We all love Facebook right? Most people would certainly be lost without it, and don't get me wrong, it's great for keeping in touch with old friends from school and family members. But God, it's annoying. In a way, it's not Facebook's fault for being annoying, it's the people on it. Hell, most of my annoyances come from people doing stuff that pisses me off on Facebook.
First off, being able to 'like' people's statuses is annoying in it's own right. Okay, so you can agree with what people say without actually writing anything, or you can show your support by 'liking' someone's status after they've gotten a new job or whatever, but what gets me is when people 'like' stuff just to be annoying. If you post a negative status for example, (something which I do all too often being a pessemist and what not) you'll occassionally get the odd dickhead who 'likes' it. Not because they revel in your misery (or they might, depending on who it is), but because they're just dicks who like to be annoying.
Occasionally people will 'like' at the wrong time - namely when you post something like this: "RIP *insert name here* You will be sorely missed :( x x x" It can seem highly inappropriate to 'like' a status like this, but yet people do it to be supportive because they don't always know what to write. Still, even saying that, depending on who the person is, namely, someone you don't talk to often or even like that much, you'll probably see it as them 'liking' the fact that a loved one has died. Although if it's a close friend, then probably you'll know they're being supportive. But a close friend would most likely have something to say. Tricky.
That's the thing about Facebook. It's almost always ambiguous. Which leads me to my next point. Ambiguous statues that may or may not be about you, one of the worst things about Facebook and I reckon probably a large contributor to cyber-bullying, or at least upsetting people. Occasionally they can be nice such as "*Name* has just had the most wonderful day with someone really special ;)" or they can be terribly bitchy: "*Name* thinks that some people are total assholes and need to mind their own business."
I'm not going to lie, I've done statuses like this before, not to be bitchy, but in all honesty because I am a chicken and would rather post something like that than say it to someone's face and risk the consequences of a face to face argument. And I think most people are like that. We've all done it, yet we all complain about it. We've probably all seen a status like this: "*Name* thinks that some people are pussies and that some people should say stuff to my face!" I remember that in A-level psychology, we studied aggression and there's a sense of power that people feel when they're in front of a keyboard, they're a lot more willing to say things because there's less risk of getting their face kicked in.
A massive bugaboo of mine about Facebook is the constant friendship PDAs. Yes, we all know that you're super-amazing-awesome-BFFs, but you don't have to constantly remind the world about it. I'm talking about albums full of the same 'cam-whore-style-taken-with-a-phone-camera' pictures of the two of you and the wall postings that come up and spam your homepage and the statuses where you tag one another. By all means, now and again is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, and you obviously can't stop what people post on Facebook (unless you block them from your news feed, but there's something about being nosy that makes you want to keep them unblocked), but just don't overdo it. I'll emphasise that there's nothing wrong with showing how much you love your BFF on Facebook, but when you have an album full of pics of the two of you in the same position, I think it's time to cut back on the PDAs. Surely it's better to text your friend how much you love them and what a great time you had with them today rather than show it off to the world and his cat? Whatever happened to the privacy of texting?
Pages you can 'like' are also one of the other many annoying things about Facebook. By all means, I love a funny page as much as the next person (the "Like if you remember this *insert obsence comment describing an innocent cartoon character you loved in your childhood* crack me up and I've ended up with about 20 to my name) but when they start spamming your homepage with random links, it gets a bit annoying. They also go back with the thing about ambiguous statuses too, because there's some saying things like "That status was about me, say it to my face next time" or whatever (I have liked those before, but in my defence, I was upset and pissed off..). In short, there's probably a page for everything. Forget "there's an app for that" it's more likely "there's a Facebook page for that."
Family on Facebook is another thing to be weary of. I don't need to worry too much as I was brought up in a house full of swearing (which, I might add, there's nothing wrong with!) so my folks are used to seeing a potty-mouthed status or whatever, but a lot of people have to be careful. To be honest there is the option of putting your family members into one group (including friends of the family and your friend's parents, just to be safe) and blocking posts from that group, so it's not a totally unavoidable thing. And there's also the option to hide things you've been tagged in, lucky, because your mum probably doesn't want to see you face down in your own vomit with a cock drawn on your head on that night out does she? For that matter, neither do any of your colleagues or old teachers if you have them as friends!
That leads me onto my next point, being tagged in inappropriate photos is a definite thing to be annoyed about. I was recently told that most employers Google your name when they read your job application, so you have to go through all the trouble of making sure you're not tagged in any compromising photos or posts. Hence why it's important to set your profile to private.
Finally, there's the whole being friends with people you don't really want to be friends with thing. I have over 100 friends on my Facebook, some are people I've met online through forums and some are people from school, some are old friends and some are family. Most of the people on there, I am happy to call my friends, but some, I don't even know why they're on my friends list because in real life, I've been shat on (not literally, might I add) and upset by them so many times. To be honest, if there's someone you know who you wouldn't say hi to in the street, then there's not really any reason to have them on Facebook.
Of course there's the option of just ignoring their friend request if they add you, and deleting them if you already have them, but they'll add you again at the end of the day, because you do get the odd kind of person who is obsessed by numbers rather than actual friends. In short they wouldn't cross the street to spit on you, but they've still added you because they want to have more friends on their list than anyone else.
Still, I'm happy to have some old accquaintances on Facebook, it's good to keep in touch and occasionally you get the odd person start a conversation with you asking what you've been up to.
So there's lots of stuff that annoys more than likely everyone about Facebook, but in spite of that, loads of people probably can't live without it. Honestly, I know I couldn't, I'm sad enough to check it regularly, I don't even know why, perhaps I don't have a life and I need to get some friends while I'm in Northampton, perhaps I'm just nosy, whatever, but I'm sure that's the case for most people. At the end of the day I like that I can keep in touch with my friends from school and members of my family I don't see or speak to often while I'm at uni, and I know even if Facebook didn't exist there'd still be the option of texting them or whatever, but the fact Facebook's there just sort of makes it easier.
So I suppose at the end of the day, Facebook's good for that sort of thing, provided that you can put up with the minor annoyances it brings.
