Is it normal that i don't have a facebook, and hate social media?

85% Normal
26 Comments

I am the only person of everyone I know, who doesn't have a facebook. I hate social media. I think it's destroying the possibility of having a normal and real social life.

Often when I meet a new person and it really clicked. I get the question: 'Hey, do you have a facebook?'. And I say no. It seems to be that they have forgotten how to be friends without social media. I rather hang out in real life then virtually.

Does anyone here feels the same way?

Voting Results
85% Normal
Based on 78 votes (66 yes)
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Comments ( 26 )
  • Justs0meguy
    11 years ago

    Me neither I feel the exact same on the subject

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  • dirtybirdy
    11 years ago

    Woooo! What's up buddy! I don't have a facebook either!! Yay us!! People are like oh check this out on facebook. I'm like dude no. I don't have one. Well you should. No I shouldn't. But.... No shut up!!

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  • BluntsRolled
    11 years ago

    That's good. Facebook sucks.

    I log on and I cringe at how stupid, selfish, and unoriginal people actually are.

    Its like a bad realty TV show in text, and .jpg.

    Your doing yourself a favor.

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  • abyss
    11 years ago

    Wow, I am happy to see that there still are a lot of people out there, that can life without facebook and prefer a real live. :)

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  • OswaldCobblepot
    11 years ago

    You must be SO COOL.

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  • [Old Memory]
    11 years ago

    Hate in general seems like such a tiring process.

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  • Francophile22
    11 years ago

    I stopped using it because friends and family would take these belligerent attitudes on their social and political views, not giving quarter to any disagreement. I don't play PC. I don't care whom the truth hurts. I can't live in that FB world.

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  • mariacachucha
    11 years ago

    you're right man, i also dont have it, never did

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  • Shackleford96
    11 years ago

    I wish more people felt the same way.

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  • hellojellypopo
    11 years ago

    Me too! I agree with your whole post completely and who gives a f*ck whether its normal or not.

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  • ibreathelectric
    11 years ago

    I deleted my facebook a couple of months ago because of the sheer stupidity. If I saw one more sleazy, half-naked bathroom-mirror-duckface-instagrammed-selfie or a "like this picture of a child with half a face or you're going to hell" or an instagrammed picture of the last meal you ate even those moronic statuses like: "stop breaking my heart and cheating on me with that whore you asshole <\3 i'm not naming names but you know who you are and everybody basically knows who it is too because i just gave away all the details" I was going to jump out a window or go frigging Amish. Makes me ashamed of the human race.

    Life's so much less complicated without a facebook- nobody knows where you are/who you're with/what you're doing all. the. time... you're basically wiped off the map, which is such a relief. There's nobody there to judge your life based on your self-constructed profile. Everyone, no matter how much you try to deny it, EVERYONE has gone onto facebook at one time or another and somehow, some way gotten their feelings hurt. Why put yourself through that?!

    However, I can see how people 30+ could enjoy having a facebook- to connect with distanced relatives and friends, share pictures of their REAL lives (not their fake-ass instagram lives.) with grandparents who haven't seen their grandchildren in a while, wedding pictures to relatives who couldn't make it etc.

    Facebook is for the birds. So is any social media, really. If you feel THAT compelled to show the world how seemingly 'happy' your life is, then you're not truly happy, sorry. If you can be satisfied with your life without others looking in, then I say, job well done- you're doing something right.

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  • Terence_the_viking
    11 years ago

    friend 1: hey i like your face book status.
    Friend 2: thanks i'll see you on facebook tonight

    Whats wrong with going out and getting hammered?

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  • VioletTrees
    11 years ago

    Here are some of the things I've done thanks to social media:
    • Donating school supplies to children in Haiti.
    • Staying in contact with my best friend.
    • Meeting my fiancé (and other best friend).
    • Finding support for my eating disorder that I can rely on 24 hours a day.
    • Making friends with somebody in Peru.
    • Starting to relearn Spanish.
    • Interacting with people other than my fiancé on a daily basis (I'm sometimes too dizzy to leave the house at all).
    • Volunteering at a no cage, no kill animal shelter, which I found through Facebook.
    • Learning much of what I know about probability and quantum mechanics.
    • Meeting with a group to discuss rationalism and logic.

    It sounds like live a life where you can go out and see people in real life when you want to. That's lovely. Not everybody does. Not everybody is able bodied with friends that live nearby. My fiancé and I have one car, and sometimes I'm too dizzy to drive anyway. If it weren't for social media, I would be very, very isolated.

    This is my life. Sorry it's not "real" enough for you.

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  • AbnormallyAwesome
    11 years ago

    Yeah, I don't have facebook either. Also I don't see how anyone could trust this sneaky company with their personal information.

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  • jessicababy33
    11 years ago

    I don't have a fb or a phone or anything like that ! I don't hate it. It's not really a bother to me.

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  • poy
    11 years ago

    i have one but i prefer talking in person i barely use facebook shit but when i do i plan events or get invited to go out with my buds so we plan ahead of time till the weekend.

    some ways it helps some ways it dont but what depends more is the stuff your doing it work or school to make you a more social person. :)

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  • [Old Memory]
    11 years ago

    I don't have a facebook either.

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  • KeddersPrincess
    11 years ago

    I've heard that from a lot of people. It's normal. I myself wouldn't say I hate it. I'm not a big user of social media (I think it's more attractive to people who are more social which would make since) but I like that I can keep in touch with old high school buddies and the like.

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  • dappled
    11 years ago

    I only use Facebook as a login for Spotify. One thing I recently found very interesting is that using a fake login meant I still had to pay for Spotify, whereas my real Facebook account gets identified as a real person and I don't have to pay for Spotify.

    It makes sense. My music choices (that I now listen to for free) get advertised via my Facebook account to all my friends. In return for free music, I offer my ass as a billboard. Actually, I don't offer. It just happens.

    My point is that social media isn't social media. It's ad space and market research. Weirdly, the media is now the advert and the advert is the media.

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    • VioletTrees
      11 years ago

      In that case, it acts as ad space, but it can also be useful for social reasons.

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      • dappled
        11 years ago

        But why should our socialising turn a profit to someone? It seems like every little thing we do is taken apart to see what money someone else can extract from it.

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        • VioletTrees
          11 years ago

          I imagine you do it because you don't want to pay for your music. You could, of course, pirate music instead, or look up songs on youtube. If you want to get products in services legally, though, I'm afraid you usually have to offer something, whether it's money or services, in return. You're using a service through which you can listen to music for free. People didn't come along and pick that service apart to find a way to make money off of it. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Spotify was started for that purpose. Advertising allows them to pay for the upkeep of the website, as well as paying the people who run the site. You're still free to use the things you used to use to listen to music before Spotify was created.

          Although you're right that a lot (but not all) of social media is profitable, I'm a bit confused about why you'd have a problem with that. People who create social media are providing a service that allows us to communicate in ways we previously didn't (even if they're only subtly different, sometimes). That takes time and money. If you have a site the size of Facebook, for example, that's not something you can run if there isn't money coming in. You need web designers, programmers, customer support and troubleshooting, servers and staff to manage them, a human resources department, a legal team (probably multiple legal teams, actually, because they operate internationally), staff for cleaning and upkeep of their offices, etc.

          In Facebook's case, they're quite able to turn a profit, even with all those expenses, through advertising. And they should be able to, because if they couldn't, nobody would bother. Wikipedia can survive through donations because it's a cause people care about, especially people who really believe in free information (people who are really into open source software and copyright/copyleft issues tend to have strong opinions on these things). Donors understand that by giving money to Wikipedia, they're helping to provide a source of free information to people who can't pay for it. I don't think people would be so charitable about Facebook, since it's seen as frivolous, and in any case, there's no need for Facebook to risk it. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with getting money in exchange for providing a service (especially, in this case, a service that's a massive international undertaking). If their business practices are unethical, of course, that's a different issue.

          It's worth noting that social media isn't just people finding ways to make money off of things that we're already doing. If they were putting ads on the inside of our eyelids so that they could make money while we sleep, I'd object. What they're actually doing is more like providing special goggles that change your sleeping experience, which you received with the understanding that occasionally, you may see ads on them. As I noted in another comment on this post, social media has allowed me to do things that I wouldn't otherwise have done, and some of those things are really important to my life. I can talk to my best friend almost every day because of social media. I can communicate with people on days when I physically can't meet with them in real life. Honestly, I don't mind them making money off of that, especially when it's money I don't have to give them, and when I can block a lot of the stuff with adblock anyway.

          Incidentally, Is It Normal, like all online communities, is technically social media.

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          • LatexTree101
            11 years ago

            1/4 of the way of reading this it has been 19 minutes

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            • VioletTrees
              11 years ago

              Haha. Should I say "sorry" or "you're welcome"?

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          • dappled
            11 years ago

            Ahh, I know. I've been one of Spotify's biggest supporters because I feel strongly about piracy (not just because I've been the victim of it). Having adverts and paying the money to the artists who create the music is just fine by me.

            My problem is the sneaky way Facebook (which is an advertising hub with social media tacked on) becomes involved. If I set up a Facebook account, I only get Spotify for free if Facebook (or Spotify) satisfies itself that I am useful enough to them to warrant it. I don't mind being shown adverts. I do mind being a living advert. It's that paradigm shift that worries me. At the moment, it's a binary thing. I either get free music or I don't. It'll become tri-state, then multi-state, then a continuous series.

            I go to work, I make money, things are advertised to me, I choose to buy them. I have no problems with that model. I do have problems with a model where I get things based on my popularity and how much the advertiser can exploit it.

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            • VioletTrees
              11 years ago

              Oh, ok. I didn't realise that about Spotify (I'm aware of the concept, but I haven't used it myself). I understand better now.

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