The Cardinal Sins of Facebook

Facebook. Oh Facebook, what a worldwide phenomenon it has become. It is practically an indispensable tool in everyone's life now, with over 400 million people worldwide (putting it into perspective, that's 80% of all of the EU's population and nearly one-twelfth of the global population) subscribed to the website. But for all its positives and its universal approach, Facebook can be the source of all things massively annoying as well. Or just plain lame. Hereunder, I've decided to list what I believe are the ten most annoying things that one can find happening on "FB" on a daily basis...

10. Photos
Let's face it, whenever one is randomly snapping away with a camera, there's always the odd photo which would have transpired to be extremely... horrible. And yet, you could be morphing your facial features into something resembling a dog and the photo will still find its way onto Facebook. When it's there and you're dissatisfied with it, and subsequently ask for it to be removed, your lovely friends will not remove it, even if it means them parting with their lives in the process. Untagging such photos is just as useless though, because such photos obviously are still uploaded... and will remain so until the person who put them up decides to either delete the blessed photo... or leave Facebook (though technically speaking, one can never leave the website when their account is activated).

9. Advertisements
Ok, so any advert on Facebook isn't, in all fairness, really an in-your-face kind of thing, but still - the persistent presence of those adverts that I'd rather not see on the side of my screen, with sponsors trying to milk money from search engines and the like by means of the views they collect from such clicks is just downright irritating. This can be excusable to a certain extent as Facebook is free of charge to all those who subscribe to the site. However, what makes this notion even worse is the fact that one can 'like' these adverts. So yes, I have the option to like being ripped off by someone... how lovely.

8. Liking One's Own Profile Picture
Isn't it obvious that there's no need to like your own profile picture... if you put it there in the first place? I mean, come on - doesn't that tacitly imply that you think that the photo is a good one in the first place, or do you need to reaffirm this by clicking that wretched 'like' button? (And hoping that others like it for you too?)

7. Notifications
This would have been ranked higher in the list had there not been the facility to disable the function of receiving emails for every little event that happens on Facebook. Nonetheless, even if you do opt not to receive such emails, you could find yourself filtering out the various things that people have done to you over the last second, minute, hour, day or week. Or God forbid, if you don't use the site often enough, over the last year. Every little activity that happens on your profile is accounted for and you are duly told about it, whether you like it or not. Now lump with it, dear.

6. Suggestions
"You and [person X] have 123 friends in common." Just because of the high number of mutual friends, it by no way means that I know the person who Facebook is suggesting I connect with. Furthermore, I don't need Facebook to suggest who I should become friends with, thank you very much - if anything, first I'll meet the person physically and then add him/her as a friend, or vice-versa. Facebook is a great way of maintaining communication, but shouldn't be a way of initiating it.

5. Applications (in General)
"Which political guru are you?", "Who do you resemble most?", "Pick Who" etc... what a waste of time. Useful in times such as these, when entertaining oneself is at an all time low level, but quizzes and applications such as these spring out of nowhere one day, are the latest trend for a week or so, and then become as dormant as anything. 'Who has the Biggest Brain' is now history, 'Pet Society' was popular back in 2008 and has now also been confined to the dustbin, while 'Farmville' seems to have lived its time in the spotlight as well. For the most part, that is, for I know of someone who has actually messaged his parents - while out - to cultivate his crops. Oh dear.

4. "Become a Fan"
Or, so that I live with the times, I should entitle this bit 'like'. Pages, as such, are useful on Facebook - they can be an excellent source of promoting business, seeing how many fans a particular artiste might have, etc. However, liking such pages, as it is now called, is a downright nuisance. Why should I see, on my live news feed, that person X likes ABC Ltd? Is this person X an affiliate of the company? A shareholder? Does the person have a vested interest in it? What has the company done to person X so that he/she repays the favour by liking it? It's all a bit senseless, don't you think...

3. Liking One's Own Status
Perhaps this is more of a cardinal sin than liking one's own profile picture, simply because everyone sees this event happening. On the other hand, not everyone sees the former event. Liking one's own status and whatever is written in it follows from the principle in point #8: if you wrote it, you're bound to like it. You're not going to write down something that you disagree with. You're not going to write down something that isn't of significance to you. But pressing that button after doing this is just wrong, and indeed, is the epitome of lame. "Person X is on summer holidays but can't wait for his friends to finish!" Like. Just... no.

2. Top Friends
Shamelessly stolen from a video clip that I once saw on Youtube, loads of people have this little box showing their top friends in some corner of their profile. However, many - probably including myself - take this as a ranking system for our friends, in what way we rate our friends depending on how close they are to us or we to them. And furthermore, if a friend really pisses you off or is unpopular in your books at a point in time, then you open the application and start shuffling around and rearranging your friends, in terms of the scale you want to place them. Come on, admit it, you've done it at a point in time in the past. I sure have.

And finally... *drumroll*...

1. Poking
The creme de la creme of Facebook cardinal sins however is this. Indeed, this is so pointless, so useless and so annoying that it practically merits a category on its own, over and above this list. What is the point for 'poking' people...? Firstly, you're not physically poking them and secondly, all you see is a tiny notification on the side of your page stating "Person X poked you. Poke back?" "You're about to poke Person X back." And that didn't hurt one bit, but consumed fifteen seconds of your time that you will never get back. Just over two ridiculous clicks which really didn't even have a purpose in the first place. Well done.

God Bless You all!
Matti