May be dropping Facebook soon

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
32,022
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Toronto, ON
I'm not about to drop Facebook (it's a fairly innocuous platform for me), but I've just been baffled by the number of idiotic posts I've come across lately, even including the participation of my friends. I keep seeing these questions posed by all sorts of sites - radio stations, authors, recipe forums, humor forums - about the most pointless things: Do you remember your 5th grade teacher's name; what kind of car did you get your driver's license in; what number sibling are you in your family; how far do you live from where you grew up?

Every one of these stupid posts has millions of comments; I saw a count of 5 million on one. Aside from being used by companies and criminals to mine your personal information, why do people reply to these? Is it loneliness, or boredom? And when Facebook highlights a comment from a friend, I click on it, and usually I see several friends who commented on the same stupid question. Sometimes the questions are posed by west-coast radio stations, but all the friends who responded live in the northeast.

And people go into detail about their answer, explaining their family tree, or how they came about their first car, or where they were when thy tried a certain food. All that, just to have their comment go into the vast ether of the internet, with the other millions of comments. Why?
The questions mysteriously line up with the security questions set up by banks and the government to access their sites. I am sure that is just a co-incidence.
 

JHDK

Release Robin's Bra
Oct 11, 2008
31,494
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Hyrule
Do you remember your 5th grade teacher's name; what kind of car did you get your driver's license in; what number sibling are you in your family; how far do you live from where you grew up?

Anne (we called teachers by their first name at our hippie Quaker school), don't remember the test car but my first car was a sweet 93 Bonneville, only child, 1,182 miles.

None of those are even close to my PW security questions btw.

why do people reply to these? Is it loneliness, or boredom?

I think that's the reason. Boredom, but more specifically boredom at work. Answering those questions kills like 5 mins of your shift.
 
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scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
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Vacationland
Anne (we called teachers by their first name at our hippie Quaker school), don't remember the test car but my first car was a sweet 93 Bonneville, only child, 1,182 miles.

None of those are even close to my PW security questions btw.



I think that's the reason. Boredom, but more specifically boredom at work. Answering those questions kills like 5 mins of your shift.
I think the appropriate response is OMG LOL!
 
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scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
29,746
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Vacationland
I just came across a question on Facebook that one of my friends answered: Would you rather have 4 more weeks of summer or fall? So far, there are 109k responses, mostly along the lines of "summer" or "fall". Fascinating!
 

Channel98

Don't yell or hit.
Feb 2, 2019
14,705
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Glendale CA
Facebook should ask all these people if they honestly believe "summer" and "fall" are totally different seasons, completely indistinguishable from each other. "Duh,
today is September 22. It's fall – but the weather is pretty much the same as yesterday when it was summer. Somethin's wrong!"

Of course Facebook will never ask such a question. Answering it would require Facebook users to actually think.
 

HecticArt

Administrator
Oct 19, 2008
54,241
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Toledo, Ohio
I’m fine with fall weather, but it means that winter right around the corner. That part is a drag. Winter would be better if it was a month shorter.

Damn. I gotta figure out what to get the Mrs for Christmas…..
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
32,022
17,251
168
Toronto, ON
Do we get to say where the 4 weeks comes from? I am ok with either if it comes from winter.

It's fascinating we now have 6 more posts on the subject here.

My facebook feed is full of pictures of schnauzers.
 
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scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
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Vacationland
Our summer weather goes on way too long here, so I'd opt for more fall, easily.
Jeff Kay, who does the blog "The West Virginia Surf Report" that I like, hates summer. Growing up in the northeast, I always assumed everybody likes summer the best. But now I see that places like Florida and Arizona basically go into hiding in summer, just like we do in winter.

In any case, it's pointless to have a million Facebook users comment on it.
 

scotchandcigar

All I wanted was some steak
Feb 13, 2009
29,746
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Vacationland
That leads to a good discussion topic. What Socials do you guys use?

For me:
DRC
Twitter
Imgur (to post pics here)

I've never used Facebook. I'm pretty sure I started a fake account years ago but never use it. I also have an instagram account and I do use it but I've never uploaded. I probably check Instagram once a month or so.
I'm a member of the BMW forums (Bimmerpost), but I really don't need any info for my car from there, so the only time I've gone in there over the last few years is for the Formula 1 discussions, and I wasn't doing that either until recently. That's when I noticed that their longstanding - and very heated - politics forum is gone. I thought it would be interesting to mention that.

But it's still the place to go, when you want to see yuppie a-holes post pictures of their watches in front of their dashboard.
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