A good, contrarian (but unnecessarily long) article by Elizabeth Bernstein about Facebook in The Wall Street Journal. Some choice quotes:
All this online social networking was supposed to make us closer. And
in some ways it has. Thanks to the Internet, many of us have gotten
back in touch with friends from high school and college, shared old and
new photos, and become better acquainted with some people we might
never have grown close to offline.
This brings us to our first dilemma: Amidst all this heightened
chatter, we're not saying much that's interesting, folks. Rather, we're
breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy
Friends.
So what's the solution, short of "unfriending" or "unfollowing"
everyone who annoys you? You can use the "hide" button on Facebook to
stop getting your friends' status updates—they'll never know—or use
TwitterSnooze, a Web site that allows you to temporarily suspend tweets
from someone you follow. (Warning: They'll get a notice from Twitter
when you begin reading their tweets again.)
But these are really just Band-Aid tactics. To improve our
interactions, we need to change our conduct, not just cover it up.
First, watch your own behavior, asking yourself before you post
anything: "Is this something I'd want someone to tell me?" "Run it by
that focus group of one," says Johns Hopkins's Dr. Wallace.
And positively reward others, responding only when they write
something interesting, ignoring them when they are boring or obnoxious.
(Commenting negatively will only start a very public war.)
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