I just very recently joined this Facebook thing. Apparently it is quite popular. Lots of people are on there from my past. Some of them seem to make a career out of informing people what they are doing right now. I'm not sure why I would want to know that my high school friend John "checked in" at Pinkberry four hours ago, but I now have access to that vital piece of information. The most exciting thing that has happened so far is that I found out how to block Farmville, Frontierville, and Mafia Wars, and now my news feed is filled with a firehose of mundane shit that happens in the real world instead of the real AND virtual worlds. I consider this a huge win. FOCUS: How have social networks changed your life? Did you reconnect with old friends? Did you get stalked by an old flame? Did you do the stalking? Do you use it as a sneaky form of internet dating, a pretext to hook up with "friends of friends?" Did it remind you why you don't talk to people from high school anymore?
I know Im getting a little tired of girls I know posting those 4D ultrasound shots of their babies. Makes the babies look like stillborn corpse before the baby even has a chance to die. The worst infraction goes to the deaf girl from my high school though. I never knew her personally but it's facebook so I accepted her friends request. She turns out to be one of those compulsive updaters that is going through emotional turmoil on every.single.post. Who's gleefully happy one moment because she's found the love of her life. Pained and pissed off the next when he hasn't returned her messages. But she takes extra special care to thank our lord and savior Jesus Christ for helping her through each of her trials. The creme de la creme was when she posted a cellphone video of her and her boyfriend lightly making out and him throwing up the "I love you" sign language right as the film ends. She has totally turned me off my weird fascination with finding what type of animalistic sounds would come out of deaf girl while fucking her. Other than that Facebook has become my main means of communication between me and my friends back in the states. I couldnt believe that I had never actually emailed a single one of my friends through my email address, everybody I know just uses facebook and its IM chat (which has basically killed AIM). I reconnected with a girl on myspace that I hooked up with a few years ago. We almost ended up hooking up again since she claimed she was in the middle of divorcing her husband (they met after I had stopped hanging out with her). He found our correspondence and she defriended me. I still check her site to see if her status has changed. She sure could suck a dick. There were also a few girls that I met randomly at parties or on campus where Id forget their name and not see them again. In stalker like fashion Id methodically track them down through facebook but never reconnected or friends them since too much time had elapsed from our meeting to seem not creepy.
I grew up in a military town. After joining Facebook I met back up with several of my childhood friends. Also, those of us that had scattered all over the globe now keep in touch. I find it annoying when people put pictures of their children as their profile pictures, then send me a friend request. I have drowned way too many brain cells over the years to be able to remember someone by name alone. It also makes me want to vomit when my "friends" have suddenly found Jesus and feel the need to passively-aggressively shove religion down my throat through status updates. ***On another note, I'm now engaged- somewhat due to Facebook. My fiance and I had gone to high school together and he sent me a friend request. Basically he bugged the holy hell out of me until I agreed to go to dinner with him and we have been together ever since.
I only recently got Facebook as well. I was the only single person in my group of friends to not have it, and I guess I just eventually caved. I'm not really regretting the decision as of yet. It certainly makes it easier to figure out what's happening with weekend plans/events, and I have reconnected with a few people from the past whom I lost contact with. Most importantly, I just enjoy taking the piss out of people a la Lamebook, making it sort of a creative outlet for inappropriate dead baby jokes if you will.
I always end up joining social networks under pressure from friends. First it was MySpace, and I felt like it was a huge time sucker. I joined Facebook under the same pretenses, but I thought maybe it would suck up less of my time. I was wrong. The only positive thing I can say about Facebook is that it lets me keep track of the girls my boyfriend talks to without seeming like a clingy bitch. I feel like it helps our relationship because I can look into these girls and assure myself that they have something I don't, which keeps him from cheating on me. * *Re-reading that makes me feel like a clingy bitch. I'm not, I promise.
Exactly the reason I joined up ~2 weeks ago. Sometimes it seems all the information on some events is shared on facebook and facebook alone.
I was horribly unpopular in high school. I never had any real desire to see any of those people again. As such, I don't have facebook, twitter, or any other social networking service. I hear so many horror stories, and few good ones that I feel for me I made the right decision in avoiding these sites.
I joined Facebook around the time when it was just starting to be available to most college students (2003?). It's been an awesome tool for reconnecting with old friends. Also, it helps when a friend throws up a status to say where they are for the night if anyone wants to meet up. I signed up for Myspace and subsequently deactivating the account a week or so later, site was dead by the time I joined. I'm also on a lot of the "professional" social networking sites like Linked In, these sites have been wholly worthless so far, but will hopoefully pay off. Yeah, this is huge. It's basically assumed everyone has an account and it's a great way to keep tabs on what your schedule is.
This is funny. I'm definitely not the oldest person on the board, but I'm old enough to remember a time before cell phones, texting, or facebook. I didn't have a cell-phone when I graduated college, but this is what I knew if I decided to show up at 1 of my 5 "go-to" bars: a) there was 75% chance that I knew somebody; and b) there was a 100% chance that there would be drunk people. This is basically all you needed to know about social networking in the 90s. I had a myspace account for a short period of time, but I felt like it was a full-time job trying to keep up with it. I never joined Facebook, although there are definitely some people I'd like to get back in touch with that I otherwise wouldn't know how to reach. It's a slippery slope, so I opt for the privacy.
Both my wife's family and my own family are scattered across Ontario and Quebec. Geographically, the closest relatives to me are a 3 hour drive away and the furthest a good 7 hour drive. This makes it difficult to get together frequently. Yes, there is always the phone, but I'm not going to realistically call everyone every few days just to see what's going on. With Facebook, I can passively keep track of what's going on with family on a daily basis. It also allows me to keep family abreast of what's going on in my life, share pictures, etc. For this, I think Facebook is a great tool. However, I have been very selective in who I accept as a Facebook friend, keeping it almost exclusively to family and a few good friends. What I could do without are all the damn games people play on Facebook whose updates clutter up the News Feed, which is my primary means of seeing what's going on. Thankfully, just about every one of these games can be hidden from the feed.
Speaking of hiding those damn games. Has anyone found a way to do it on the iPhone app. The settings I've set on the web do not transfer and I can't find a button to hide that shit.
I use it to keep up with a lot of old friends and coworkers. Before that, I used it to keep up with my family and friends here in my home town. Its helped me maintain friendships that would've otherwise died out due to moving. I also use it to plan events (it has been a tremendous help in planning and discussing my upcoming fantasy football leagues). Most recently, my high school class is using Facebook to contact everyone and start planning our ten year high school reunion (I graduated in 2001). I'm not like others I know on facebook, though. My wife, for example, has literally some 300+ friends. A lot of them are people she added when she was in Marching Band or other friends from College that she literally hasn't spoken too or thought about in about 5 years. I have something like 40 or 50. I tend to keep my facebook friends list to people I know and contact fairly regularly, or people I was genuinely good friends with in high school or college that may have moved away, along with family. If there is someone I just don't talk to or care about, I just delete them from my friends list. Seems silly to keep them there, really. I'm not one of those people who measures their popularity by the number of e-friends they have. Besides, the more friends you have, the easier it is for people to get your information, in my opinion. If you have some 300 friends and constantly just add anyone who sends you a friend request, that is how some employers end up seeing your facebook page. They count on the fact that people will add just about anyone who requests it. Finally, my wife and I have spoken, and we've agreed that when we have kids, there will be absolutely no pictures of them on facebook. Maybe that is just silly paranoia on our part, but the truth is that the second you put something online, it is out there, and it ain't easy to take it back, so that is one part of our lives we just don't want 'out there' for anyone to see.
Like people have mentioned, it's a great way to stay in touch with friends across the country. Also a great way to stay in touch with people you'd rather not see or hear of again. I'd rather not see/talk/run in to anyone from my hometown. I semi-stalk my ex-boyfriend. We broke up on good terms because of distance. I just sometimes check to see if he's dating anyone, and we don't talk often enough for me to just call out of the blue. And, I kind of have a female stalker. I was in the same class with her for a semester in middle school. For some reason, to her, she is best friends with any person she's had any sort of contact with. Right after I moved back I ran into her at the mall. After 10+ years of NOT seeing this girl, I didn't recognize her face or name. She had to tell me how we knew each other. This girl literally cornered me in a dressing room for an hour. I kept wrapping up the convo so I could leave, but she just dove into another topic to rattle on about. Finally, I just flat out said, "I have to go. I'm late for something. NOW!" Since then, she's made no fewer than a dozen attempts to friend me on Facebook. I ignore all of them out of principle. Who are these people? I can't think of a pre-Facebook equivalent.
I joined Facebook about two years ago because of, like everyone else, pressure from friends. I wasn't that big of a fan at first, but I like it well enough now that I've just accepted it for what it is. I've got a very large portion of my friends blocked from showing up on my news feed, that way I don't have to read the drivel that comes out of the pregos and the "what I'm doing every 10 minutes" types. Mainly what my friends and I use Facebook for is pictures. Also, me and two of my closest friends (and one or two others from time to time) mainly use Facebook to find and post the most random and strange pictures/videos/links from the internet to each others walls. We constantly get friends telling us in person how they always get a kick out of the weird shit that we post on there. We've turned it into a fun little game of sorts.
Exactly how I feel. I also had a MyWhoreSpace page for a bit but it got mundane and just seemed more work than it was worth. I have this thing called a cell phone and coincidentally so do all my friends. I can call them whenever I want to yack or make plans. It even has this cool feature where I can leave a message so they can call me back! As for finding old friends, I have rather large expanded circle friends as it is now. I don't need more.
I don't have Facebook. I just don't care enough or see a benefit to sign up. I can barely juggle the girlfriend, the job, and the friends I currently have as it is. Really, there is only one downside I see for me not having Facebook. It the constant answering of the question, "Why aren't you on Facebook?". In what fucking universe should I have to justify myself regarding this. The first couple times I tried actually explaining that I don't have time for it, blah, blah, blah. Now I just tell people (seems like mostly women who ask this) I can't read* so it would be pretty pointless to try and sign up. They usually get the hint. *Some would say the sarcasm in this statement is debatable.
Exactly how I feel. I also had a phone for a bit but it got mundane and just seemed more work than it was worth. I have this thing called legs and coincidentally so do all my friends. I can visit them whenever I want to yack or make plans. It even has this cool feature where I can leave a note so they can visit me back! As for finding old friends, I have rather large expanded circle friends as it is now. I don't need more. ...God you people are fucking old. It's a tool, it has uses, it is what you make of it.
I don't need it therefore I opt not to use it, therefore I don't have to make anything of it. So there. And, we're breaking up. You're a grump. I'm taking the dog and the home theater system.
Exactly. If you don't want to join facebook, I have no problem with that, but I can't stand the people who you can tell are proud of the fact they don't use it, as if they're resisting some evil pull that all the other sheep have been drawn too. (Not aimed at you shegirl, I'm just talking in general.) It's funny, as the internets have evolved, I've actually been doing more real-life socializing... I used MSN messenger all the fucking time through high school and the first couple years of university ('01-'07 or so), and would regularly have "conversations" on line. Now I really only use facebook, and that's just to make plans for real life events, and to post hilarious pictures of kittens.