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Suffering From Facebook Fatigue? - TIME

time.com — It started innocently enough: last month a friend sent me a virtual lily plant on Facebook and invited me to create a (Lil) Green Patch, a digital garden that would grow on my profile page,

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  • sockpuppets, on 04/17/2008, -15/+40Am I the only one that doesn't have a facebook account?
    • Bloc, on 04/17/2008, -16/+57Yes.
    • sirbeta, on 04/17/2008, -18/+25No.
    • jcluthe, on 04/17/2008, -15/+6Me neither....I'd rather puke and eat it.............
    • Rotzooi, on 04/17/2008, -21/+8No, Facebook is for people who don't have a life.
      • TheMachine1, on 04/17/2008, -4/+3I thought it was for people who have web browsers that do not work well with Myspace.
      • MScrip, on 04/17/2008, -4/+10Not really. I use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends. I have way more friends on Facebook than I have e-mail addresses. The only people I send e-mail to are family members and business people. Everyone else I know is on Facebook. Finding your friends is easy... just search and click the "add" button. Or they will find you. And sharing photos is easy, because when you upload new photos, all your friends are notified. You don't have to tell people you have new photos.

        I don't get into all the stupid applications and stuff. But, I can find anyone I know much easier on Facebook than any other method. Facebook is the internet white pages. There is no way to find someone's e-mail address.
        • bbliss17, on 04/17/2008, -4/+3Exactly. I love facebook and I am sure I have more friends and more of a social life then you. It makes your social life better. You get invited to events and all of that. You don't really know what you are talking about so maybe you should not open your mouth.
        • bowe, on 04/17/2008, -1/+6why do you guys both have solid colored user icons? Are you part of some cult?
      • anarchyinthekr, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4I thought that was what digg is for
    • Pinkshisno, on 04/17/2008, -3/+8Says someone posting on Digg.

      Let's follow stereotypes!
    • DailyWail, on 04/17/2008, -3/+10Most people don't have a facebook account.
    • Terra21, on 04/17/2008, -3/+5I don't either, i see no need to have one since i have a social life i'm happy with.
      • subterfuge, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2you know what google does with the internet? facebook does that with your social life.
    • aqrilik, on 04/17/2008, -5/+5yeah because whoever has a facebook is a mindless drone with no social skills


      ........or a college student

      get off your throne
    • Mpwns, on 04/18/2008, -1/+2i dont have one. hell i dont even check my myspace more than once a week now. all those social networking sites are just filled with more spam than my inbox.
    • alittalia, on 04/18/2008, -1/+0Don't worry, me either but i have hi5 hehe
    • coresnake, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1***** facebook its a covert data mining operation performed by the CIA. ITS A TRAP DONT GIVE THEM YOUR INFO
      • sickswaystop, on 04/18/2008, -1/+2riigght, and WTC was a conspiracy, and theres a phalic symbol in the streets of DC and all politicians are actually lizards!
    • youtellme8, on 04/18/2008, -1/+4I just deleted my account and my quality of life went way way up. I'm happier, I'm spending more time informing myself about the world, and I have more confidence in my daily actions.
  • TheCheeks, on 04/17/2008, -1/+59I hate those damn applications...
    • billybob217, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Amen to that...
      I spend like half of my time on facebook blocking those freaking apps...
      Do I want to be a vampire and bite people others? No, it is freaking annoying... I don't need another poke like function...
      • mem2, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1but what will the airheads do if they cant invite 100's of people of barely know them using the most pathetic "apps" ever seen on web 2.0.
      • Burn, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2There's a Greasemonkey script to automatically ignore and block facebook app requests, and it works brilliantly: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12393

        I also use the 'De-MySpacify' Greasemonkey script which removes all custom applications from everyone's profiles and leaves only the stock FaceBook apps: http://userstyles.org/styles/3681
    • kaseydiggs, on 04/18/2008, -1/+3Facebook apps was the worst idea ever. Good for developers and advertisers, bad for users.
  • SpectreFire, on 04/17/2008, -2/+13I use greasemonkey to block incoming app invites.

    Made a world of difference.
  • samanathon, on 04/17/2008, -15/+3I'm addicted to "Friends For Sale" - it's a ton of fun!!

    One day, I will own you all.
    • canthraxp, on 04/17/2008, -1/+6The price for your soul just dropped to 5 bucks.
  • solarwind24, on 04/17/2008, -2/+26Facebook is turning into myspace. The question is, what are YOU going to do to stop it?
    • chrispeters, on 04/17/2008, -1/+7Stop using my account.
    • Smeed, on 04/17/2008, -0/+10Jump on the next social website bandwagon and then leave it when they open it up to the idiot kids!
    • canthraxp, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3As soon as facebook starts declining, a new social website will be born, users will move by the promise of being the ultimate facebook killer. And of course, we will get a good share of news with shiny web 2.0ish pie graphs on digg about it, on how many users are moving, etc.

      Repeat ad infinitum.
      • TheMachine1, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Thats the very reason Facebook will crash and burn to. The very nature of its user base is fickle.
        • subterfuge, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1maybe fickle, but definitely adaptable
      • saturdaysaint, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1The often repeated insistence that there will be a "next Facebook" or "Facebook killer" in the near term makes no more sense to me than saying there will be a "next Google" in the near term. Myspace lost users because Facebook had superior stability, design and feature set, and Facebook's feature set has been growing impressively for a while (to the extent that it's pretty impossible to see even the most talented startup catching up with them in a reasonable timeframe). Remember, like Facebook, Google was once a "fad".
    • ajb2015, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Nothing at all.
    • Smeed, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3People dont know how to manage the amount of options put in front of them tastefully. These websites have to strike a balance between customization and restriction. Facebook was balanced before they implemented applications. Dont get me wrong, there are plenty of useful/tasteful applications. The decent ones are ignored by what seems to be most of the high school crowd.
    • superkendall, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3The problem is the next Facebook killer has already been killed by the next Facebook killer killer, meaning that Facebook cannot now be killed and will live forever as a giant online digital zombie, slowly eating your braaaaiiiiins.
      • sickswaystop, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1that actually makes sense, i mean they owned everyone so hard so quickly nobody could easily comprehend the scale of its magnitude and facebook just confused them, its still confusing me and i've used it since the begining of the school year

        its nice how they dont support the use of individual URLs, on myspace everyone is like a cheap whore though some are cheaper than others.
  • DeepFriedFetus, on 04/17/2008, -2/+26David DIGGS
    • blademanx, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4That had me really confused for a second.
    • t0x2c, on 04/17/2008, -0/+0Digg for Diggs!
    • Macskeeball, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1256 Diggs and counting. Does that mean we're cloning that guy whenever we click "Digg it?" I wonder if there's a cloning app on Facebook, and I wonder if it forces you to send invites to your friends.
  • samanathon, on 04/17/2008, -14/+4I'm addicted to "Friends For Sale."

    One day, I will own you all.
    • ep53, on 04/17/2008, -1/+11If you got buried the first time, what made you think you would get dugg the second time?
  • Cerealkillr, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Cabbage patch kids..... for facebook....
  • koenigje, on 04/17/2008, -4/+4How did this hit the front page so fast????
    • sockpuppets, on 04/17/2008, -0/+6A breach in the space-time-digg continuum.
  • Cerius, on 04/17/2008, -2/+43Facebook was so much better before they opened up to the non college crowd.

    Having mom friend request you is a little.. awkward.

    • ric2084, on 04/17/2008, -1/+11Is she hot?
    • bobkingof12vs, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1please tell me you said no
    • MScrip, on 04/17/2008, -1/+12> "Facebook was so much better before they opened up to the non college crowd."

      What does that even mean? How does that affect you? Do you get friend requests from high-schoolers? I think what you mean is Facebook was better before they added all the stupid apps.

      Having more people in an online community is not a bad thing. So what if there are a million 16 year olds on Facebook... it affect me at all. I just stick to my friends.
      • thetanman, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Maybe it's just me, but the Facebook servers seem hella slow now and it pisses me off. I don't know if it's the additional users or the apps (probably the latter) but it's just not as enjoyable an experience as it used to be... they need to be weary of this. Facebook needs to keep doing what made it popular, and do it well... and that DOES NOT include zombie invitations and the like.
        • bowe, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4You guys both have solid colored icons too! What the hell is going on here!?
      • subterfuge, on 04/18/2008, -0/+3i think he was just weirded out that his mom friended him and by "non college" he means adults
    • BOOFMAN, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2"Here's to you Mrs. Robinson, "
    • ell0bo, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1Yeah, when this one guy at work told me he was on Facebook, he's about 50 with two daughters, I decided that I really needed to stop using the site. Can't say i really miss it, however I have yet to delete my account. Thank goodness my parents barely know what a web browser is.
    • mariachi, on 04/18/2008, -0/+3having your mom request me was awesome
  • Vindexus, on 04/17/2008, -9/+3I hate being poked.
  • monkeyrun, on 04/17/2008, -1/+7If you find that addictive, you seriously need help.
  • f4nt0m4s, on 04/17/2008, -4/+6What is with all the stories about Facebook lately? We get it, Facebook sucks, stop using it, go outside and make some real friends it's not that hard.
    • EvilJelloMan, on 04/17/2008, -1/+8I've never added a person on facebook who I didn't already know in real life. I would say most people I know are the same way as well. Unlike myspace, it seems to be less of an online community and more of a way for friends to keep in touch. I use it all the time to share pictures amongst friends, to keep up with what friends back home are up to, to let folks know what's going on in my life, and even to organize get-togethers . It's a convenient tool for communication, and only when people try to make it more, like by inviting you to their stupid ass oregon trail wagon, does it start to suck.
      • MScrip, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3Exactly! I feel the same way. Facebook to me is just an online communication tool. I send messages, write quick Wall posts, and share photos. I don't need anything else. Of course I have my close friends who I talk to on the phone and TXT message... but I have hundreds of other friends that I would never hear from if it wasn't for Facebook. I see all my friend's photos as soon as they post them. Otherwise, I'd have to visit tons of individual Flickr accounts. Facebook put everything into one place.
        • juanchopancho, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4"but I have hundreds of other friends that I would never hear from"

          Those are not friends. Maybe old aquaintance, but friend? No, sorry. You use the term "friend" too lightly.

          This is also knows as the myspace delusional friend syndrome.
          • MScrip, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1But I actualyl know these people! I was in college for 7 years, have worked at Walt Disney World, and been a dancer who traveled all over the country. I've met a lot of people.

            Sure, they might not all be my best friends... but I never add complete strangers on Facebook.

            Oh, and who the ***** cares? I'll add whoever I want! The point is... I have no other way to find these people. Facebook is a giant community. I might not ever see them again in person... but it's cool seeing pictures they have taken, or hearing about their weekend or whatever. Have you ever gotten someone's e-mail address, but never bothered writing them? Or someone's phone number you will never call? What if I just had an address book with hundreds of e-mail addresses of people I know? Is that better or worse than Facebook?
    • SpykerSpeed, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Whoa, little defensive there.
    • thetanman, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1I just thought of it this way, but I reconnected with a old friend last summer through facebook who turned into a fantastic ***** buddy for a while... so I can't really knock it.
  • EvilJelloMan, on 04/17/2008, -0/+58I absolutely refuse to add any facebook app that requires you to add the app to interact with it, or that requires you to invite a certain number of friends before you can add it.

    There is absolutely NO ***** REASON why I should have to allow "funwall" to access my profile to write a comment on yours, and it's completely unjustified to require me to add an app to see a friend's "smugmug" photos when those photos are available on the smugmug website without the extraneous trickery.

    Facebook app authors are almost all a mix of spammers, scammers, and worm writers. ***** them. ***** them in the ***** with a concrete dildo.
    • darkism, on 04/17/2008, -7/+1God forbid anyone should try and monetize their work. Diggers will call them spammers!
      • EvilJelloMan, on 04/17/2008, -0/+9Monetizing their work means I have to allow them to access my personal information before I can see my friend's picture? Monetizing their work means it's OK to REQUIRE you to spam at least 20 of your friends before you can even see how the app works?

        I think not. There's a difference between monetizing your work and making sleazy apps. I have no problem with a guy putting advertisements into his apps, but I have a big ***** problem with his app automatically spamming people.
    • deadmantalkin, on 04/17/2008, -1/+10dugg for creative mention of a concrete dildo
  • adapter, on 04/17/2008, -1/+7I hate all those application invites
  • mattassin, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4I have the Digg application. Its one of my few applications.
  • macguy24, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1The worst part is when you have to add 20 friends. Is it not possible for you to add an app u like but your friends don't. You have to invite them to do stuff. ***** That *****
  • ytsejam29, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Solution: Disable all applications. It's a shame you can't use the handful of applications that are actually useful, but at least Facebook will stop annoying you.
  • BikeMessenger, on 04/17/2008, -3/+6You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the article to 10 different people. If you do this, you will receive unbeleveably good luck in love. The person that you are most attracted to will soon return your
    feelings. If you do not, bad luck will rear it's ugly head at you. THIS IS NOT A JOKE! You have read the warnings, seen the cases, and the consiquences. You MUST send this on or face dreadfuly bad luck.
    • Mpwns, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2you mean my luck in finding love can get worse?
  • billbugger, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1ning.com is better
  • jimthenglishman, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1i only have one app that wasn't created by facebook, and that's the graffiti one. unfortunately, so called "developers" made crappy imitation apps also called graffiti just to confuse people.

    facebook really needs to get a handle on all of these applications…
    • mlw4428, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Or better yet if you want annoying boxes called "applications" use MySpace.
  • aloser, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Umm... there is now an option to block all invitations from a certain application and all invitations from a certain user. What's the problem? You can also opt out of the platform completely.
  • LastDitchHero, on 04/17/2008, -1/+0I delete facebook just cause of this crap. If facebook doesn't get a reign on the crapware they will make myspace look good
  • JohnnyRad, on 04/17/2008, -2/+9you know, I heard Hillary is a big supporter of App invites on Facebook...
    this must be stopped.
  • boywundah, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1yea i steer clear of most facebook apps. They are just too buggy. you either wind up spamming your friends or spamming your friends. :)
  • Pherdnut, on 04/17/2008, -1/+9It's up to you to choose whether or not to accept this junk. I think facebook is solid. I've met a lot of old friends on it.
  • exscind, on 04/17/2008, -1/+8Is this really a problem, or just the latest in exaggerated Web 2.0 journalism? (Hint: not the first one.)

    Facebook is a great social resource. Don't send your friends stupid crap. Sure, some of your well-meaning pals might do it to you, but even if you're not comfortable asking them to stop, you can block them from sending you invites.

    (It's also worth nothing that a few apps, such as Flixter or Visual Bookshelf, integrate nicely with the Facebook interface and are solidly-designed and very useful.)
  • zapperdude60, on 04/17/2008, -1/+6i have over 9000 applications
  • Montraic, on 04/17/2008, -0/+0Every time I see the "3000 other invitations" notification in Facebook... I am very glad you can mass-ignore them...
  • endustry, on 04/17/2008, -1/+10"App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
  • mjsteinbaugh, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2You can disable Facebook platform (and therefore all third party application invites) on the privacy page:
    http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?view=platform&tab ...
  • clayasaurus, on 04/17/2008, -4/+2"App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
    "App creators insist that people actually enjoy the invitations."
  • xTRUMANx, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1People need to realize the culprit is not the app creators, but their retarded friends. Perhaps most people have got too large of a group of friends, but I personally have got around 50 or so people on my friends list (everyone else can find me via the network I know them from if) and most app requests come from a handful of individuals. The easiest solution imo is to be able to block app requests coming from specific friends. Not entirely sure if that's possible currently though.
  • TheSpook, on 04/17/2008, -4/+3Curious... Why do people use facebook?

    I tried to sign up for it once out of curiosity of what all the fuss was about, but it requested a school e-mail address or something. I know it allows anyone now, but I avoid it for being elitist.
    • saxreturns, on 04/17/2008, -2/+4"I know it allows anyone now, but I avoid it for being elitist."

      Forgive me for failing to understand your argument...
  • liquisoft, on 04/17/2008, -0/+5Socializing without a central point is fun at first, but most people find themselves fizzling out soon afterwards. Remember when Myspace was all the *****? And then there was SecondLife? And now Facebook? All of them burst into popularity suddenly, and then slowly fizzled from mainstream focus. I believe this is because socializing for the sake of socializing is boring. There has to be an ulterior motive for people to remain interested; some sort of benefit has to exist.
  • saturdaysaint, on 04/17/2008, -0/+0BFD. I blocked a bunch of apps the day Facebook made it an option and deleted all the mentions of annoying apps in my feed, and I've pretty much forgotten about the stupid app craze. What prescient issue will 2nd rate tech journalists muckrake next? Impotence pill spam?


  • theutopian, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1I once got an invite from my female cousin asking me to take a sexual compatibility quiz. That was one invite I never wanted to receive. Deleted and turned the stupid apps off.
  • agsinger, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2facebook, myspace all the walled gardens...are lame...
  • anskypb2, on 04/18/2008, -0/+0facebook is ridiculous now. there is just way to much crap there, what happened to the original days of facebook?
  • shayben, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2Whats the problem with ignoring app invites?
    I have almost 100 pending invites at the moment, and every now and then i get the time and i go over them and filter what looks interesting or fun.
    Also, you can always control the amount of information you share with the app you want to check out, and easily remove it if it is not what you thought.
    People need to stop saying everything is annoying for the sake of saying it.
    p.s. sorry for my English :)
  • StanleyKoolPrik, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1What is this teenie-bopper ***** doing in TIME magazine?
  • J0hnGalt, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1There is a reason I have never accepted an pp request other than giving 3rd parties my info...
  • def1234, on 04/18/2008, -0/+0that's disappointing. I thought that the article might have been about Harvest Moon for some reason.
  • FyreDragon17, on 04/18/2008, -0/+0I'm glad I'm not the only one who has the problems with the apps...I think that Facebook is slowly working it's way to MySpace spamming....
  • jjrohal, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2There are legitimate apps out there that don't spam invite people...espcially since Facebook has started to recently crack down on apps that do. For example, this app allows you to connect with users on Facebook that have DS and Wii games and share Friend Codes:

    http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=73 ...
  • Wootstapler, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1David Diggs, a junior at Michigan State University who has some 300 Facebook friends, complains, "It's annoying to get about 70 invitations a day about taking some kind of quiz or adding an application."

    I lol'ed.
  • WikiEasy, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1I tried apps for a while, and got sick of all of them, especially Funwall. That crappy app by default spams all of my friends. Since then I've stopped using all apps.
  • hifidelity1, on 04/18/2008, -1/+3grow a real ***** garden.
  • OldFrenchie, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1Facebook sucks donkey balls now. ***** funwall, superwall, superfunwall, join my retarded nympho vampire clan *****....its retarded.
  • AncientPC, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1" I wasn't merely skeptical — I was annoyed. But I didn't want to be a killjoy — and I love plants — so I went ahead and clicked 'Accept.' "

    How about you ***** don't install apps, then we wouldn't have to read about you whining about how much they suck up your time.

    Yes, I have a Facebook account that and I don't see any 3rd party apps because of "***** Facebook" greasemonkey script. I also don't friend everyone I meet and purge my friends list regularly.
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