Is Facebook socially illiterate?

I hate socializing. My discomfort around others has resulted in my evasion of social situations. Whenever I have to deal with someone, I am clearly out of my element. An argument can certainly be made that I am socially illiterate.


Despite my shortcomings, I could do worse. Look at Facebook. Even I can see serious deficiencies in their social dealings. How is it that a social network can have a worse understanding of socializing than I do?

Socializing should not be restricted to a single website. If you really want to support socialization between individuals, you can't force people to embrace barriers. The goal should be to open up. Could you imagine if we were all required to visit the same for-profit business to talk to people in person? That would be the equivalent of what Facebook is currently getting away with. This is why I stick to email, which is far less restrictive since email is not restricted to a single domain.

Businesses have given up on including certain things on their own websites. Instead, they expect you to leave their website and go to Facebook to know what's going on. When you get to Facebook, they blast you with an annoying pop-up asking you to join. Facebook's strategy has more to do with harassing people for not joining than actually providing users with real benefits.

In many ways, Facebook's desire to control content is the heart of my issues with Facebook. They may be your words that you are posting to the platform, but Facebook controls them. Socializing should not do too much to diminish the role of the people who are socializing. Social networking should allow people to say what they want to people who they feel are interested in what they have to say. It should not be a matter of everybody visiting the same website that tries to contain your online life. I may be a disconnected from the social world, but even I know that.