Love it. Hate it. Can’t live without it. With a billion-plus members using the site, there’s no denying Facebook’s presence in modern life.
Yet as important as it is in the contemporary social scene, Facebook could do with a few improvements, ones that are a smidge less complex than the newly unveiled graph search. So in order of very to barely serious, here are nine suggestions for a better Facebook.
- Get rid of “Seen at/by”: Facebook’s best quality is that it helps to connect people. Facebook’s worst quality is that it makes people feel less connected. There's nothing like the “Seen at/by” notification to let you know that 45 people have seen what you said and don’t care enough to comment on it.
- Improved friend suggestions: Anyone else have people that defriended you pop up first in the Facebook search bar? Seriously, Facebook. Stop rubbing in failed friendships.
- Dislike button: If the endless number of Facebook groups campaigning for a dislike button isn’t enough, think about what such an option could do for Facebook. Ad campaigns can more easily and accurately gauge their effectiveness with a dislike button. Instead of attempting to interpret what a number of likes means, a company can just compare it against the number of dislikes a post receives. Although some may argue that a dislike button promotes negative activity, it has to be realized that the same negative activity will exist on Facebook no matter what, either via negative commenting or liking a negative status. Might as well just give the people what they want.
- Public profiles upon death: In light of privacy concerns this sounds a little extreme, but think about the future here. By the time the 22nd century arrives, Facebook profiles will have been around for 96 years. Some kids who are just now signing up for Facebook will grow up to become influential names on the next page of history. They will retire and recognize the valuable source of an online biography, one that spans their personal life and also has the option to be edited – yet only in the form of removing past posts. It could even be a source of comfort to the friends of those who passed away too soon. It shouldn’t be mandatory of course, but the option for a public profile once there’s no need for privacy just may be in Facebook’s future.
- GIFs as photos: Tumblr made it common, and Twitter’s now adapting, so it’s time for Facebook to jump on the bandwagon as well: GIFs as photos (profile or cover). Because honestly, what is friendlier than a Pikachu cover?
- Rename your friends: Here’s to all the people who decide they need to be professional on Facebook and use some long extended version of their name that no one actually knows them by. There should be a Facebook option to rename friends as to what the user personally knows them by or thinks of them as. The renamed person would never see the new moniker of course, because such an option would definitely result in lots of “dat bitch” Facebook profiles.
- The Drunk Zone: Let’s face it. Drunken social networking is just a bad idea. From plain idiocy to “Plz luv meh” confessions, there’s no good that comes from logging into Facebook a little intoxicated. So how about this: a Facebook pop-up that senses your inebriated actions and tries to prevent you from doing the regretful. For instance, an exceptional number of spelling errors or z’s in one word might alert Facebook that you are in the Drunk Zone and do a force logout for the next eight hours. Granted, this might result in Facebook unfairly logging out bastardizers of the English language. Bu+ h3y, m@yB itz ju5+ +1m3 Th@+ FB putz n 3nd 2 thiz shizz.
- The Anger Zone: Same as the Drunk Zone, except alerted by sending all caps Facebook messages to ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends.
- Timeout: Install an automatic Facebook timeout that activates after two hours of continuous use or 20 minutes of browsing photos. Also known as the “Get a life" app.
