Do you feel invisible on Facebook?

[Jimbo]

What I mean is, when you post something or share a video or picture, do you feel like no body responds or don't get any likes?

I have always sort of had this thing when I'm with people where I feel like what I say doesn't really matter so I just don't say anything. Anybody else feel like this?

 

[TragicKingdom]

Facebook. I grow very tired of it and, in fact, recently removed all of my "friends" except for a few family members.

Facebook was a great invention and quite revolutionary in many ways, but still, it annoys me.

I rarely post things. Why do I even have it? I don't know.

In all honesty, the main reason I have Facebook is for the messenger - My best and only friend never answers her phone, lives on Facebook and it seems like the only way I can ever get a hold of her.

As an Aspie, even Facebook gets too close to me for comfort. How pathetic is that?

 

[The Penguin]

I do with my hiking page. But then again I don't have many people following that. I never really cared about FB. People suggested creating page but what I didn't know, you need to be engaged with many people to find your own content. This does make sense.

I find my business page does better because I know real people. However, a personal Facebook don't interest me as it seems most people share trendy stuff which I care less about.

 

[Judge]

If I were on the island of "Lord of the Flies", I think I'd want to remain invisible.

Better still, I wouldn't go there in the first place.

 

[Jimbo]

About the only reason I really go on Facebook is to feed my religious and political obsession with all the pages I have subscribed to. But I do enjoy seeing what's going on in other peoples lives.

 

[Jimbo]

I read Lord of the flies when I was in school back in the caveman days. Good book.

 

[Jaywalker]

I've removed many (most?) of my Facebook friends from my newsfeed. I'm sure many of my friends have removed me from theirs, as well. I'm fine with that.

 

[The Penguin]

My biggest beef with FB there too many people have fake friendships. There other people they want to have as many friends as they can get, but can they really consider everyone as their real friend? Anyways I would care less. If they get something out of fake friendships, good for them.

 

[SameStars]

As long as your plane doesn't crash there (book premise), you won't have to be stuck, Judge.

I hardly post on Facebook, I do like the updates of other people, so I can be aware without being involved. In person, I suddenly had a conversation topic because they recently posted holiday pictures or things like that.

 

[Progster]

I have a FB account, but the only reason why I still have it is because someone might need to use it to get in touch with me. I don't post anything except the occasional music video, and since none of my family or friends are into the sort of music I listen to, I don't expect them to 'like' it. It irritates me when people send mass messages or invitations to things, or to 'like' a page. It's a kind of spam.

 

[The Penguin]

I have a FB account, but the only reason why I still have it is because someone might need to use it to get in touch with me.

Yes, I'm starting to learn a lot of people I meet in business uses FB. So I have it only to build connections for people business related but never personal. I don't even use FB with family.

 

[Kari Suttle]

What I mean is, when you post something or share a video or picture, do you feel like no body responds or don't get any likes?

I have always sort of had this thing when I'm with people where I feel like what I say doesn't really matter so I just don't say anything. Anybody else feel like this?

Yes, same here. Thats why i don't use social media much - i have a twitter for the sole purpose of keeping up with all the bands i listen to and that's it. I've always had that same thought pattern, figuring that what i have to say doesn't really matter so i don't say anything at all. It comes from years of experiences dating back to childhood. My first true obsession in elementary school was pokemon and at first my parents listened but didn't really listen and i was totally oblivious to this until they started hating it and took everything to do with pokemon away and i was banned from watching it. This is the biggest contributor, i think; to me, not only does no one care about my opinion or what i want to say but chances are it annoys the **** out of them. My opinion was only backed up as the years passed by all the other kids ignoring me, especially come middle school when i was excluded entirely save for two kids who weren't even friends we just talked during the classes we had together. That was it.

Nowadays even at my second part time job on the weekends as a cashier, i try to be social cause its my job and i only **** up so i don't even try. I just script it when i'm feeling confident and go silent when i'm not. Today's shaping up to be one of those days where i'm just silent and shut down all day all because of a particularly rude customer yesterday. Basically one man, i'll call him customer 1, had completed his transaction and grabbed his bags but stood just off to the side cause his wife and daughter had grabbed more stuff and they were third in line so he was waiting for them. #1 let customer #2 start his stuff and i'd scanned and bagged #2's stuff but noticed #1's drinks were still on the counter. He'd said he didn't want them bagged but i went to bag them and move them away from #2's stuff so that they didn't get mixed up with his stuff. But #1 interupted me and made some sort of gesture in the negative like he thought i'd scanned them and it totally threw me off. I wasn't giving them to #2 i was trying to make sure they didn'g get mixed with #2's stuff yet #1 got mad and i got confused to the point i couldn't remember what i just did. A minute of figuring that out later...all #1 had to say when #2 asked what was going on was "She's just messing around that's all." I wanted to just run or cry or cut or something right there but i couldn't so i just shut up for the rest of the day. I didn't even reply when people asked the usual 'how are you' in greeting even if that's easily scripted cause i knew no one would reply to my scripted reply, i was too upset. Still am really i have too much going on.

 

[Slithytoves]

I only joined facebook because of a particular group of people I was involved with. I would never have done it otherwise, and what I saw there confirmed every bias and reservation I had against it. I haven't missed it one bit.

Posting something that nobody acknowledges feels like saying something in a group conversation at a party and being completely ignored. That stupid post is totally meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it sucks how it can disproportionately chip away at your self-esteem.

All facebook did for me was prove in black and white how little I have in common with the vast majority of my friends. It also got me into all kinds of unnecessary, petty situations with people who:

1. Were offended by something I posted that revealed differences in our POVs
2. Were offended because I didn't "like" enough of their stuff, as if there's some unwritten rule of percentages or reciprocity
3. Were offended because I didn't back them up in silly arguments with their other friends
4. Were offended because I posted a studied rebuttal to an opinionated, ill-informed friend of theirs.

Who needs the hassle? I'm happy to stick to regular, old-fashioned forums where people actually DISCUSS things!

 

[DogwoodTree]

I don't feel quite so invisible on FB. I take the time to craft my posts, and end up looking like a fairly "normal" person, and at the same time, I'm able to post stuff that goes almost as deep as I want to go with people who are on there. I get to have my say about something, and I've taken the time to think it through, and people don't interrupt you as easily when you've already typed out what you have to say. Plus, their ambiguous body language isn't nearly so distracting when I can't see their reactions to my posts.

IRL, however, I usually feel invisible when I don't want to be, and conspicuous when I'd rather disappear. If I'm standing in line somewhere, it's not uncommon for someone to walk right past me in line without even noticing I exist. Happened just the other day at the car dealership where I was waiting my turn to check out, had waited for about 3 people in front of me where they took forever, then finally I was the next person in line, the TWO people behind the counter both ignored me, then this big guy walks in and straight up to the counter and they immediately ask him what they can do to help him.

And then there are times where I just know everyone is aware of how odd I look or how strange I'm acting. I work very hard to dress in such a way that I'm not unpleasant to look at (but not provocative), because I don't want to offend anyone with looking frumpy or unkempt or slutty. But then I attract unwanted attention from a certain type of male, and other women turn their noses up at me because I don't act like them. And at church where the building is full of safer people...everyone does their weekly duty to come up and say hey and insist on a hug. I get that they're trying, and just doing what they believe is the nice and "right" thing to do. But almost no one takes the time to figure out what I actually might want from the interaction. Not that I can blame them, because honestly, I don't even know what that might be. I just know that a hug and asking "how are you doing?" doesn't work.

Sorry for the long post...just venting a little.

 

[DarkAscent]

I don't feel invisible on Facebook. I usually get likes for my pictures and statuses, but I find Facebook boring in general. I haven't scrolled through my newsfeed in about three or four days.

The only reason I have Facebook is so that I can keep in contact with my family members and close friends.

 

[DogwoodTree]

2. Were offended because I didn't "like" enough of their stuff, as if there's some unwritten rule of percentages or reciprocity

Oh my goodness, my family jumped all over my case when I blocked a few of them from being able to see my posts. But they were getting offended SO EASILY at stuff I said!! And one of them would argue with me just for the sake of arguing (he didn't actually care what I said...just likes to argue online for the "fun" of it). I don't have the energy for all of that mess...

 

[Slithytoves]

Oh my goodness, my family jumped all over my case when I blocked a few of them from being able to see my posts. But they were getting offended SO EASILY at stuff I said!! And one of them would argue with me just for the sake of arguing (he didn't actually care what I said...just likes to argue online for the "fun" of it). I don't have the energy for all of that mess...

Facebook has shown me exactly how much humans love feeling offended. It's really sad. The fact that facebook interactions are so able to affect real life relationships is astonishing to me. I swear, the whole idea is toxic.

And since when is it such a great idea to argue for fun? That's all it is, too. Arguing. Facebook arguments aren't authentic debates. Nobody writes out their thoughts in enough detail to really discuss their views. I do, but then I'm being an obnoxious know-it-all.

 

[Slithytoves]

Thinking about this more, most people usually don't mix all of their friends and family in real life, and I think there are very good reasons for that. Facebook is really a very unnatural way to socialize.

 

[113]

when you post something or share a video or picture, do you feel like no body responds or don't get any likes?

I think it depends on what kinds of things one posts. Facebook rewards inane discussions. If I post something interesting about science or philosophy, no one pays attention, but if I post a picture of a cat with a funny caption, people like it. I don't mind occasional cat pictures and inspirational life quotes, but that isn't what I want to read on a daily basis.

Try an experiment -- don't post anything on Facebook for one week, and then upload some kind of funny picture and see how many likes it gets. Or try it with a photo. Take a walk in nature, and post a few of the best photos to Facebook. Those usually get likes. I've done a lot of experiments like this to see how it works, and I've come to the conclusion that Facebook is not good for serious discussions.

About the only reason I really go on Facebook is to feed my religious and political obsession

If you like to post things about religion and politics, it's possible that people with opposing views do not like the content. If they hide that content with the button on the top right of the posts, Facebook will show your posts to fewer people until barely anyone sees them.

I haven't found Facebook to be very good for discussing politics or religion. I never unfriend someone on Facebook (because that can terminate the relationship in real life also), but I will unsubscribe from their feeds if they post a lot of stuff about controversial topics that I don't agree with. There are two or three people on Facebook who I think are very intelligent people, but they have very radical views on politics. We are still Facebook friends, but I no longer read their content. I think that a better platform for controversial topics like politics is blogging.

 

[skate1995]

i feel you.. some of them just lurk around maybe thats why