Facebook/Friendster...a waste of time? or a great practical/useful social tool?

I rarely read the newspapers but today I happened to read the 'Today' newspaper and one article in the techcomment section caught my attention

"The Most Annoying People on Facebook"

I have been using Facebook since its early inception but my frenz were mainly from Australia/Europe. Most of my Singaporean friends were on Friendster instead. At first, I thot Facebook was one of those social websites that were destined to die or be rarely used or taken seriously by Singaporeans (e.g. WAYN, MySpace, Tagged, Multiply, hi5, BeBo, Windows Live Spaces...some of these which i am guilty of being a member...)
So i ignored the first few invites by friends as there were too many of these email invites (evites) floating ard and taking up email space! Then after a while, u just simply cannot ignore the tremendous amounts of evites so I decided to check it out...lo, like some friends declared on their facebook "I am addicted to Facebook!" "Facebook is addictive!" I, too got hooked on Facebook.
It is somewhat different from Friendster (more options) and besides, I had more Aussie friends on it than Friendster (apparently Friendster is an Asian thing, worldwide, MySpace and Facebook are the top social websites).

The writer, Holly Jean for the Today article says she finds Facebook annoying YET she wun quit loggin in to check for updates.

She lists a few things that irks her abt Facebook

• The Super Pokerdo...she writes, "I poke you, you poke me, etc" "Many people leave meaningless back and forth messages on a daily basis" "Probably so that they will be more prominent on the news feed" "But leaving a 'hug' or 'kiss' every now and then is okay. It allows friends to send meaningful greetings and keep abreast of one another's lives"

• The Commentator...this person does not leave humour, satire, nor has something nostalgic to say BUT rather leaves a comment in hope that u return the favour later on your profile

• The Face Collector does not actually have 273 friends but adds every single person he comes across, known, seen or heard about (reminds me of MySpace). Jean writes "Have you ever tried to juggle more than 20 friends in real life? It's tiring." "If they are people you met once, they are not friends" "A legit minority use Facebook to keep in contact with friends, but please don't fall into the trap of being a Face Collector!" She writes that people are not trading cards despite wat the Collector thinks.

• The Photo Fiend: "yes, it' nice to see a few dozen pictures of your holiday or event but do we really need to see 2 million pointless ones of every angle of your body and face? Jean realises that many snapped pics of themselves using the aerial view method. Many take pics of themselves (innocently) looking up and the camera happens to point down to their cleavage!

• The Group Junkie loves joining every single (pointless) group there is! Do you really need to be part of the "I love mullets" grp or be a member of "The Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids who can't read good" and ten other grps which serve no real purpose to prove your sense of humour? I mean...how often to you really go back to these grps for updates and useful info?

• The Application addict - This person adds all kinds of 'cool' applications and spams everyone elses email with "Come join me, this application is fun" 'nuff said!

AND oh...if u r on Facebook too, add me ya? =)

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