Monday, January 25, 2010

The Road Less Traveled By

This is a short detour from my normal cycling posts.

Over the weekend, I parted company with Facebook. I gave it a try and I just don'r get it. For the amount of time spent looking at it, it provided little in return. I did get to reconnect with some old friends but I should be doing that directly anyway. And while I am always interested in what's going on in people's lives, I really don't care to hear about what they ate for breakfast.

So, given Facebook's presence literally everywhere, I am following Robert Frost's suggestion, and taking the road less traveled. For those of you not familiar with The Road Not Taken, here it is. Enjoy!

"TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

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Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

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And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

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I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost; A Mountain Interval, 1920


13 comments:

  1. I'm with you. Facey has never had an appeal with me. Much for the same reason as you.

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  2. I tried fb too and I dumped it because I'm convinced they don't care about keeping your personal information safe. I regularly see news stories about fb that support this. I'm not saying that you'll get jacked because you've got an fb account, but I think it's an exposure of my personal info. that is not worth the effort. However, a wary user can protect his/her stuff by being careful.

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  3. Good point. I just find so much of it self absorbed crap.

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  4. You will henceforth be known as "that guy who isn't on facebook".

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  5. I'm at about the same place as you, except I haven't dumped it yet. I'm finding little value in it. If it weren't free, I would have dumped it right away.

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  6. Now that I think about it, it's curious that you were the one person who "liked" most of my wall postings.??

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  7. Doug you were one of the few who posted anything of interest. Had more posts been like that, I would have stayed. But I really don't care what people are eating or drinking or how they fare in Mafia Wars or other games.

    For many people, It appears that Facebook is a way to relieve the boredom that is their daily life.

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  8. Here Here!!
    i've stepped back from my better 1/2's FB page after finding you guys (Doug and KM), were getting confussed with what was being posted and who was doing the posting.
    i'd rater waste my time with my blog pages than FB!?
    only bike related stuff on FB, and alls fair on my blog pages!! lol

    anyway, picking up my new friend Pugsley, from Bikes On Howard after work tomorrow. wish me luck, and i'm sure we'll get along just fine!!! ;)

    Peace,
    Joe

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  9. I deleted my account months ago -- I didn't see the point. At one time, a "friend" would post the friggin' phase of the moon every bloody day.

    Oh, but I was interested to see what character from "Facts of Life" everybody was when they took the quiz...

    The Internet makes you stupid.

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  11. I have turned off most of the irritating notifications and outright blocked everything posted by the most egregious offenders in my group of "friends". Still a few things slip through, and as a result I now know a lot of people spend serious time on Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. If nothing else, it makes me feel slightly less pathetic.

    FB is a tool, and in many ways is fun and useful. I have enjoyed catching up with friends I haven't seen or thought about in years. And I enjoy bantering with people I see regularly. I've also made a few new online friends through similar interests or friends in common. Plus, FB really takes the effort out of stalking.

    I had oatmeal for breakfast today.

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  12. i find blogs alot more intresting to read,i cant be bothered with all these quiz things and cause invites and `social interviews`
    strangely i still post stuff on it but not as much since i started my blog...

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  13. It's not really catching up with people. If I had lunch with someone I hadn't seen in years and all they wanted to talk about was what they ate or what they scored in some online game, I would have no interest in keeping in touch with them.

    And plenty of FB'ers say they would never use Twitter. Fb is just Twitter with more space.

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