Why I hate FaceBook

There are oh, around 874 reasons but I've got limited time and we've all got lives to get on with, so I'll just mention one..

I stumbled across this story today on, of all things, the horrid Daily Mail (don’t ask what I was doing visiting!) which illustrates just one aspect of why the Book of Face is such a (insert expletive here) construct.

The tragic events took place in the UK last year when a depressed woman, Simone Back, left a note on her FB page saying she was going to commit suicide. Not one of her 1,082 online ‘friends’ bothered to help and, in fact, some of them even posted cruel messages saying she was a liar, that she wasn’t a child, that it was her own choice.

Simone passed away on Christmas Day. Not one ‘friend’ bothered to check up on her.

Somewhat ironically, a survey out today showed that while young adults have a lengthy roster of social networking friends, many have little confidence those friends will support them in times of great need. The poll, by Macmillan Cancer Support, of 1000 people aged 18-35 in Britain found the respondents had an average of 237 Facebook friends. But 61 per cent said they could only turn to two friends at most for support in a crisis.

Thirteen per cent of those surveyed felt they did not have even a single friend they could turn to for support when faced with a serious problem. Among men, 16 per cent had no friends to turn to, while for women the figure was 12 per cent.

Social networking sites could even sometimes have a negative impact on friendships, with 18 per cent of those who used such sites saying they saw or talked to their friends less often.

I work in communications, I understand the importance of social media but seriously, people...the Simone Back story has made me feel queasy all day.

(Pic credit: Google Images)