It's not so bad because you don't really spend a lot of time on the top page. I would like to add that I am grateful that Shang doesn't have his animated gif loop going now. I found THAT very distracting. Made me want to slap that elf.
Ultimately those are there for convinience. They let people see information mentioned on Twitter and Facebook without forcing them to go to those sites. They're limited in where they appear, so shouldn't be much of a bother if you aren't interested. Just don't read them.
Yeah, I don't like Twitter and Facebook either. Facebook's security made me really leery of having an account there.
