Facebook疲劳症来袭

    不断扩大的Facebook朋友圈意味着我必须得对我所查看的内容非常谨慎。如果我毫无经验地点击了一位Facebook朋友看过的一篇《华盛顿邮报》（Washington Post）网站的报道，我在这上面看过的所有文章就会全部自动播放。如今，流媒体音乐服务Spotify等其他应用软件与Facebook的整合属于强制性的功能，意味着我有一半的时间要进入“私密状态”（Private Session），以便其他人看不到我在听什么歌。另外，虽然定向广告对于营销机构和消费者是双赢，但不断地看到屏幕右方那样的“受赞助内容（Sponsored Stories）”，我真是哭笑不得。（老实说，Facebook，我不喜欢纹身的人，也不喜欢香柏木酵素浴的气味。)

    Facebook也推动了社交网站形成了独有的用户礼节，但其中有些习惯并不好。同样的行为在影院中已日益减少——像看电影的过程中手机声此起彼伏，人们交头接耳——我发现有些用户变得不那么礼貌了。如果我没有“喜欢”有些人发布的内容，他们会盯着我。（“伙计，点“喜欢”！”）有些人指望我对他们的情况了如指掌，因为我们是Facebook朋友。（对了，你在Facebook上看到了……吧？”） 而且，由于Facebook养成了我们即刻满足的倾向，我们期待网络世界事情的进展甚至比现实生活中还要快。一个朋友在另一个人的主页上毫不客气地留言：“我跟你打招呼，你怎么还没回复我？都已经过去20分钟了！”

    这可能就是为什么我认识的几位Facebook前用户和现用户会选择远离Facebook、关闭账户或减少使用时间。沉迷于Facebook让他们远离或日益远离现实世界，仅凭在Facebook上跟踪朋友和亲人的动态建立亲密的假象，而不是与他人进行更深入、更高质量的互动。

    当然，所有这些都源于Facebook这一杰出创造。但短期内我不会关闭Facebook账户。我会尝试减少使用时间。我在Facebook账户中投入了这么多的时间和心血，这里有太多的朋友、照片、链接和状态更新信息，不太愿意一下子舍弃这一切。我试图在“健身间隙不忘查看Facebook”和“关闭Facebook账户”这两个极端之间找到平衡点，我会提醒自己Facebook的种种好处。它让我和老朋友保持联系。它通过朋友的推荐和一点点运气给我带来了很多新的信息。而且最重要的是——不管我说出来没有——我还是希望受人追捧，不论在网络世界获得的这种感觉多么容易转瞬即逝。

    Ever-increasing Facebook partnerships means I need to be careful about the content I consume. Because I naively clicked on an online Washington Post story a Facebook friend read, all the stories I read from that outlet are automatically broadcast. With other apps like Spotify, Facebook integration is mandatory, meaning half the time, I enter a "Private Session" so others can't see which songs I'm listening to. And while I get that targeted advertising can be a win-win for marketers and consumers, I don't know whether to be amused or uncomfortable with recurring "Sponsored Stories" like the one to your right. (For the record, Facebook, I neither like guys with tattoos nor cedar enzyme baths.)

    Facebook has also given rise to user etiquette unique to the social network -- and not all of it's good. The same way behavior in the movie theater has gone downhill -- cell phones ringing, people chattering mid-scene -- I'm noticing some users becoming less polite. People bug me if I don't "Like" something they put up. ("Dude, 'Like' it!") Others expect me to know what they've been up to because we're Facebook friends. (Well, you saw on Facebook... right?") And because Facebook nurses our propensity for immediate gratification, we expect things to happen even more quickly there than in real life. Wrote one friend un-ironically on another's wall: "Why haven't you poked me back yet? It's been 20 minutes!"

    That may be why several current and former users I've spoken with continue to steer clear of Facebook, deactivate their accounts, or ratchet down their usage. The evolving Facebook experience has either turned them off or the social network increasingly drew them away from the real world, breeding a false sense of intimacy where following friends and family on Facebook displaced deeper, quality interactions with them.

    Of course, all of this is the result of Facebook's genius and I won't be deactivating my profile any time soon. But, I will try using it less. I've invested so much in my Facebook profile, spent countless hours building it up with friends, photos, links and status updates, that the idea of unplugging seems like the less attractive option. As I try to find a happy medium between gym checks and deactivating, I'll remind myself of Facebook's virtues. That it connects me with old friends. That it does expose me, through equal parts social recommendation and serendipity, to new bits of information. When really at the core of it, whether I'll say so, I still want to be liked, however fleeting the online equivalent of that may be.