Some questions about Facebook.

[pErvinalia]

No problem.

[Bella Fortuna]

Thanks for the usual mixed bag of responses guys

Hey, just friend us all there; you can't go wrong with that!

[pErvinalia]

Don't friend Bella. You'll get a thousand updates a day informing you of what 3 letter word she has played in some scrabble like game.

And don't friend me, as it will cause brain damage.

[Bella Fortuna]

I can vouch for the veracity of both of those assertions.

[Audley Strange]

I have no intention of going near anything like that. Thanks though.

[Bella Fortuna]

[Kristie]

Don't friend Bella. You'll get a thousand updates a day informing you of what 3 letter word she has played in some scrabble like game.

And don't friend me, as it will cause brain damage.

You can change your notification settings!

[Kristie]

Don't friend Bella. You'll get a thousand updates a day informing you of what 3 letter word she has played in some scrabble like game.

And don't friend me, as it will cause brain damage.

You can change your notification settings!

Oh, wait. You're not Ian. I retract my post!

[orpheus]

Just posted about this over on RatSkep. Reposting here, cause that's what I do. (I'll add a little bit extra at the end though.)

I was on it for a few years, under my own name. I enjoyed it, but wondered about how it would affect me long-term. So about half a year later I took stock, and realized that although I was enjoying FB in a "quick fix" sort of way, I was overall less happy in my life in general. Left FB; was happier. Tried it again, was less happy. Conclusion: despite the fun of the thing, w/FB= . w/out FB = . So I closed my account. (They don't make that particularly easy.)

Retrospectively, here's what I think: too many books I'd wanted to read remained unread; too little creative work done (essential for my mental well-being, I've found); too little time spent with family and friends. Etc. Looked at the calendar, realized I was leaving my mid-40s and entering my late-40s, started thinking, how many days am I going to be alive? How many hours am I going to be conscious? What do I really want to do with that time? None of the answers pointed to FB as being a good thing.

In addition to all that, when I learned about their policies of collecting information about people, I got really turned off.

I'm planning on staying off Facebook as long as it's legal to do so.

I'll further add that I found it impossible to stay on FB and limit my use. And this was only partially due to lack of willpower. Mostly it was that people expected me to be active, to check my page constantly (or at least frequently). I missed important messages from people if I didn't log on at least daily. I even tried putting a notice on my page that said "I don't check in here often; if you need to get in touch with me about anything important, please email me." Infuriatingly, even that didn't work. People would leave important and time-sensitive messages for me - and then they got angry if I didn't reply right away.

That was another big source of frustration. So I came to terms with my level of tech-geekiness vs. Ludditeiositude: in order of preference: handwritten letters, email, texting, phone.


Edit: oh, and twitter. I tweet. Odd for our species, but that's life, I guess.

[pErvinalia]

Don't friend Bella. You'll get a thousand updates a day informing you of what 3 letter word she has played in some scrabble like game.

And don't friend me, as it will cause brain damage.

You can change your notification settings!

Oh, wait. You're not Ian. I retract my post!

No, I like Bella's updates, mostly. It is actually my fault (for underestimating the facebook algorithm). For a bit of fun I'd often take the piss out of some of the automatic updates that game generates. Facebook has mistaken that for 'interest', and now I get spammed by the bloody things.

[pErvinalia]

Regarding facebook ruining my life, I've found that forums actually ruin my life. Facebook, due to its format, is able to be enjoyed and interacted with reasonably quickly. Forums, however, have an endless number of posts to comment on and can involve a large amount of thinking and writing, depending on the subject. Thankfully since getting booted off ratskep I haven't engaged in much political debate on the net. It's nice to be able to go to bed not worrying that 'THERE IS SOMEONE WRONG ON THE INTERNET!!1!".

[Tero]

I joined a Finnish conpiracy theorists group for a week. I corrected a few errors in a polite way. Then left. There were about 6 people there, all supportive of the others. Kind of like fundies.

[pcCoder]

I use it now more than I used to. I do have some concerns over privacy. For me, it's not about them knowing who my friends are, but about all those 'like' buttons on other websites that could be detected possibly by HTTP Referer headers when I'm logged in to Facebook. For that I use NoScript and some ABE rules to anonymize requests. It just seems that people don't call people anymore, they just post if something happened on Facebook instead.

[FBM]

no.

[rachelbean]

See, I only see bella's actual posts because I have apps and their notifications blocked. I'd not even realized you played except that you reposted a humorous game once or twice as a screen cap (I think so anyway).