My Facebook Indecisiveness: Pros and Cons (male, person, present, sister)
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I joined Facebook briefly about three years ago at the request of a real life friend. After less than a month I deleted that profile because I was disgusted with how high maintenance the whole thing is. The deletion had no impact on that friendship. It is still going strong. Since then I have never been able to make a final yes or no decision about whether to rejoin Facebook.
My reasons for reconsidering rejoining (Pros):
(1) My entire family is on the site and presently I have no way to keep in touch with my sister and cousins. They prefer that medium over phone or email. Whenever family events are being planned I am always the last to know.
(2) My neighbor from childhood has looked up my sister and asked about me among other things. There is no other way to initiate contact than Facebook. It would be nice to reconnect with this person.
The reasons for staying off Facebook (Cons):
(1) Government spying
(2) Viruses, spam and exposure to other malevolent internet forces
(3) Being inundated with mundane, junk posts
(4) Being tagged in other people's photographs
(5) Being looked up by people for the sole reason of curiosity
(6) Unwanted friendship requests from undesirable people
(7) Dangerous blurring of the lines between personal life and professional life
(8) Incessant changes by Facebook to elicit more information from people
(9) Not being truly free, the user is the product
Facebook is boring and is inundated with depressed folks caught up in the cesspool of narcissism.
Facebook is to City-Data Forum what cartoons are to the Discovery Channel.
I have two facebook accounts. One, my real one which I never use or update (just there so my old high school buddies can see my family and me) and another fake one I use for posting on newspaper websites.
Facebook is boring and is inundated with depressed folks caught up in the cesspool of narcissism.
Facebook is to City-Data Forum what cartoons are to the Discovery Channel.
That is a great analogy! I am hooked on city-data because the discourse is rather intelligent. I have been using LinkedIn recently to re-establish connections with past co-workers because I have a tendency to let relationships die. I wish Facebook wasn't the preferred choice of my nuclear and extended family.
join so you can keep up w/family. select your privacy settings so the whole of FB can't get to you. you don't need to post and you can always private message people.
I never post on my FB account, but I get some great recipes and keep up with what is going on with my friends and things of interest. I do have a friend who posts some of the most ridiculous things and wonders why he can't get a job. Make sure that you use it wisely and you will be fine. Use those privacy settings.
I like the approach of rarely posting to FB, that might be a better option for you. I do agree some of the others about FB, I would prefer not to use it, but for some people it is the only way I have contact with them. I do like getting family photo updates as well.
join so you can keep up w/family. select your privacy settings so the whole of FB can't get to you. you don't need to post and you can always private message people.
That is the strategy I would invoke if I decide that all the cons can be mitigated. How would I prevent being tagged in the content of others?
I feel most of the things you do about FB. I've de-activated mine a few times but then needed to connect with someone and this is how they do it so I got back on. But I find it a waste of time most of the time.
So I don't post there, only look in from time to time. I have my privacy settings up, but I've found
all of the friends and privacy settings to be very confusing.
I don't offer any personal information on my profile either.
There's days I think about permanently deleting it, but I like to see some of the family pics, babies, those out of state, etc.
I joined Facebook briefly about three years ago at the request of a real life friend. After less than a month I deleted that profile because I was disgusted with how high maintenance the whole thing is. The deletion had no impact on that friendship. It is still going strong. Since then I have never been able to make a final yes or no decision about whether to rejoin Facebook.
My reasons for reconsidering rejoining (Pros):
(1) My entire family is on the site and presently I have no way to keep in touch with my sister and cousins. They prefer that medium over phone or email. Whenever family events are being planned I am always the last to know.
(2) My neighbor from childhood has looked up my sister and asked about me among other things. There is no other way to initiate contact than Facebook. It would be nice to reconnect with this person.
The reasons for staying off Facebook (Cons):
(1) Government spying
(2) Viruses, spam and exposure to other malevolent internet forces
(3) Being inundated with mundane, junk posts
(4) Being tagged in other people's photographs
(5) Being looked up by people for the sole reason of curiosity
(6) Unwanted friendship requests from undesirable people
(7) Dangerous blurring of the lines between personal life and professional life
(8) Incessant changes by Facebook to elicit more information from people
(9) Not being truly free, the user is the product
In your opinion do the pros outweigh the cons?
1) this remains to be seen. Be careful what you post.
2) don't play games or add apps or click on suspect links.
3) you can hide people so you don't have to see what they post if you don't like it.
4) you can set it so other people can't tag you.
5) You can make it so people can't find you.
6) don't accept them as friends. Easy.
7) don't friend coworkers
8) there are an abundance of privacy settings that you have control over
9) if you are fundamentally opposed, don't do it, but I think there are plenty of ways to adjust it to your liking.
I joined Facebook briefly about three years ago at the request of a real life friend. After less than a month I deleted that profile because I was disgusted with how high maintenance the whole thing is. The deletion had no impact on that friendship. It is still going strong. Since then I have never been able to make a final yes or no decision about whether to rejoin Facebook.
My reasons for reconsidering rejoining (Pros):
(1) My entire family is on the site and presently I have no way to keep in touch with my sister and cousins. They prefer that medium over phone or email. Whenever family events are being planned I am always the last to know.
(2) My neighbor from childhood has looked up my sister and asked about me among other things. There is no other way to initiate contact than Facebook. It would be nice to reconnect with this person.
The reasons for staying off Facebook (Cons):
(1) Government spying
(2) Viruses, spam and exposure to other malevolent internet forces
(3) Being inundated with mundane, junk posts
(4) Being tagged in other people's photographs
(5) Being looked up by people for the sole reason of curiosity
(6) Unwanted friendship requests from undesirable people
(7) Dangerous blurring of the lines between personal life and professional life
(8) Incessant changes by Facebook to elicit more information from people
(9) Not being truly free, the user is the product
In your opinion do the pros outweigh the cons?
there are plenty of ways to overcome the cons.
I don't have issues with junk posts, you are alerted to being tagged so that you can approve-or not. No biggie.
People can't look me up because my profile is hidden.
You don't have to accept any friends that you don't want to. Them asking is no big deal. I currently have 17 requests sitting awaiting me to approve. Not bothering me and I will probably never approve a one of them.
I have no blurred lines between personal and professional life. That is all under your control.
I don't allow nor give FB authority to share my information.
The user is the product??? I'm gonna skip right on past that one
FB is a valuable tool when used correctly to keep up with distant relatives and life long friends. Especially since I live thousands of miles from my hometown.
FB is as easy or hard as one makes it.
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