live in far flung places around the world. So picking up the phone or going for a visit isn't an option. As a matter of fact, my best friend from my high school years is one of the folks I've reconnected to. There's plenty to talk and catch up on. If your life is so devoid of things to discuss, I feel sorry for you.

Has Facebook created a need that didn't exist before? Sure it has. But so has personal computing, the internet, etc. It's called progress. Feel free to live among the Amish if you like. I hear they're exceptionally nice people.

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 07:41 AM, said:

Ok. That's fine by me. My opinion is that the character limit of Twitter doesn't leave room to fully express an idea or thought. But it's a great place to post short updates about some breaking event or happening. That's how I use it. If you differ, bully for you. It makes no difference to me.

As to de-friending... who cares. It's never happened to me. I wouldn't care if someone did either. But I guess it might be interesting for someone to actually know. In any event, I can see that the whole facebook thing has struck some kind of nerve. I'll drop it now. I clearly didn't mean to cause you any grief or emotional distress.

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 07:06 AM, said:

That's you. Do you really think there aren't a substantial number of Facebook users who have never met the majority of their "friends?"

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 09:29 AM, said:

There's nothing sad and lonely about my life at all, thank you very much. I just don't measure my happiness by how many contacts from 20 years ago I've reconnected with via Facebook, or how many "friends" I have on Facebook period. It's sad that you somehow measure the quality of your own life in Facebook terms.

I've kept in contact with friends from 40 years ago through all the improvements in technology over the years, from letters to phones, to instant messaging clients. Facebook is nothing beyond those except for slightly more convenient, and infinitely more intrusive into your privacy.

I think you know what you can do with your snide Amish comment...

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 09:29 AM, said:

Apparently enough Facebook addicts out there care enough about de-friending to generate apps to track it down. Oh my god, I've been de-friended. The drama! The shame of it! The insult it implies. Get real people.

microfud, on 14 January 2010 - 09:29 AM, said:

Despite several insults and snide remarks directed at me personally...? Uh-huh.

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 07:41 AM, said:

I disagree. I think it has facilitated a desire that people have to stay in touch with people they know or have known.

I do not believe this is something that Facebook manufactured.

Does it matter who removes you from their friend list? If you've been collecting random friends, I can't imagine that you care whether they go away or not.

I've known people who had around 1000 friends, but most people like that never communicate directly with anyone, so why bother?

If people are concerned about being deleted, why don't they ask.

distortedloop, on 14 January 2010 - 10:47 AM, said:

@distortedloop,
I'm going to respond to you personally, in the hope that it will make a positive difference. I think that your style and apparently narrow-minded attitude invites criticism, and your whining about personal attacks really irks me: if you dish it out prepare to eat it. Worse, your "Amish" comment above is frankly asinine. Stop criticizing and you'll get along better with people.

You don't seem to appreciate that not everyone is like you, and that they may use Facebook in ways you can't even imagine; unfortunately, I think that if you did imagine it, you'd be critical of them. For example, I know lots of 12 year olds that communicate using FB in ways I consider healthy (exchange of ideas and jokes, after school contact with their far-flung peers, and not simply gossip) and many do play around with "competitive friending" ... they'd love to know who has de-friended them because it is part of the game. I agree that if adults use FB, they shouldn't focus on trivialities like that, but who cares if they do? Furthermore, kids "have a life" that is appropriate for their age, and are a large percentage of FB users. And so why bother to lambaste an app you would never use (and demean the users who would by saying they ought to get a life), and when others try to explain how one might use it, get all defensive and prickly?

Please: we need less negativity in this world, and more tolerance. Let it go, man.