My annual "Should I join FaceBook?" thread...

[Vintage VFer]

Originally Posted by Joni O

I'll be your Friend, Alta.

Thank you, Miss Joni!

I'm not interested in hooking up with old high school pals or former coworkers. (Heck, I hated high school and haven't been to even one reunion.)

I'm more interested in keeping up with my friends. Folks don't seem to have time to email anymore. And I don't text.

[Joni O]

Pssst, Alta. but not until I change My FB profile picture. I borrowed it from a VFer. It's a cat and has to do with holiday impatience. I'm not sayin' who.

[Vintage VFer]

Originally Posted by Joni O

Pssst, Alta. but not until I change My FB profile picture. I borrowed it from a VFer. It's a cat and has to do with holiday impatience. I'm not sayin' who.

[shoegoddess]

I love it and hate it! It takes way to much of my time!

[bearcatfan]

Originally Posted by Joni O

Facebook is what you make it. I've connected with a lot of people through Facebook - old friends, classmates, non-local relatives, VFers, etc. I think it's a lot of fun and very rewarding.

Same here. I've gotten to know some VFers very well and count them among my best friends that I've never met.

There's junk there, too. I don't play any games. I have friends who share and link to everything on both extremes of the political spectrum, and I've learned just to skip over it. I do enjoy some of the funny things people share, and I think I favorite nearly every picture from the Italian-American page, since I remember all that stuff growing up.

I will be your friend, too!

[Jeanne Marie]

I'm with Jackie. I have a love/hate relationship with FB.

Honestly, I think it's becoming sort of passe with the youngsters who were the original college aged users. My 26 year old son wouldn't be caught dead posting on facebook.

I've had an account since non-college people were allowed to join, but I've never been that active. I just don't post. I don't want everybody to know what I'm doing, where I am and what I'm thinking. Most of the time I just shake my head at what people are willing to share. The "checking in" thing leaves me amazed. I just don't get that. Oh, and the games. No thanks!

However, I do enjoy seeing pictures like new babies, weddings, etc. It's a great way to keep up to date on those kinds of things. Too bad there are so many people who use it to post their every waking thought.

[BunnyHop]

I only ever signed up because some online friends from another forum decided that rather than continue to cope with the expense and hassle of maintaining a forum for such a small group, they'd make a more private Facebook group so we could stay in touch.

If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't be on Facebook even now.

The privacy settings confuse me, and I think it's ridiculous that their interface is so convoluted. Every time they say they've made improvements, I feel as though I've fallen further down the rabbit hole.

More than once I've seen people tend to over-share until they feel their privacy's been violated, then they over-react in the other direction, and unfriend everyone.

I wound up being contacted by someone from my high school/college days who claimed to be enormously upset at a rumor that something they'd said or done 30 years ago had hurt my feelings in a major way. I explained that I thought it reasonable to describe their behavior as bitchy, they claimed they'd never behave that way, I wrote back, getting more specific about the details of the various bitchy incidents, expressing my belief that yes, I was entitled to think their behavior was bitchy even if they disagree with me, I was not required to put up with their neurotic lack of self awareness, and basically asking them to please leave me alone all these years later, so far as I'm concerned, it was all a long time ago, and very far away. No new wounded feelings need rear their heads, please. (massively paraphrased, and really polite) They wrote back, saying essentially, 'I was hurtful. I'm sorry.'

I left it at that. Whew.

I could have lived a good long time without ever going through that conversation, but at least now I realize that one of the things I was dealing with way back when was someone else's inability to understand or accept the consequences of their thoughtless words and actions.

All these years later, I'm older and wiser and less disturbed by the random bitchiness of others. The other person? Just older, apparently, which I think is kind of sad.

Part of the Facebook experience involves having people you don't much want to know kinda randomly in your face. If you don't cope well with that, you might want to steer clear.

[Sophie]

I use my real name, use privacy settings (while knowing that nothing is truly private on the internet) and filters and lists to keep my feed from getting cluttered. My primary contacts are my extended family, friends in other cities, and a handful of VFers with whom I share some common interests in fitness related topics. I've learned a TON from them.

So, I like it, but I've customized it from the get-go to make it work for me. I hide stuff I don't want to see, like people's Candy Crush saga updates. I do hide some contacts.

and yes, it's increasingly an older people site. The kids have fled elsewhere, knowing that their parents and grandparents are hanging out there

That said, there is really absolutely no reason to be on Facebook, if there aren't out-of-town people you are interested in sharing information with. There's no loss whatsoever for not being there.

[Vee]

I get a glimpse every now and again of people I went to school with, ex-colleagues, extended family members who have settled in different parts of the world, from being on facebook. I like that. I like seeing daughters and sons of those I went to school with at the same age (now) as their parents, when we used to hang out (way back then).

What is it about fitness and cats? Vfers and those I knew from Cathe's forum post the most amazing pictures of their fur babies or links to cute viral cat stuff.

Initially, I did not want to be "impolite" so I accepted every friend request from people who seemed even vaguely familiar. Not a good idea. I opened myself to communication that I would never open myself to in my daily life.

I culled my friend list. Now I only have people I would like to be in touch with "off the internet" as "facebook friends".

I don't spend too much time on facebook. I don't let it inundate me. Every few days, I take about 15 minutes to see what other people have been up to, and to post some stuff.

Although there are ways to flag off what you want and don't want the world to see, I only post stuff I wouldn't mind strangers seeing.

[andtckrtoo]

I love Facebook. I keep in touch with all sorts of friends. Some are people from high school and I've made some incredible re-connections from high school. People I thought whose lives were perfect - well it turned out we had more in common than we thought. It's sad how badly high school effects people. I'm also friends with lots of peeps from VF and the old Cathe forums.

As stated before, Facebook is what you make it.