Can I rant about Facebook for a minute?
Because of my workload, I have not been paying any attention recently to all the discussions about Facebook, so I have no idea what is going on on that front, except some vague notion that you can advertise on it now or something.
But I am getting really irritated by Facebook for several reasons, which I am about to list for you, in no particular order, if you can bear with me here.
1) I hate the ads. I don’t need a dating service. Really I don’t. And even if I did, large-breasted blonde women are not really my thing (sorry). Piss off!
2) What’s with the millions of applications? Why can I not “just say no” when a friend invites me to add something? (I mean I can, but I can’t). So now I have something like 30 applications, and I would love to remove all of them, but I can’t bring myself to.
3) The whole Super-Poking/being bitten by zombies/getting a sheep thrown at me thing is wearing thin. Apart from my amusement at my never-ending poking game with bmart, I don’t really want the rest - but then again, what if I want to send flowers or a Cosmo to someone later? Dang!
4) And what’s with telling everyone everything I do? I have a ton of my association members as Friends, since I want to slowly grow a group for my association, but I don’t necessarily want them to know that I added some random music application or joined the “Unlike 99.99% of the Facebook population, I was born in the 70’s” group. I know you are supposedly able to turn all this off, by the way, I am just too lazy/too busy/not in the mood to go through and do it.
5) I thought you were supposed to be able to separate friends from family from professional colleagues? When is that going to happen? I got the Cliquey app from someone and put people into groups, but then it very irritatingly went and told everyone what groups I put them in. What if I had set up a couple of “cliques” called “sad losers I feel obliged to talk to”, or “no idea who the F these people are”? Luckily I would never do that… : )
6) Why does everything have to be on my profile page? Why can’t I move 90% of this crap that I can’t seem to actually remove completely, and just put it on a page 2 so it doesn’t annoy me all the time?
7) Why can I only belong to one network? What’s up with that? I lived in Edinburgh and London for 15 years, why does it have to be only DC?
Why can I not join groups for my high school and university, just for the purposes of trying to find old classmates? Last time I tried I think they both said I had to be a current student. Am I missing some secret place where the alumni groups hide out?
9) Why do I not receive messages posted to my groups, which is really the only thing I am truly interested in? Shouldn’t I be able to get them in my Facebook inbox, at least, if not in my real email? (Seriously if someone knows how to turn that feature on let me know - I am probably just being dense).
10) People keep saying to me, “Oh, I need to respond to you about the Facebook thing you sent me.” ???? WTF? probably related to #4.
OK that was more like many minutes of ranting. Sorry!
Was asked if possible to establish a policy to fine someone (or require a donation) if a cell phone rings during an education program, is answered, or if student takes out Blackberry/Treo/iPhone and checks email, sends text messages or accesses Internet during class. There’s no question that ringing cell phones and device use can be annoyances and distractions to instructors and other students. Offenders often don’t care, as their interest is in multi-tasking or not missing a communication.