I laughed last week at the pub when a young man came up to me and said
"Hello Mrs. ________." I answered, "That's Ms. Dennison and how do I know you?"
It turned out he and his wife had graduated from high school with my son so we chatted a bit and he told me he had my son on his Facebook. He was stunned when I told him I'd shut mine down.
The video below is pretty funny (albeit a bit bawdy --read: crude -- for my taste) and I understand it completely. And yesterday I stated in comments that I might try it again but I won't.
Pretty weird, huh? But then so is Facebook. Yesterday I stated in comments that I might try it again. However, I have changed my mind after seeing the video below. Their privacy policy alone is enough to keep me away. If you don't care what Mark Zuckerberg does with your private info -- go for it -- but I do.
I don't know about y'all, but this scares me a lot!
Happy (and Safe) Blogging!!!!!!!
I'm overwhelmed with all the social networking going on.
ReplyDeleteThe premise is that we can sit at home alone in our PJs 24/7 and have a fabulous social life. It's kind of pathetic, I think. I'm getting tired of invitations from people that sat by me in 7th grade art to be their friend. We weren't friends when we knew each other! How can we become friends one boring sentence at a time fifty years later?
I love blogging because it feels like real communication, and I see it as an art form, from writing, to photography, to layout design . . . whatever a person is interested in communicating.
Good topic.
I do have a Facebook account but I don't do anything with it anymore. Still, my daughter just tried it and hooked up with old high school friends she'd lost contact with. She says she's finding herself quite addicted to it for now. I don't really get it.
ReplyDeleteI just dumped my account. I was only on there cuz one of my sons invited me. He is off mugbook and so am I
ReplyDeleteYes, Kay, I'm with you on this. I'm content to stay in the blogosphere. No Facebook for me!
ReplyDeleteMarty: I don't feel a burning need to know everyone in the world. I also don't like putting an excessive amount of my personal info online.
ReplyDeleteAnnie: My family is there, too and I don't care. If they want to know what's going on they can call. I think it's dangerous.
Kay: I don't either.
GFB: Dumped mine ages ago. I really don't think it's safe to put your info out like that.
Amy: Meeeeeeeee too!!!!
Big Brother is watching.
ReplyDeleteI'm not scared of it, although maybe I should be. I am enjoying it now, and I may find myself bored with it sooner or later.
I can take or leave Facebook. It has some uses - I've gotten in contact with a few old friends - but I am not addicted to it.
ReplyDeleteI don't do facebook, don't have a desire to. Text messaging confuses me, we don't have that either. I have a doll on line store and I use MIB for mint in box and NRFB for never removed from box. That's as far as I go and it took me a month to learn what those letters meant. :)
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, I'm a fairly heavy Facebook user -- some very close friends & family are on there and it's a good way to communicate in a relaxed sort of way.
ReplyDeleteBut it IS getting repetitive. Kind of like going to the same high school reunion every day. Yes, it's nice to reconnect with classmates ... but we're not REALLY connected beyond what we choose to share with one another. So yes, I know Lorrie has a daughter and grandkids, but I've never met any of them and probably never will, because she lives hundreds & hundreds of miles away. As do most of my other FB friends. I know that if she were a Greek god(dess), she'd be Hermes. Interesting ... ah, but Amy and April both came up as Hermes, too. Another analogy is a deep and interesting conversation on a phone line that keeps cutting in and out. You just don't get the whole story.
The privacy issues bother me somewhat, but I find it interesting that many of the same people I know on FB were also on MySpace (which I'm weaning myself off of, because it's simply too cluttered and juvenile). However, we all use our real names on Facebook, while on MySpace, nearly everyone had an alias. Paraphrasing Billy Joel, if we go down, we will all go down together. Believe me, I'm waiting for the rumbles. Just as we all seemed to join at around the same time, it will probably be a mass exodus if things ever start to turn sour.
The trick with Facebook (as with this blog and one or two others I'm on) is to be careful and selective about what information you disclose. No one from work has asked to "friend" me so far, and if they did, I'd decline, explaining that I'd like to keep my work and personal life separate. But, it could happen one day that someone from work might see my profile despite this. For that reason, I still hold back some things. For instance, while I'm politically a liberal, I will put liberal humanitarian causes up on my profile, but I did not specifically make mention of my voting preferences in the last election. People can connect all the dots they like, but I'm not furnishing the crayons.
I understand Volly but I don't likr that all and sundry is passed on to a higher power with no respect for my privacy. If the Pope wanted to "friend " me, I'd say "Prove it!" All FB looks like to me is a time-waster. And I'm greative enough not to need a ringmaster for my circus. LOL
ReplyDeleteLove the facebook song and this post.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I don't have one either.
I agree with Volly. It's up to the Facebook user how much information to share. Other than name and an email address, it's up to the individual what and how much else to disclose. I've entered my name, hometown and birthdate - all things that are easily obtained from other sources. I'm very careful about photos I post and I never, ever tag them with full names.
ReplyDeleteI've been using my FB account to keep in touch with a few (and I mean "few") friends I've met on various message boards over the years. A couple of them are bloggers. They are mostly people from all over the world whom I doubt I'll ever meet in person. None of them are my in-the-flesh friends and family. Not all of them read my blog, so it's a more personal way to stay in touch beyond the short snippets on our mutually frequented message forums.
Some people post anything and everything on FB and have hundreds, if not thousands of "friends". These are the people who should worry about what happens to their info.
Sorry for the long comment. (I should probably blog about this. :-D )