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0 pointsjrockway14y ago0 comments

it devalues the weight of your relationships and dumbs you down

In what way?

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3 comments · 1 top-level

mnicole14y ago· 2 in thread

You attach yourself to acquaintances, close and distant friends, and family members. You end up lumping together people who you do truly value with the noise of people who don't truly matter to you. Does that mean the latter aren't important enough to warrant the friend request or their status updates? Of course not, but now you have this mush of information where no one stands out. You can go through the tedious process of creating groups, but you have to continue to maintain it throughout the life of your account. G+'s circles are truly no better, despite their efforts to try to sell it as such.

The dumbing-down part is in relation to the rampant spread of misinformation/fear-mongering at the click of a button (KONY, et al) and the he-said she-said drama that goes on and is exaggerated by outside commenters who wouldn't have otherwise been a part of the dirty laundry.

jrockwayOP14y ago

I think the problem is: you used to think writing was only for the educated and articulate, but now everyone can write and the results ain't pretty.

(Reducing the effort involved in writing and publishing means that more trivial things are written about and widely distributed. You used to think that your friends weren't morons because they never said anything. But now that they can discuss any issue at any time, they don't come out looking so good.)

mnicole14y ago

That may be the case for some people, but for others of us (and like a commenter above said), it brings out the worst of us. I found myself getting involved in petty arguments with people or just make an off-the-cuff statement because only that person knows the relationship we maintain between us, and suddenly another one of their friends/family chime in, completely missing the gist of the response.

You forget that there's this huge network of people, people that could be your next employer or co-worker, future partner, that are attached to these otherwise meaningless comments you wrote just to be clever. I said to Jimbob was going to resurface down the road or that I'd end up in a screenshot posted on some site by anyone else that could have seen that conversation, even if it wasn't insulting to me personally.

Ultimately, I wasn't comfortable with my every day conversations being available to hundreds if not thousands of people that don't know me or my tone.

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