Facebook Subscriptions

I hadn't really taken much notice of Facebook subscriptions until now. I don't visit Facebook often enough for it to bother me anymore - but I don't visit Facebook because my news feed is full of crap I couldn't care less about.

Before this subscription malarkey got added, I was fine. I was used to the then new newsfeed. I had it set up how I wanted it. People who I didn't want to see news from didn't come up on my feed, and people whose updates I wanted, did. And then of course, Facebook decided that it knew whose updates you wanted to see and which specifically of those you wanted to see. So I began to get bombarded with baby pictures I couldn't care less about, moan statuses, and people's comments on other people's photographs. Photographs from people who I don't even know. 99% of the time I don't care what someone else is saying about something. Why does Facebook think I do, or even... must?

Of all the features on FB, this one has got to be my least favourite. I've just spent 30 minutes unsubscribing from people who I don't or rarely talk to, or perhaps see every working day but really couldn't care less how much of a good night out they have every night or how annoying their brother is being. I've even unsubscribed from a couple of friends whose updates were really starting to get on my nerves e.g. depressing, negative statuses every hour of the day.

I liked the news feed how it was before. I don't want to spend even more time on Facebook picking and choosing whether I want to see photo comments, photo uploads, status comments, status updates, etc etc, from every single person I subscribe to. All this solely for the five minutes I'll spend browsing the latest updates, keeping up to date with my friends?

It makes me wonder why I bother, and whether it's really necessary. Sure it's lovely and convenient to have all your friends in one place, gathered together, so you don't have to email or phone them each individually to see what they've been up to. But surely that kills conversation? I've lost count of the number of times that I've heard someone start a conversation with "so I saw on Facebook that..." or someone reply with "oh yeah, I saw on Facebook." And the conversation is very abruptly ended.

All I use Facebook for really is communicating with people who I probably otherwise couldn't, not very cheaply anyway. How many of my friends use Windows Live messenger anymore? Very few. How many people my age contact each other via email? No one. And I rarely text - when it's not free. So why can't Facebook just be that little more user-friendly without hiding away all the features which make it much more customized to our tastes?