Sunday, April 6, 2008

viva la gchat!

Today, Facebook launched Facebook chat (which, though I can't claim to have tried it yet, looks visually like gchat's bastard offspring). Same green light when a friend is signed on. Same placement of chats at the bottom of the browser. Same popout option. And so on. Before we know it, group chats and (my favorite) invisibility cloak will be added to the FChat (?) juggernaut.

Here are some of the reasons I will never support chatting via Facebook:

1) I do not want to chat with the kid who picked me last for basketball every day in 7th grade, nor with the girl in my section who I have never spoken to but who (drunkenly?) friended me. Not only do I not want to chat with them, I would prefer not to see their names and little faces every time I sign onto my procrastinatory device of choice. Since everyone has hundreds of Facebook friends, there are just too many people for a chat list (you can't block anyone on FChat). When I signed on briefly this morning to check it out, I realized that only one of the 27 people logged in is someone I would actually stop and acknowledge if I passed them on the street.

2) Why do I need to use a different format for communicating with my friends online when I (religiously) use gchat (which is simpler, prettier and only includes my friends)?

3) While it's no big deal to always be logged into your gmail (at least, that's what I keep telling myself), it's embarrassing (especially as a senior) to be someone who is always logged into the Stalker's Paradise that is Facebook. (How many people have you heard say, with an air of superiority, "Oh, Facebook? That ole thing? You know, I check it, like, once a month now..."?)

I am sure some people will say that this just makes communicating with your friends easier. I say: there are some people (96% of my Facebook friends) who I don't want to be able to communicate with me easier.

For now, when it comes to FChat, I shall remain offline. Perhaps, if enough of us do so, FChat will evaporate from lack of use and disappear! And then, comrades, we will again be able to check updated profiles and scope out the latest tagged pictures in peace! In peace!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why aren't you just friends with people on facebook with whom you are actually friends in real life?

Anonymous said...

the most fundamental issue with fchat (and one which is characteristic of facebook in general) is that your buddy list starts with all your friends, rather than with zero. now, there are over 30 people online at all times you don't want to talk to. if you had to actively add friends to also be chat friends, it would be a useful tool. i can talk to the 40 people i might actually want to talk to and not worry about being bothered by the other 500.