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Quitting Facebook is Not a Sign of Courage

December 2, 2010 21:00:23.265

I love the level of self importance from some people. There are the types who are "proud" that they don't watch TV, the types who are "proud" that they don't play video games - and, apparently, the types who are proud that they quit using Twitter and Facebook:

The last week or so has been difficult, I feel disconnected from the hive mind, but I won’t be back until there’s an open, interoperable protocol for real-time publishing I can run on my own server.

Right. Here's the thing: Either a tool has value to you (and you use it) or it doesn't (and you don't). It's not some kind of epic moral issue.

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posted by James Robertson

Comments

Re: Quitting Facebook is Not a SIgn of Courage

[W^L+] December 2, 2010 21:23:45.005

Some people *do* quit using tools that still have some value over some ethical principle. Some keep using those tools while transitioning over to competitive tools that may have less value at the time, but which they expect will be closer to their values. A good example is people who use an inferior product (e.g., Bing) because they want to give competition to the market leader (e.g., Google).

Other people continue to use tools that long ago ceased to offer much value, just because they support its principles.

People are not, and never have been, completely rational, at least in the economist's sense. People do things for complex reasons that even they may not fully understand, and a product or service's direct utility may not be the deciding factor in their choice.

Re: Quitting Facebook is Not a SIgn of Courage

[james Robertson] December 2, 2010 23:07:27.242

That's a long winded way of saying "I agree". What I have a low opinion of is dropping out of Facebook or Twitter, and trying to turn that into something heroic. Sorry, it's just not...

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