Am I the only person in the western world not on Facebook?

[ImaRobot]

I have a facebook account and for how I use it it's a very useful website. I originally made an account to see and share photos with my friends who had gone off to travel around the world. I've kept my account because I work in a different country during the summer and its a quick way to keep up with people when I have limited internet access. It's also really easy to organize parties and casual get-togethers. I can send out a private message to a number of friends that I'm heading out to a bar after work and I can usually expect at least a couple of people to drop by for a drink.

Most of the comments here seem to be related to the really extreme, narcissistic uses of the site, for people that have 1000 plus friends and post everything from their internal dialogue to their bowels movements. Just delete people like that from your friends and keep things simple, don't post everything about yourself. I think all I have is my name and the town I live in. The site can be used to facilitate face to face interaction, it only replaces real life social interaction if you let it.


Here's an article that some of you all may find interesting, it's written from the perspective of someone that doesn't really get social networking and is interviewing people that involved in designing the next "facebook" and other social media.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201012/viral-me-silicon-valley-social-networking-devin-friedman

 

[ackvil]

I have better things to do than waste my time on either Facebook or Twitter...like enjoying my time with my family, B & B, good friends, a good wine, beer or spirit, and a cigar. (Yeah Baby!!!).

Just say No!!!

Christopher

#2
Could not have said it better!

 

[Gaz]

No facebook or twitter here. My cell phone only sends and receives phone calls. No internet, camera, or text msgs allowed. No MP3 player either.

 

[datzc]

Ditto. No interest in FB. I'm on the Internet too much anyway and even do online consulting 1/2 to 1 hour a day. I don't see the need for Facebook unless or until other people stop using email and listserv. That day may soon come, apparently.

What's weird is that my wife is in a church women's group. She's in her 40s, the others range up to 70s, yet they all use FB to plan their events. My wife doesn't like computers and doesn't want to get started.

 

[gixxer]

Meh. The only reason why I have an account is SWMBO set it up for me before I left for Korea. Now I use it and skype to talk to folks. If I were not in Korea it would be used a whole lot less. I could really care less if what some of them have to say about their day. THEN THERE IS THIS SITUATION. You have that one (or hopefully no more than one) person that you truly disliked being around and then you get a friend request? I MEAN HONESTLY could you not get the hint years ago when we put dead fish under the seat in your car? Shame on you for not locking your vehicle.

 

[DaveNJ74]

No facebook for me. All us married men need are ex flames sending us friend requests with our wives monitoring us, as if I dont have enough stress in my life.

 

[Walter Sobchak]

No facebook for me. All us married men need are ex flames sending us friend requests with our wives monitoring us, as if I dont have enough stress in my life.

BINGO!

No FB for me.

 

[DaveNJ74]

BINGO!

No FB for me.

I think thats the main reason.

 

[rajagra]

No facebook for me. All us married men need are ex flames sending us friend requests with our wives monitoring us, as if I dont have enough stress in my life.

Better stick to a form of communication that maintains anonymity:

[youtube]cpS1ec8lh_I[/youtube]

 

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

#2
Could not have said it better!

Jim:
Thanx for your support and thanx for sharing.

Christopher

 

[Go West Young Man]

No facebook for me. All us married men need are ex flames sending us friend requests with our wives monitoring us, as if I dont have enough stress in my life.

If the only thing keeping you from infidelity is not having a Facebook account.....

It's funny how the people who aren't on Facebook have such a visceral reaction against it ("Not over my dead body!"), while those who use it regularly realize that it's just a useful tool for coordinating communications.

If you let your Facebook usage get out of control, that's on your head, not Facebook's. You don't blame the get-away car for the bank robbery.

 

[Gyronut]

I agree with Gaz, my cellphone has no camera or graphics, My grandchildren think that I am strange, but I guess when I was their age I thought that Grandparents were strange too..!

 

[Greg1911]

No facebook account for me.

Twitter is 10,000 times dumber.

 

[Dave in the basement]

Regardless of your thoughts on social media (FB, Twitter, etc.), I hope you at least find it intriguing how people are using it in Egypt, Lybia etc. to get the word out. Very powerful, IMHO.

Dave

 

[bradyarz]

i had facebook when i was at penn state, but that was when it was brand new and for college students only. i can't say it was classy then, but it sure has gone downhill. i deleted my account when i graduated.

i have never read a tweet, never tweeted, never gone to twitter's main page, etc. i refuse to have anything to do with that junk.

 

[Go West Young Man]

No facebook account for me.

Twitter is 10,000 times dumber.

Yah, there's a lot of crap to wade through, but ....


I get presale notifications of tickets to good shows via Twitter - let's me have first crack at popular shows before the general public can buy.

We got stuck behind a wreck on the road to Tahoe last week, and knew from Twitter comments about how long it would take to clear and the severity of the accident. The official Caltrans website never got updated.

Let's not even talk about how much info is coming out of the Middle East right now via FB and Twitter because all other lines of communication have been cut.

 

[craig87c]

Exactly Chris.

If you use social networking for Farmville, then it's a waste. If you use it to communicate about the world and about your interests, it becomes useful.

 

[LuckyR]

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up the cause of a Maryland man who was forced to cough up his Facebook password during a job interview with the Department of Corrections in that state.

According to an ACLU letter sent to the Maryland Department of Corrections, the organization requires that new applicants and those applying for recertifications give the government "their social media account usernames and personal passwords for use in employee background checks."

The ACLU calls this policy "a frightening and illegal invasion of privacy" and I can't say that I disagree. Keep in mind that this isn't looking at what you've posted to a public Twitter account; the government agency here could look through private Facebook messages, which seems a lot like reading through your mail, paper or digital.


No Facebook for me...

 

[rajagra]

According to an ACLU letter sent to the Maryland Department of Corrections, the organization requires that new applicants and those applying for recertifications give the government "their social media account usernames and personal passwords for use in employee background checks."

So the Maryland Department of Corrections only employs people who are willing to divulge passwords to secure systems. Think about that.

 

[The Pontificator]

I have no plans to join any social networking site. Next to the Internet they are the biggest time-waster ever invented.

There are so many people online on Facebook at school that they decided to only devote 1% of available bandwidth to accomodate Facebook and MySpace. It hasn't slowed down traffic to those sites.