Dear Facebook,
I’m not a girl who whines and complains a lot, especially for services like yours that I’m using at absolutely no cost to me. However, recent events have rethinking my policy to keep complaints to a minimum. For the record, I’m firmly planted in the “If it aint broke, don’t fix it” camp, but I do understand the need to change to keep up. Indeed, when I owned my blog network I made changes to functionality and design to keep up with the times, and still many people complained whenever there were changes. I hated that and know how you feel when new changes roll around and everyone gripes.
Ch….ch…ch…Changes
Still, when I made changes to my design I didn’t require my community to change with me, and here’s where we have our problem, Facebook. Just about every change is requiring me to change my privacy or notification settings. Plus, I now have to pretty much adjust every single friend on the list. I don’t want to see my sister’s, brother in law’s, step son’s, Great Aunt Tilly’s updates. I have enough drama in my own life than to have to be privy to someone else’s. I enjoyed my previous setting very much. So much so that they did me fine for at least the past three years.
Ditto notification settings. I don’t need to be informed of every burp and giggle, but there are things I do like to know about, for example if I receive a private message. It took some time for me to get all my notification settings exactly the way I wanted it, and you had to go and change them on me.
And don’t get me started on that ticker thing going down the right side of my screen….
Here’s what gets me the most about all this, you give no warning. I never receive anything telling me you’re going to be effing around with my notification settings or that I would have to determine the relationship for each of my frieds. Every morning when I log in there’s another surprise. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love surprises (Mr. Ng, are you listening?) but the surprises I like are sparkly and come in small boxes – they don’t require me to spend an hour screwing with settings and notifications.
And while I’m at it, let’s talk about the Timeline. When it was revealed developers could have a Timeline early, many of us jumped on the bandwagon. “Early Adapter” has a sort of hip, in-crowd connotation and as someone who has never been hip or in, I was getting me some of that. Except now a couple of weeks in, I hate it. The timeline makes it hard to tell the timeline at all. It’s very confusing to an outsider to tell the order of my posts. Moreover, despite changing my settings the last 200 times you changed, once again, TMI is showing up on my wall…er…timeline. I don’t care for any of my friends or family to know who I’m playing in Words with Friends, nor do I think it’s important that they know who friended me that day, or what I’m liking. It’s just none of their business. And the worst part is, I’m so technically challenged, I don’t know how to get my old wall back.
It’s not me, it’s you
I’m not a hater, Facebook. I’m not one of those people who refuse to use Facebook and I don’t complain about you every step of the way. I love that you give me a way to keep up with family, high school friends and long lost cousins. But the changes, Facebook, make them stop. If you can’t make them stop, don’t make them too much work for me. Keep my settings and notifications and don’t make my Timeline so confusing no one knows what they’re looking at. I want to enjoy using you, not walk away because you’re making it too hard.
I’m not a chronic malcontent, Facebook. I’m not THAT girl. For once, it’s not me.
It’s you.
Sincerely,
Deb
