What I have learned from 3 weeks on Facebook

[Magical Realist]

I'm not really impressed with Facebook. It's all very superficial you know. A "like" here, and a smiley face there. And that's about it. Nobody really wants to discuss anything, and god forbid you bring up your own personal beliefs. Then you can practically hear a pin drop! I thought it'd be a good way for me to keep involved in my relatives' lives, and it IS sort of. I get to see baby pics, and wedding pics, and camping pics, and so on. But I don't really have much to offer in that area, so I hover invisibly over page after page looking and liking and moving on. It's all rather depressing really. But I'll keep my page goin just to be available for breaking news. What is your own experience in this area, if you participate that is? Thought should go into changing the name of Facebook to Fascadebook, cuz that's the real nature of the activity there.

[C C]

I still check the social sites of other family members and local friends / community for news of what's going on, but don't join them because I don't want to be gradually lured into participating in more overt ways. Neighbors got robbed a few years ago via virtually providing a guided tour of their home for burglars in terms of photos, when they were going on vacation, what they'd got for Christmas, buddies' unthinking posted comments mentioning what equipment the husband had in his workshop, etc. Thieves love traveling to another county or state because their own police departments seem to put an outsider's woes and complaints at the bottom of their list to take care of, even when the felons have been identified as residents of their turf. When the victims consulted the progress of local law enforcement, it was the same weekly drone of "We can't do anything until the authorities over in ___ city / county get their act together first."

[Secular Sanity]

I went to dinner with a friend from out of town.  His wife was on her iPhone the whole time.  At first, I thought she was working.  That maybe she had a few loose ends that she needed to tie up. I tried to include her in the conversation several times.  I couldn’t take it anymore and finally asked her what she was doing.  She was checking in on her Facebook account and posting pictures of us and our food.  I think that people should ask your permission before they post a picture of you.  It was odd.  She was bragging about hanging out with us but she wasn’t really even with us. 

I don’t have a Facebook account.

[stryder]

To be perfectly honest personally I've never been much for Social networking since the original dotbomb. Chatrooms, Newsgroups and forums were how I communicated and I didn't really integrate with the social trend for Facebook, Twitter, Blogging etc.

While I do try to put the links up for the website (so it's known it exists), I know full well that I've not pushed it as far as someone that's more socially adapt.

I guess it's really based upon a generation gap. Not having mobile phones as a youth (and having a father that had a nasty habit of not telling me when anyone called via the landline) such gossip networks didn't peek my curiousity. People would actually hang in groups and if you didn't happen to fit or just didn't want to hang with them then you didn't socialise. (at least no further than Graffiti on a wall)

In some respects I'm glad that I didn't have status updates every 30 seconds, have every friend, family member and random stranger know exactly what I was up to (as some things are best left unknown or forgotten)

That being said there are some things that such socialisation does offer, for instance a way for many generations to have a better communication medium. Kids can play games with their grandparents, and teenagers realise that while their mates might act up over the network, their parents can see. (In fact it was suggested recently that Teenage pregnancies were at an all time low. That is likely because people know what everyone else is up to through social media and teenagers don't want to appear slutty to their peers.)

[elte]

I barely use Facebook, and I also tend too much to get depressed by it.  My mind dealing with all the things going on in acquaintances lives burdens it too much.  

I get reminded of the old world notion that knowing a person's name gives the knower power over the person.  Facebook goes even father than giving knowledge of the name.

My resolve to avoid writing anything there cemented more strongly after I posted something on NPR's story comment area using my name.  Then later, a relative contacted me in a rather embarrassing way.  It might have even been worse than my fading memory indicates since the contact seems not just to have been to me privately but, worse, as a post on my wall or whatever that is for Facebook friends, so to speak, to post and read about me, to see.

[Bowser]

I was on Facebook until an old friend found me there. After that, numerous people whom I haven't seen for 30 years or more started friending me. I found that all we had in common was our youth, nothing more. My wife and daughter use it, but it really is geared for them anyway--casual talk and shared interests.

[scheherazade]

My reason for joining Facebook was related to my unusual hours of work. It provided a venue that I could interact with people in my community on my own schedule. It has been helpful to keep in touch with persons with similar interests, a good medium for messages and was extremely beneficial in promoting a community garage sale that I organized in July. There are several buy and sell sites on Facebook which seem to be doing a great business at no cost to those using the service. On the downside, I do get requests on occasion from individuals who seem to be using it like a dating site but that is not a huge issue.

[Leigha]

Facebook has pluses and negatives. It's great to stay in touch with friends who I haven't seen in a while, moved away, etc. It's not great when it comes to people who ''over share'' which seems like little more than a cry for attention. I go on it once per day, for maybe ten minutes.

[Yazata]

I've never logged on to Facebook, Twitter or any of that.

Scivillage and boards like it are my social media. (I'm currently on Sciforums and thephilosophyforum. Philosophyforums seems to have died the other day (around the same time thescienceforum died), but thephilosophyforum is fairly new and has taken in some of the philosophical refugees.