Why I Don’t Use Facebook Apps

Facebook apps have been around ever since I’ve been on Facebook, which is about 3 years. I use to use apps all the time, a lot of quizzes and games most of the time but eventually as I got more serious about Social Media and began using it to build a community and develop content, I quickly stopped using these apps. Is there really any advantage to them though?

Some of these apps appear to have huge networking advantages to them, but the fact of the matter is these days it’s harder to get people to use an app than it is to just use the main part of Facebook. Apps that are meant to collaborate people together are really just a sugar-coated version of Groups or Pages. They aren’t doing anything different from before. Sure, the apps like MyYearbook may serve a purpose to some people, but I really don’t see a point in having my name and my graduating year on some app. If people want to know that all they have to do is go look at my profile and look for themselves. Apps like these just make it easier for people who don’t really need certain information to have certain information with a lot less effort.

As for games, sure Facebook does make it a little more competitive but I still don’t like these kinds of games. I prefer games like Minecraft where I can hop on Skype or TeamSpeak and then play multiplayer and hear the people I’m playing with while we work together to keep the creepers away from whatever we are building. I think there’s much more social aspect to this than a Social Network can provide now.

Some of these apps cost money as well and it’s usually in the form of Facebook credits which means Facebook gains access to financial information about you and can use it to charge you money without notifying you that they will do so. A company that doesn’t offer legitimate telephone support should not be taking credit card information or even PayPal information in my opinion. Facebook’s support sucks so if you run into a problem with them you’re virtually screwed unless their corporate headquarters wants to listen or the problem you are having actually applies to one of the options in their lousy online support. As much as I sometimes hate calling customer service numbers, some companies are really good about it and if it has to do with money, I’ll take calling over chat or email any day of the week.

Do you use Facebook apps? I just don’t find any value in them. I do use a couple of Twitter apps but I use these mainly to schedule tweets and easily manage multiple accounts, I consider them productive tools for Twitter considering that Twitter is simply messages rolling across your screen and it takes a bit more to manage. Feel free to share your opinions in a comment.