About six months ago, I  became a late convert to Facebook. I had long resisted the call to join, but eventually I decided that I should try it and see what it’s like. I reasoned that perhaps I might be surprised and my preconceptions would be proven false. So I joined.

Now I wonder if it was worth the bother? The sad truth is that Facebook is a very shallow pool in which to wade.

When I first joined, Facebook was mildly interesting. I bumped into a few people that I’d not seen for a while, so it was good to see what they were up to. I was also able to enjoy the photos, personal observations, and other contributions of my work colleagues, friends and family that I’d previously been excluded from. Those were also good.

But there was a lot about Facebook that wasn’t good.

Signing up on Day 1 was easy, but adjusting all the default privacy settings to a level that actually respected my privacy was very time-consuming.

In terms of coding and functionality, there’s no way to embed image thumbnails nor hyperlinks on Facebook within comments. More incredibly, there’s no way of editing posts. In cases where typographic mistakes are identified or errors-of-fact emerge, the only choice is to delete and re-post a comment. If that is done after someone has commented, their contribution is deleted too.

What surprised me more was the very shallow nature of the enterprise (more than I expected). People who would never talk to me in real life suddenly and inexplicably wanted to become a “friend” on Facebook.

I have run my own website since 1998, so I probably come from the “old school” of the internet where people hosted personal websites and interacted via forums and blogs. Blogs have really taken off in the “Web 2.0” era, and this has been a blessing. There’s nothing I like more on the internet than to read informed, thoughtful and heartfelt opinion on topics, even those for which I have opposing views. I also enjoy the discussion that follows.

Likewise, I thoroughly enjoy writing blog articles and interacting with my readers. The comments following my recent article about the Bacchus Marsh “Avenue of Honour” provide a good example of this, as does my famous post about Triple J.

Sadly, Facebook seems geared entirely to discourage this sort of depth and texture. Actual discussion is rare. Instead, it favours triviality and superficiality. The online quiz results, spam advertising (in the form of “liking” something), “gifts” or stupid status updates just become tiring after a while. The pointless bra colour meme was especially notable in this regard.

I won’t suspend my account just yet, although as the New York Times reports, this is an increasing trend. But I will definitely pull-back on the posts and see how it pans out. Basically, I am just losing interest.

Facebook always did seem over-hyped. As it turns out, it is.