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Facebook and Google are far from "free". In fact, we are paying the ultimate price by integrating them into our daily lives.
They have one purpose only and that is to harvest as much information about us as they can. Every day that goes by they steal more and more of our privacy, and increasingly diminish our power as individual citizens and consumers.
From the very beginning of the Internet, once we got past the idealistic early days of bulletin boards and personal Web pages - it was clear that one day these technologies would be used to enslave and disenfranchise us. If we leave them unchecked, what will our world be like in 50 years?
They only have what we let them have. I don't put personal information out there so I'm not too concerned. For me it's a place to share recipes, pictures, and ideas for new places or activities to check out. Cell phones are more of a concern to me than FB.
I really think the creators of Facebook were aiming at face-saving Asia as their ultimate market. And that's what Facebook is all about: Face-saving.
All Friendship requests, couples with smiles on their faces, individuals with smiles on their faces, I refuse to become friends with anyone with a phony smile on their face.
I only have 23 Friends on my list, and 10 of them I do not follow, and I spend, at best, 5 minutes a day on Facebook.
I'm on 5 different forums, and I'd rather spend my time there than saving people's faces.
I once attacked my sister on Facebook, and she deleted me. She told me that Facebook wasn't the venue for any kind of confrontations! Or anything that rings of the truth.
I would too. Keep your family drama private and don't air dirty laundry for all the world (or even just your friends and family) to see and comment on. Definitely not what FB was designed for.
They only have what we let them have. I don't put personal information out there so I'm not too concerned. For me it's a place to share recipes, pictures, and ideas for new places or activities to check out. Cell phones are more of a concern to me than FB.
Cell phones are absolutely an open window into pretty much everything you do, followed by Google then Facebook. The puzzling thing is that no one seems to really understand or care about the implications.
I would too. Keep your family drama private and don't air dirty laundry for all the world (or even just your friends and family) to see and comment on. Definitely not what FB was designed for.
THIS!!!
I cancelled my account long ago. I never regretted it.
I think it all depends on how you use it. Mine is drama free and enjoyable.
Me too! I moved cross country from my family and friends, so this is how we keep in touch. Of course we phone each other, but really only about once a month, otherwise there's not enough to talk about. But I like to see a quick pic of how the front yard project is coming out, or how big the baby is getting, etc, which really isn't enough to sustain more than a 5 minute conversation and doesn't really work without photos. Sometimes it's just a silly video of what the cat or dog is doing, or pictures from their camping trip, or a nice sunset. Just a way to touch base and say hi. Others use it to inform their friends of upcoming events, or to note something going on in their life, like an engagement, or pictures of their kids at prom, or pretty pics of the flowers/birds/nature in their yards, or that they encounter on their walks or travels. I have my privacy settings to the highest level, and only accept actual friends and family from real life. I have warned and then blocked/unfriended some family and friends for things I view as dangerous cyber security-wise.
People who say others are faking their lives...WTH? I don't know anyone who posts things that aren't true. None of my friends have posted anything that I know, or later discovered, to be untrue. People who say that people are posting things to "brag", or who show their "perfect lives" sound like really sour grapes folks. Do you really begrudge your friends/family member for wanting to share a pic of the new car that they are so excited about, or sharing that their kid graduated college? Sounds like an envy problem to me. I do have a few friends guilty of oversharing (TMI), I usually just keep on scrolling past that! No drama for me. If anyone on my list posts annoying politics, I hide their posts for a few weeks. If they ever spread anything I consider hateful, I block them permanently.
Last edited by TheShadow; 08-18-2020 at 11:53 AM..
Cell phones are absolutely an open window into pretty much everything you do, followed by Google then Facebook. The puzzling thing is that no one seems to really understand or care about the implications.
LOL, I love true crime and follow a podcast regularly. These idiots who do away with somebody and then lie about where they were are morons. They know which towers your phone pinged off, you're on camera wherever you go, if you use a credit card they know when and where and what you bought.
Even the ones who are pretending to be as concerned about their girlfriend who "disappeared" as much as everybody else--the police check your phone, and you've never again tried to text or call her since the day she went missing? Why is that?
Some people think anything you do online is bad some way or another. I don't. I watch my privacy settings carefully, and I don't share anything that shouldn't be shared.
I've been on FB for 11 years. It's the one and only way I keep in contact with distant family. I've been able to communicate with my nieces and nephews and their kids all this time; I know how they're doing, who has gotten married, who has had a baby, who has graduated, who has gotten a new job, who has died. I see their pictures, so I now know what they look like, which I rarely knew before FB. They have gotten to know me as well. None of this happened before FB. Two of my sisters don't use FB, and they have no idea how our distant family members are doing, and, as well, none of them have any idea how my sisters are doing. As far as the rest of the family can see, these two sisters of mine don't even exist, as they are out of the loop. FB is a very easy and comfortable way to communicate, and I'm happy to have it.
As for FB groups, it's the way I keep informed and communicate with others:
My town Facebook page gives me news about local events that I never heard of before, and now I know all about them. I've gotten to know people all over town, people I never had the opportunity to meet in person. Same with other local towns, I keep up with the news in the entire area, in the county, and in the region. If there is crime going on anywhere around here, I hear about it on FB. If there is a missing person or a lost dog anywhere nearby, I know about it. If there are stray pigs on the road, or a bear or cougar spotted in the woods, I know about it. I know everything that's going on.
Not only that, but I belong to several Facebook healthcare groups where we share useful information about healthcare, FB gardening groups including very specific types of gardening, and various hobby groups that I find very helpful and entertaining.
Facebook entertains me, informs me, and keeps me in touch with people, and I'd miss it if it was gone.
Last edited by oldgardener; 08-18-2020 at 12:57 PM..
The people I know who won't use FB are afraid of how their information will be used, something like that.
I enjoy FB and if I didn't have it I couldn't keep in touch with distant family members and friends from long ago whom I never get to see anymore. It's taken the place of writing letters but it's better in a way because I get to see the kids of my relatives and how they are growing up or cute things that they do.
Beyond the family and friends and postings of kitty cats and puppy dogs, I love the various groups you can join, such as genealogy groups for your own surname or part of the country, the gardening group for my state, the local buying and selling yard sale group, and the group for the town I live in. I also "liked" the town library and a local restaurant so I get notices from them on openings, closings, goings on, etc. A farm in town and the farmers market will notify me when they are having a "special" on something. I'm going on and on, but there is just so much on FB. I even belong to the FB group for the village in the north of England where my grandfather came from and since I met some of the townspeople one time, I get to keep in touch with them too. Wow, I guess I must really like FB.
My community has a FB page, and I do get alot of useful info on it about the community, such as good vendors too use. Bad reviews travel like wildfire, on FB. It keeps companies, on the up and up. Other then that, it`s nice to see photo`s of family far away.
For me, FB is too shallow and transient. Unless you've got it in front of your face all the time, everything scrolls past too quickly. It's okay for shallow conversation, for 'Hi, how ya doing? Fine? Bye.' but much more than that it's not the right venue.
It's also a conversation that everyone else is listening in on. Rather a lot like old CB radio. It's good for talking to a group where you're not quite sure who's listening in (even with the privacy settings engaged, the conversation still gets out there with folks cutting and pasting and sending it on). There is a private messenger side to it, but that's a very weak option when compared to true email.
And I don't want my family talking to my friends and I don't want all my friends talking to each other. They're all not going to get along, I don't need drama.
I'll browse FB about once a week but I rarely post anything on anyone else's page and never update my own.
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Or anything that rings of the truth.
