No TV vs no cellphone vs no Facebook?

have all of them, could do w/o TV & cell phone 99% of the time

looool being 23 in 2010

i think amazingly TV will outlast both facebook and cellphones.

no facebook, have and love the other two

I have no TV. Wish there was no facebook. Cell is kind of useful I guess.

I haven't watched television in about two weeks. I find the internet more educational. I'm not down on television as some kind of crank / puritan, it's just that I find it personally dulling. I like news programming, some things, like comedy and films are easier to consume on tv....that's about it.

They say print media should feel threatened by internet, I think that in the long run, television should. But you never read the television industry commenting on this!

I feel TV as a medium is more akin to the internet, while cellphones and facebook are just the latest flavors of things that will pass us by.
i mean already, people are starting to use ipads to replace their cellphones.

yeah i wouldn't equate the lonegvity/utility of the three, but they're probably all above 80% saturation levels i'd guess.....

have all three, could live easily without the cellphone, my life would utterly collapse without the other two. also, about 98% of my cell phone usage involves facebook or twitter.

i don't have facebook. watch tv occasionally. i have no phone but only cos i lost it almost a month ago now. kinda broke and phones are expensive. i don't feel like my life is any worse off without it, and i'm enjoying the absence of phone calls from debt collection service asking for my overdraft back. it is difficult when i meet people who might potentially book me for work but email usually suffices -- ditto keeping up with friends. facebook just seems like bullshit to me and i really don't need another reason to be on the internet tbh. i guess a tiny part of me is proud that i resisted it but i would never throw it around in conversation like a badge of honour. i think it's worse when people act all faux shocked that anybody could live without it

have all 3

have a super cheap phone and phone plan - use phone a lot for simple texts ('I'll be 5 mins late) and rarely for conversations

the only things I really care about on TV is sports...would get rid of tv if it were up to me

fb pretty essential

Nice to have a phone. Facebook has its uses. So long as you have a monitor or screen of some sort to watch what you want to watch, then hey.

I have all three but the only one that's essential to me is the battery-powered computer w/internet access that disguises itself as a cell phone. The phone is the feature I use the least.

Facebook could go offline tomorrow and it wouldn't affect me at all.

So long as you have a monitor or screen of some sort to watch what you want to watch, then hey.

Ned OTM

facebook - have it, it's useful for many things (primarily acting as my diary and enabling people to find me and offer me paid work), but i've gone from regular daily usage to only logging in occasionally. mostly because of twitter and the fact that i've had to friend club promoters and PRs for work and they deluge me with stupid invites to stupid things, and fb feels like a swamp. hate it when friends insist on only communicating through fb messages and am very pro an email revival.

phone - have a blackberry. invaluable. w/r/t the actual phone element, it's 90% texting, or phoning in a "hi i'm here where are you" sense. never been the kind of person to call someone just to talk. as per the other thread, my phone is always on silent and even if i notice it ringing i rarely answer it - if it's important people will text or email. i hate the way phone calls demand your attention NOW NOW NOW - it's like someone turning up unannounced at your door and DEMANDING TO TALK NOW regardless of what you're doing. there's something very primitive about it. caitlin moran, the british columnist, recently wrote something very funny about how it was no coincidence that the telephone was invented in an era when cocaine was available in high street chemists.

tv - we have one, in the living room. i watch it for 10 hours per day during wimbledon, and not at all otherwise, so effectively don't have one (if i was living by myself i wouldn't bother to acquire one). people who keep tvs in their BEDROOMS are disgusting savages imo.

no facebook. tv I watch an hour or two a day on average. cellphone I rarely use, pretty much only in emergencies.

fb looks like it's about to die imho

Oh man, I am a serial luddite. I have no Facebook, no TV (I do watch stuff on iplayer but generally there is only one show on per season that I am interested in following), and didn't have a phone until several years after everyone else I knew had one, whereupon I continued telling everyone I didn't have one out of a fear that they would ask for my number and then I'd have to be available to talk to them whenever they wished

obviously this was a pretty distorted view of my own popularity and only about 3 of the people who have my number ever ring it, but still

srsly? xp

i'll never part with my teletype

srsly? xp

I strongly believe so too. Eventually people will get bored of it - just like they did with Friendster, MySpace

I don't see fb dying within the next few years

yeah just judging from its cultural saturation - most of the people I know who are on it seem to complain about it regularly - not to mention that it's based on a business model that is doomed to failure (i.e., the only way it will make money is from advertising, and its customers will desert it as soon as advertising companies get their hands on it). plus the novelty of it is wearing off, etc. I mean, this is basically like myspace or napster or lol aol.com or any other half-assed startup that generated a ton of money and interest up front and then got too big to be sustainable and then crashed and burned.

xp

nah

I feel like friendster, myspace were quickly replaceable because they hadn't really reached the users that fb had - were still mostly just for young and computer-happy types. whereas my entire extended family is on fb and I don't see them quickly shifting to something else like ilx-types might. sorta the AOL-effect.

eventually it will just become a graveyard populated by robo-ads and dead accounts, just like every other internet novelty site

novelty might be wearing off, but being able to quickly contact anyone you even vaguely know just by typing their name into a search field is pretty classic and it's an easy way for people to share stuff with people they know without having to use blogging software or Flickr or some more specialized service

facebook is really vulnerable in a way TV isn't in that if a certain subset of any given group gets fed up with it or migrates elsewhere, the whole group has no reason to stay on it.

Facebook's lasted longer than I might have guessed, honestly. Certainly I am waiting for that 'turn' moment in full...and yet, I don't know. Google didn't seem like it would be anything another than just another search engine and here we are. Things *can* take hold.

i used to think fb was here to stay because of the utility features that made people reliant on it (acting as a diary, primarily) - i no longer think this. the whole thing looks like a mess and is a hassle to use these days.

it'll survive for a while because its core users aren't the hipster internet nomads of friendster and myspazz who were always going to be up for a new shiny internet toy, they're regular people who like comfort and familiarity and not starting from scratch, so i guess the migration won't be as quick.

many xps

don't use my facebook, barely watch tv

will vote no Facebook and count myself as having a TV, cz while my average TV watching is probably well under an hour per week I'm glad to have the option

I avoided getting a Friendster and Myspace too and have been waiting for FB to go the same way, even sometimes tell myself that I should get in on the next one but there's no point getting on FB now, but it's definitely taking longer about it, seems a lot more universal. but there's definitely been an increase in negative comments about it lately from the people I know who just have accounts and aren't into the tech side or the privacy angle or whatever

calling it a novelty site is basically absurd. it's the most used website in america. xp

fb just isn't sustainable economically. someone explain to me how their model is going to make money? all of their options for generating revenue - charging for services, selling user data to marketers, placing ads - will just cause their audience to desert them. They can't run on venture capital forever.

whoah many xp

calling it a novelty site is basically absurd. it's the most used website in america. xp[

more than Google? find that hard to believe

also, when I say I don't really use TV, that's kinda bullshit -- I use YouTube all the fucking time and watch video podcasts. so I'm still consuming tons of video content, I'm just not doing it in front of a television screen

http://www.alexa.com/search?q=facebook.com&r=home_home&p=bigtop

Google didn't seem like it would be anything another than just another search engine and here we are. Things *can* take hold.

Google massively diversified and figured out how to generate income streams. I dunno where facebook's income streams are. someone point them out to me.

# Alexa Traffic Rank: 2
# United States Flag Traffic Rank in US: 2

like, Google OWNS a bunch of shit. and they provide all kinds of services that people DO pay for. to my knowledge, Facebook doesn't do this.

facebook is already making money iirc.

xp oh well at least it beat google some week cause I remember the newstory

calling it a novelty site is basically absurd. it's the most used website in america. xp

Which proves nothing. MySpace was the most popular website for awhile.

yeah my point wasn't to say whether Google or Facebook was bigger, my point was just to basically agree with you -- FB is huge

Friendster - Its the new thing

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-does-facebook-make-money-2010-5

expanding these income streams will kill facebook fyi

yeah just judging from its cultural saturation - most of the people I know who are on it seem to complain about it regularly

[banaka]this is the sort of repressive tolerance that has come to be associated with other bourgeois-vitalist commonplaces; marriage, cocaine, probation. it is to be expected that 'facebook' is coeval with those other fads, and will find its death alongside them.[/banaka]

FB had more page hits than google globally as of last week, I read somewhere.

Does "I ave a TV but dont watch it cuz the arial isnt plugged in" count? Not a huge amt of ppl in Aus watch cable tv - its not saturated like in the US. I do occasionally watch ABC iVIew online and of course a shit ton of dvds.

Use FB just because its there. Own a cellphone, always ignore it when it rings, haha.

Like basically they're making money off the things that have made other sites (like Myspace) completely intolerable. That is not a sustainable model for growth.

xp

Although I have three tellies, I don't watch telly that much. I do use the one for downloaded series, but apart from that I dont watch that much tv. One's for gaming, one in the bedroom (kids come and watch in the morning) and third one in the living room

a. i'm way surprised at how many ppl here don't have cellphones or only acquired one within the last couple of years. i thought i was one of the last cellphoneless ppl, and i got my hands on one a full five years ago
b. even for those of you who are unemployed-- how on earth do you find the time to facebook, AND twitter AND ilx, AND watch tv programs/listen to music/take in movies/socialize, AND sleep/eat/do laundry? i don't get it

have all three. actually, I don't have a TV set but I still consider myself as having a TV since I watch tons of stuff over the internet, including sports and other live broadcasts. I just hate commercials but thingies like TiVo which allow you to skip ads don't exist where I live.

can probably live without facebook, but I would def miss being able to keep in touch with people - three quarters of my friends don't live in the same country as I do.

phone pretty essential to my job. wish it wasn't though.

xpost answer to b: there are 24 hrs in a day, y'know. ;-)

You can be on Facebook and watch TV at the same time. You can text while watching TV. I think I use the TV as background music in my house. It's on, but I'm not always paying full attention to it.

These are trying times for people with AADD.

Have all three. Had no TV for a few years, got one a few months ago, could easily do without it again (but watched shows on Hulu on my laptop in the interim, so does that count as not having TV?)

I use FB every day but it's pure recreation, my life would be essentially the same if it went away tomorrow. More or less the same for TV. So the cell would be hardest to give up -- for starters, I have a kid in daycare and need to be available any time for that "he barfed, come get him" call. How do people without cell phones handle that?

It would be way harder for me to live without Google than any of these.

have all 3, could throw the tv out of the window anytime

look fwd to reading this but shakey is nuts if he thinks social networking is a fad. maybe it won't *always* be facebook running tings, but what's happened in the last few years is completely unlike myspace. people's parents are on facebook.

grandparents, even

there are a bunch of articles hinting that parents and grandparents being on facebook could be the thing that kills facebook.

history, i'm not sure he was saying that the idea of social networking sites per se are a fad; more just the current model for them.

nunez, that would make sense. is weird sharing about getting wasted and party pics that might be viewable by mom, grandma... unless getting wasted and partying happened with them.

I got pics of my abuela doing keg stands on New Year's Eve I simply can't post.

social networking existed long before Facebook/MySpace, for fuck's sake. It was nowhere near as embedded in our society but it's not like it started with Facebook. Social networking is here to stay. It's one of those things that once it comes out, will never be reverted by anything other than nuclear war.

i've tried to sign up for facebook but was instantly creeped out by it, i mean by how it straightaway demanded access to every trail of my internet activity

OTM. I get kinda pissed off whenever a web site nags me to log in with a Facebook/Twitter account

― Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Friday, 24 September 2010 23:29 (Yesterday)

The way in which social network sites make it easy and try to make it seem desirable to link with other such sites is kind of bothersome. People share way too much information about themselves this way, and I don't believe any such site ever warns its users that by interlinking it allows a whole bunch of people you don't know to gain a lot of knowledge about yourself quite easily. As an example, the other day, I got a flickr contract add from someone, I always check the profiles of the contacts I get in case it's someone I know IRL. In this case, there were some pics of this good-looking girl smoking a bowl and looking somewhat baked. There were also links to profiles on fb, twitter, deviant art and so on. I clicked the fb profile to check that it wasn't someone from, or linked to my friend list and there was the girls name and the town she lived in. This took me 2 mouse clicks, and I find this quite disturbing. On the one hand, people should be more thoughtful about what they choose to share, but I think all of these sites should at the very least warn their users that by interlinking all their social networks you are making personal information available to a wider and wider group of complete strangers, which will include a wider and wider circle of crepes, assholes etc. this is something about fb and other such sites that I really don't like.

nunez, that would make sense. is weird sharing about getting wasted and party pics that might be viewable by mom, grandma... unless getting wasted and partying happened with them.

― dude (del), Saturday, 25 September 2010 18:30 (22 minutes ago)

such things also are viewable by your fellow-workers, incl your boss, manager, HR department etc. The office staff at the old workplace were terrible for following the activities of other employees and ex-employees on FB. I was really glad I mis-spelles my surname on my (barely used) FB profile.

I have all three of course, it's not the Fourteenth Century.

yea, in the 14th century my ancestors only had Blackberries

mis-spelles

heh

i'm lucky that i've only ever worked in jobs where no one gave a shit about wasted party pictures (and to have taken on board way before fbook that only stuff i don't mind the whole world knowing about should go online). i probably wouldn't want parents etc following me online (which includes, like, message board posts in which i swear and stuff! they would soooo have words about it if they saw my twitter or indeed ilx history). but they're almost completely ignorant of the social side of the internet. worryingly this may have come to an end given that i received my first parental fbook friend request a couple of days ago - i have no intention of allowing this to happen, but am wondering whether to go with "oh i never use facebook any more" or just tell them straight up that it's a private space and they're not getting access to it.

There's no doubt in my mind that someone will eventually come up with a better model (both financially and on the user end) for Facebook and social networking. Hopefully sooner than later - I just hate how it is now, but I can see how there will be a social networking tool/experience I'll like someday, but for now I'm pretty much okay with old email, cell phones and instant messaging.

I could probably drop the cell phone if I really had to - I don't even text message, but the convenience of having it for meeting up with people would be hard to give up - but I love TV too much to stop watching completely. Between 720p rips and Netflix and DVDs and Hulu you don't even need to actually have a television to watch TV anymore.

YouTube has some pretty great cat videos too that have provided me with hours of entertainment

and music videos!!! no more sitting in front of a screen hoping MTV plays Eagle Eye Cherry

<3 YT for music and also cute animal vids which should come as no surprise.

I have a cell, FB and a TV and use all three regularly.

I don't really talk on my phone much and I'm another one of those ppl who has it on silent most of the time unless I'm expecting a call. I talk to my parents most days and my bf about once a week and that's about it. It's a Blackberry so I do use it for email and web stuff but mainly for job seeking purposes atm.

I love FB but wouldn't really care if it went away tomorrow. Many of my closest/oldest friends live far away and it's a good way of keeping in touch although I think it does make me contact some of them less because it feels like I know what's going on with them even when we haven't actually spoken or emailed in weeks.

Have TV. Watch about 3 or 4 shows each week on the reg but sometimes have it on just for background stuff. Probably watch about an hour or two a day on avg. Thought about getting rid of cable what with Hulu and Netflix etc. but I like having the choice of just flicking through to see what's on even if I don't do that very often.

I have all three BUT

have TV but no cable - TV is used just for DVDs and Wii.
have Facebook but blocked it from my home computers because of time suckage. So only use @ school.
Love cellphone

if i HAD to get rid of one, it would be TV ... mainly b/c i have little time for it these days plus the other two (cell and FB) are kinda important for my day-to-day and all that. it wouldn't be for pretentiousness purposes -- it would be b/c it wasn't worth the money and no other reason.

i don't watch tv channels but i have a tv for movies and games.
i have a facebook account although facebook kinda sucks and should be replaced by a better service.
no cellphone.

such things also are viewable by your fellow-workers, incl your boss, manager, HR department etc. The office staff at the old workplace were terrible for following the activities of other employees and ex-employees on FB.

Anyone who has work colleagues/bosses added to their facebook and/or makes public, unlocked posts on there, is an idiot imo.

One thing I expect to be doing till the day I die is napping in front of the TV. I'd do it on Saturday afternoons in the '70s to Curt Gowdy, now I do it most every day after work to Wolf Blitzer. TV + couch = zzzzzz. Nice feeling.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

phone - have a blackberry. invaluable. w/r/t the actual phone element, it's 90% texting, or phoning in a "hi i'm here where are you" sense. never been the kind of person to call someone just to talk. as per the other thread, my phone is always on silent and even if i notice it ringing i rarely answer it - if it's important people will text or email. i hate the way phone calls demand your attention NOW NOW NOW - it's like someone turning up unannounced at your door and DEMANDING TO TALK NOW regardless of what you're doing. there's something very primitive about it. caitlin moran, the british columnist, recently wrote something very funny about how it was no coincidence that the telephone was invented in an era when cocaine was available in high street chemists.

tv - we have one, in the living room. i watch it for 10 hours per day during wimbledon, and not at all otherwise, so effectively don't have one (if i was living by myself i wouldn't bother to acquire one). people who keep tvs in their BEDROOMS are disgusting savages imo.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Saturday, September 25, 2010 8:43 AM (1 week ago)

you can't answer a fucking phone call but ppl who have TVs in their bedrooms are scumbags? xD

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

(xp) i like facebook most of the time but i prefer twitter. however, i post things for a general audience on twitter, so facebook is my de facto private space for stuff i don't necessarily want to share with strangers or my parents.

the inverse of this is true for me! (except the first bit, i also prefer twitter.) many of my twitter friends are IRL ppl but i don't really tell anyone about my twitter account and i post there under a pseudonym. but also, some of my relatives are on FB and i'm friends with them, so.

meant to say "ppl i know IRL"

Is there such a thinkg as savages that aren't disguisting? Inoffensive savages?

charming savages

Lots of people wasting time and money on stuff they don't need ITT.

I have no TV. Wish there was no facebook. Cell is kind of useful I guess.

― Pashmina, Friday, 24 September 2010 22:10 (1 week ago)

"hi i'm here where are you" ugh. plan your life.

I love my cellphone! (iphone) I feel like it makes me more me. it is s cyborg relationship. lol / no srsly.

Most tv is total bs. fb keeps me in touch but w/o it I wld just send more emails/txts/call people and talk. bc having a cellphone is awesome.

A cellphone is useful and fun sure, but unless you have suddenly completely forgotten how you managed to stay alive throughout the 1990s and before, you certainly don't fucking NEED one.

I tell people I don't have a cell and they look at me like "how do you breathe?" or like I'm Rip Van Winkle strolling out of my magical hibernation cave.

I feel like it makes me more me.

another commodity successfully fetishisized...

i can do without all three, although take me telly away and you'll be taking my xbox too. and with it, your life.

I gave up my cellphone a few months ago. I can't think of an instance where I was completely damned without it.

I have become the annoying guy who gives out his Google Voice number to everyone where I can now listen to v/m and read texts at my computer.

they deluge me with stupid invites to stupid things, and fb feels like a swamp. hate it when friends insist on only communicating through fb messages

ding ding da-fuckin ding. signal to noise on FB is like .00000000001%

cellphone is kind of a necessity. tv is a nice thing to waste time with. fb seems kind of pointless to me

also, when I say my cellphone is a "necessity" I mean it's how my wife tells me we're out of cheese

Missed this poll, but I'd be one of the folks with no cellphone or Facebook. People act freaked out when I say I don't have a cellphone, but I'm not trying to make some big statement by it. Just strikes me as an expensive way to encourage people to bug me.

This is generational: I'm shocked there are more people without a TV than without Facebook. My mind has caught up with the world enough that more cellphones than TVs doesn't surprise me; more Facebook than TVs does.

if you guys were marlon brando rich and marlon brando crazy, which of these devices would you still end up operating and not delegate to a fleet of servants?

(marlon brando apparently hired a lady to buy infomercial crap he saw on the TV for him)

I would have no use for a cellphone if I didn't have a child