Want to lose all your friends on Facebook in record time? Then keep up the boring status updates people - you know who you are.
It can start with a nag about your partner because they forgot to take the bins out, but on other days you might make reference to how “cute” they are. Some people log on just to say how bored, tired or drunk they feel, while others detail their children and or pets bowel movements and feeding patterns.
Paying out the boss and whingeing about work is also popular and then there’s the tortuous holiday countdown; I challenge anyone to come up with a more aggravating update than those that begin: “Only 35 sleeps till I’m out of here!”
Pointless, mindless and repetitive these, albeit short sentences, raise the petty ire; they’re what the dislike button was made for and in its absence, drive the weak-willed to secretly “hide” your feed from their profile pages. And it’s only going to get worse because this week Facebook registered its 500 millionth user.
While that’s no mean feat for an enterprise that started on the floor of a Harvard dormitory room, not everyone will be wearing a party hat and throwing streamers, especially those who’ve had an account for some time.
Jared Newman of PC world magazine reports that despite its continued success in luring new members, Facebook has been ranked in the bottom 5th percentile of the American Customer Satisfaction Index; a position it shares with online tax returns and airlines.
“Survey respondents knocked endless interface tweaks, spam and the technology that controls news feeds … and they also named increased advertising as a source of dissatisfaction,” wrote Newman.
Newsweek have marked the occasion by publishing a list of the top ten ways Facebook can ruin your life. In one particularly gruesome example a man murdered his wife after she changed her relationship status to “single” while another used his partner’s Facebook status updates as evidence of her addiction to Farmville and to prove she was a neglectful mother to their three children.
Stories like these have a strange effect; as much as they highlight the importance of being in control of your Facebook account, understanding your privacy settings and taking responsibility for who you “befriend”, it’s also a little hard to believe that so many of us keep coming back for more; especially when Australians are among the world’s worst offenders.
A Nielsen survey taken earlier this year showed 75 per cent of our internet users have a Facebook account and kids as young as 12 are spending up to seven hours a day updating their pages online.
Now that’s another big win for Facebook and also explains why certain people’s status updates can put you to sleep. But maybe it’s time to take a break from our computer screens and re-connect with friends the old-fashioned way…how does that work again?
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