Twitter Twatting Facebook?

I have seen a bit of a change in my social networking habits. As part of my previous employment I was inducted into the world of Facebook and it was fine. Its a useful communications tool and as part of my range of promotional tools for D&H, its good. However, recent changes to the system and the predelictions of the users seem to be rendering it almost irrelevant.

The change was the reformatting a few months ago, which seemed to turn the interface into a mimic of Twitter - lots of status updates. For some reason, that I cannot put my finger on, this seemed to dissolve some of the charm of the page. It seemed less ... interesting?

Add to this a real rise in the number of utterly pointless memes and bloody stupid quizes that are also part of the feed now and its almost impenetrable bullshit. Currently I can find out how well I know Abby, see someone's (mediocre) hi-score on Chain Rxn, read a couple of random newsposts, hear about someone's Tiny Adventure, know that someone has bought a horse in a game, know which rock star I am, know how evil I am, know how gay I am and know which revolutionary thinker I am. Truly, I am blessed by this knowledge.

I think that I value Facebook as an interactive contacts list and a place to play online Scrabble more than I do this utter toss.

The other change is that a number of people are now sychronising their Facebook status updates and their Twitter feeds. Which, initially, I found bloody annoying. Now however, I have switched camps ... and here's why.

Facebook lets people walk up to you and ask to be your friend. You have to actively reject them or drop them. Its a powerful social dynamic. Twitter is different. You decide to follow people and you have nothing to do with who follows you. Its a lot less personal, a lot more detached. What does that mean? Well, I feel no social necessity to follow every single person I know on Twitter. I can be quite discerning. I can hone my feed to things and people that I find actually interesting, rather than people who I might well want to contact eventually.

So I find myself taking more and more notice of Twitter and less and less notice of Facebook. Scrabble being exempted from this ignorance.

Its an interesting change of heart!