I tried FB. This is what I learned:

- The entire world, apparently, can find you.

- Some people would rather play FarmVille than pick of up the phone during a medical emergency. (Oh, yes, it happened)

- It is awkward when co-workers and friend's significant others deny YOUR request to be a FB friend; but then befriend ALL of YOUR friends... and you can see the whole process on "the wall." (that hurt)

- It's never advisable to discuss drinking, on FB, the night before going to work the next morning (d'uh).

- It is an 8-step process to delete your Facebook account, rather than simply deactivate it. (done)

(sigh)

That's one headache I don't need.

:)

And stayed away, like you. If I need more pain, aggravation, and rejection in my life, I have plenty of other places to find it!

I have reconnected with family and friends who are spread out all over the country.

Some I haven't seen since I was a teenager back in the 70's.

It's just part of my web of connections.

It just got entirely too complicated.

I'm not really sure exactly why... On the one hand, I'd love to reconnect with many of my friends in the U.S., on the other hand, I would feel exposed to a degree (as you said, everyone and his brother's uncle suddenly befriending your friends). I'm a bit ambivalent about the whole thing.

And I can't see how anyone would deny befriending you. You're a sweetie!

And, thank you for the kind compliment.

It's a great site for what you're talking about doing. You're no more exposed than you would be here--less, actaully, since you can control who sees you and limit access to each comment to whomever you want to see it. You can befriend people and still set up narrower groups so that those people can't see what you're saying if you don't want them to. And of course, common sense is allowed, so you can decide not to post about the pimple in a delicate place or about why you were really late for work. All the rules off Facebook still apply on Facebook.

Most of the complaints I see about it are from people who didn't look at all the options, or people who really didn't want what it offered anyway, or now and then people who get frustrated when Facebook makes annoying updates that you have to learn again (that is frustrating, btw). Don't let them scare you away. Just because it doesn't work for everybody doesn't mean it doesn't work for anybody.

Maybe I'll have a peek at it.

I know that one of my nieces by marriage, a girl I was really fond of but have lost touch with over the years, has left Minnesota and is now married to a man in Abu Dhabi. She is on FB, as one of her aunts told me. This is one of these cases where I'd love to send a note and say "I've missed you, how are you?".

What I'm worried about is inadvertently becoming an "open book", so to say.

I've got a couple of relationships I keep completely private there, talking the person only through private chat or personal messages. You don't have to be public about everything, or about anything you don't want to be.

Even people who say too much are usually pretty safe. They limit the people on their friends list, and only those people can see what they say, and sometimes they say so much that people don't pay any attention, anyway. I have a lot of friends who post regularly about personal things I have no idea about. You see things like "Well, glad that's over, at least," and a half dozen others say "Call me," or "You're better off without it, anyway." You see those things so often you don't know what's going on, so the person's privacy isn't really violated. Most of the discussion in cases like that takes place on the phone or through private contacts, and the person is just posting so that those in the know can all be updated at once.

It's really not hard to stay private there.

Thanks, jobycom!

Reconnected with a bunch of people. Some who I've known since kiddie garden. Yeah it's a somewhat superficial connection, but even the most tenuous of connections are better than none.

Some of them have grandbabies already...lol!

Meet new people real easy that way.

I met a lot of old friends who meant a lot to me, I'm able to keep up with my mother and oldest daughter, and share pictures of my kids with my parents and others who are too far away to experience them personally, and I've made contacts that help me keep up to date on issues ranging from politics and my old home to job-related stuff I need to know.

I realize not everyone wants or needs what Facebook has to offer, but I don't really get the anger at it. It's a great service for a lot of people.

mostly disappointed in my relationships with people. I blame myself and the way I handled it... or didn't. And I envy people who have family and friends who interact in a rational, mature level on it. Good for you! (As you can tell, I've been introspective about the whole thing)

I've dropped or been dropped by some old friends I'm just not compatible with, and apparently I'm the subject of a lot of gossip by a former college roommate and some others who don't like my politics or (lack of) religious beliefs. (They got really mad on a thread about Kanye West when I pointed out that most people would think it racist to say "That boy needs to be whipped.")

But there are enough people I like to keep me happy over there. :)

I grew up everywhere, so FB has helped reunite me with long lost friends who were, and are, very important to me.

I enjoy the frequent updates on what my nephew is up to, or talking with friends about a game we watched - or posting an article of interest and getting an intelligent discussion going.

I also like how it has brought together previously unrelated friends - whether old, new, nearby, or far away - together.

It has its flaws, bugs, etc, but the service is voluntary and FREE, so I tend to keep my complaints light and low. Its positives far outweigh the negatives by enormous degrees.

quite a few former classmates, and a few people from DU. Even my neighbor from the early 70's and my first grade principle are on FB! Since I'm self employed I use it to network. I've made a fair number of new friends on it too, meeting them through various other contacts. I've since met some of them face to face and since we've gotten to know each other fairly well through FB it's like meeting an old friend. One of the odder things I've noticed: those who were my closet friends in high school are now people that I have little in common with today, while some of those I barely knew in High school are now people that I'm highly simpatico with. :shrug:

Getting the most out of FB really depends on two factors, imho; the quality of the people you know and the effort that you are willing to put into it. I post many articles from DU on my FB page; not just political articles, but science, health, and human interest stories. Lol cats, personal art, photos, film clips...all sorts of things end up on my Wall. What you post gives people a sense of who you are. I've been deleted by a few people for my political posts, but "friended" by quite a few more. Overall it's been a very positive experience.

Most of my "friends" are DUers. I have one friend from real life. A Dutchie girl from the kibbutz we worked on nearly 30 years ago. I had another kibbutz friend who turned into a cristo-nutter fascist. I finally defriended him. When he tried to refriend, I blocked him.

And then I'm "friends" with lots of news feeds, which is the main reason I drop by.

:-(

I seriously dislike the idea of people using anything on fb but their real name and real pictures, since I think "anonymousness" is the bane of the internet.

But a felony? Seems like I would have heard about that.

I'm no lawyer but it sounds like if you want to make up a name just to shield your own, it's OK. Just don't use the name of someone you know and pretend to be him.
"A person commits an
offense if the person uses the name or persona of another person to
create a web page on or to post one or more messages on a commercial
social networking site :..."

using a fictitious name or "nom de guerre" like "schema thing" or "Joe Blow" is very different from impersonating a specific someone with the intent to make other people think you are that person.

who doesn't have a Facebook account, and who has no interest in having one.

Even MrSG, who isn't much into social network things, is on Facebook.

What surprised me, really, is how much I like my privacy... yet felt the need to share things. I'm a bundle of contradictions & a disaster waiting to happen somewhere like FB!

Liking my privacy but wanting to share my thoughts and feelings with those I'm close to. And I'm afraid I won't know where to set the boundaries.

Some of our relatives convinced me to try it, and I do enjoy playing Mafia Wars and Farmville (MW, not as much these days). There are many of my old high school and college friends on there, so it's nice to see how old they look now and just how much their kids look just like them.

One sister-in-law is a total and complete PIA, as she posts every fucking thing her two genius kids ever do. I hid her but am very close to un-friending and then blocking her. I was friended by three of our kids, then the 17 yr. old son decided he'd prefer more privacy and then un-friended and blocked his family...wha?? My father who is not mentally stable tried to friend me (I didn't know he was on FB) so I blocked him, then I discovered that my sweet little sister had blocked him too. You see if we let him on our FB then we never get to whine about what a pain in the ass our bipolar, early-onset ALZ father can be. That, and we were deathly afraid his psycho family from Texas would find us and we'd have to block them too--better to be on the safe side.

In trying to be somewhat 'vague', there are no pictures of me on my account. Everyone thinks that I look identical to our 7 yr. old lab (and of course, who could resist that face?). There are a few pictures of the kids when they were younger. I don't discuss what our family does, where we go, etc. Sometimes something may be mentioned a month or more later.

I do delete people who are blatantly stupid, and that runs the gamut of beliefs. If you're a complete dumbass, I sure as hell don't want to be your friend, much less fertilize your goddamn farm. I lost a lot of MW and FV 'friends' to that stupid "Praying for Obama's Death" Facebook group, but no sweat off my brow.

The info on my profile is minimal. You get my name, birthday (not year), a brief speech from Sir Winston Churchill on the necessity of socialized medicine, and of course the obligatory favorite pages. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I'm a card-carrying liberal who enjoys going to the shooting range just to fuck with teabaggers.

of their life.

If they are not on it, they are talking about it.

And they take it damn seriously.

My account is deactivated, but I'll get around to the deleting eventually.

I got nothing against it; it's just not for me.

It took me a little while to figure it out. Facebook has removed the "I want to delete my facebook" in their FAQ's.

THAT is funny. Yeah, I might be in touch then.

Right now I'm working a bunch of extra hours and it hasn't been top of my priority list.

I have to admit, it feels like a monkey off my back not to check in there every day. And there is no reason for me to have felt that way, I mean no one MADE me do it lol!

I don't go out much, do stuff with people. Facebook allows me to stay in contact with my friends, spread across the country. (Yes, loners have friends. We just don't need to "hang out".) So I know if a GOOD party comes along. :evilgrin:

And yes, normal life drama happens on Facebook. That's life...

If I can't even handle FB, I guess I really am!

I took too long to respond to her very nice PM. :banghead:

And why T. hasn't accepted my invite but friended J. I just don't get. :shrug:

Maybe I should withdraw my invite for taking too long...

:P

A friend has cherries from his cherry tree to give away.
Another friend is down with a cold.
Someone is back safely from a weekend in Allentown.
Chocolate judging is going on at the San Diego county fair.
It's really hot in Orlando today.

I've learned more on FB about some DUers than I learned in four years of interacting with them here. Which is nice. :)

It's put me in touch with people I lost track of 35 years ago.

you can make it so only the people you have in your friends list can actually see anything on your profile. Still, it can be rather distrubing at times. And the damned games are just plain annoying. :)