http://youtube.com/watch?v=voWvqBsyYbE?rel=0
Facebook Home had a pretty successful debut in the world of advertising thanks to an interesting ad where Home livens up a dull flight. Unfortunately, their next effort titled "Dinner" is one we have an issue with.
A large family sits around a table eating. As expected, an older relative is telling story after story, boring the younger relatives in attendance. Cue Facebook Home. The girl surfs Facebook on her phone, entertaining herself while her aunt/grandma/whatever continues to rattle on.
In theory, this concept is perfectly acceptable. Facebook livens up (we use that term loosely) a boring moment in your life. The issue here is that this is everything that's wrong with the Facebook generation.
How many times have you gone out to eat and either your friends, or a table of people near you all whipped out their phones? It's a regular occurrence. Instead of engaging and talking to the people you're actually with, those individuals are completely focused on what a group of people they're not sitting with are up to. There's been times where I've seen entire tables glued to their phone, leaving me to wonder why these people even went out to dinner in the first place if they weren't going to talk to the people they were sitting beside.
Essentially, the message from Facebook in this ad is encouraging people to further disconnect from what's going on around them. While that's fine in certain situations and scenarios, it's disappointing to see a major advertisement suggesting people should ignore the people they are actually with in favor of people they rarely (if ever) talk to.
