Facebook doesn’t suck, you are just lazy
Over the last couple of weeks I have seen increasing number of posts related to how Facebook sucks. “I’m deleting this account, I don’t find Facebook useful”, one such poster lamented. A few days ago I saw another post complaining of how teenagers have invaded Twitter, even as Social Experiment (@Mediatek) tweet that Twitter’s audience in Kenya has increased by over 80% during this period of coronavirus.
The people who complain that Facebook sucks or that a lot of teenagers have invaded Twitter are either lazy, do not know what they want in their social media lives, or just don’t know how to properly use social media.
In March I penned an article in which I demonstrated how someone can obtain a wholesome and awesome Social Media life, but the continued complains I keep on reading from people dissatisfied with one social media platform over the other means so many haven’t known how to navigate their ways through the streets of social media. This also applies to those who keep quitting one social media after the other (I have been a culprit – see This is why I’m quitting LinkedIn then check out Why I am slowly ditching Facebook for LinkedIn).
I understand different social media platforms offer different things, but other than photo or video centric social media outlets like snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, there isn’t really anything you can achieve in LinkedIn that you can’t achieve on Facebook, or something you can gain on Twitter that Facebook does not offer. This is to say that the same people you’d find on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Facebook, are the very people you’ll find on the other platforms. This is to say, the platform by itself does not suck – you are just lazy to be around the type of people that will enrich your social media life.
To demonstrate this, let me explain what I usually look forward to obtaining from social media.
- The first thing is to read informative updates. For this, I have followed a lot of information oriented pages on Facebook and Twitter where I get informed on latest news on politics, events, and developments in science and technology.
- The second thing is to associate with like minded people – people who are critical thinkers, content consumers and creators, and people I would like to meet some day. I sent them friendship requests over Facebook and majority of them accepted the requests. My Facebook experience has never been better.
- Then I like saying exactly what’s on my mind – most of which are things I can associate with my name. For that, I created a Facebook account with an identity that technically belongs to no one. I have ensured none of “friends” in that Facebook account know the real me – and that allows me to freely express what I am thinking on any subject.
- Lastly I do use social media to grow my career. For this I use LinkedIn – where I have ensured I get connected with as many filmmakers as possible across the globe, particularly filmmakers in countries that are known to make films of executive quality.
Now, there are people who would like to get same experience as I have with their social media accounts, but they are too lazy to vet the type of people they send friendship requests to, follow on Twitter, or get connected with on LinkedIn. Given this laziness, these people end up curating their social media feed with content they hate – content that irritates them, or content they find useless. Now, instead of ironing out the social media accounts by getting rid of people who post the content they find boring.
If you find yourself in a situation where you find any of the social media platforms sucking, then this is what you need to do:
- Figure out what you want to derive from social media
- Go through your friendship, followership or connection lists to find those not providing whatever it is that you want.
- Unfriend, unfollow or disconnect with them.
- Search through the platform for people who are aligned towards what you want, and connect with those people.
- Stop whining.
