Shunning Facebook, and Living to Tell About it!

[mommyoftwinboys]

I just recently signed back up because I wanted to be on Pintrest, but I'm not accepting friend requests(it's amazing how many friend requests you get from people I have no clue who they are). I was on many years ago and gave it up for Lent one year and never went back. I'm happier without it, but I know that alot of people love it..to each their own (-:

[Abeille]

Good for you.

 

And marriage after marriage has broken up - most recently one of 23 years duration in our extended family - over wives and husbands looking up old exes and starting up a flirtation that seems innocent at first. It all takes place right in front of the spouse, because the person is "only on the computer". Facebook didn't cause it, of course, but actually having to carry it out in real life would have been much more difficult. It was all Facebook until they took off on a weekend vacation together.

 

 

Welcome to my life. My dh is in regular contact with his first serious girlfriend from college, and I"m pretty sure she's flying to meet him next month when he travels on business. Yeah, not a FB fan.

[LaxMom]

I have an account, but only go on when somebody sends me a message. It occurred to me several months ago that I.just.do.not.care what random carp is floating around in the heads of others. At all.

 

Between that and the political/religious/social rants... Yeah, no interest.

[Barb_]

Welcome to my life. My dh is in regular contact with his first serious girlfriend from college, and I"m pretty sure she's flying to meet him next month when he travels on business. Yeah, not a FB fan.

 

:grouphug: I'm so sorry.

[Zebra]

:lol: love it.

We're not on it. Yes, we're pariahs. But it does make it easier for others to gossip about us, knowing we won't see it! :tongue_smilie:

 

:lol:!

[melmichigan]

When people look at me like I have three heads for not being on Facebook, I just laugh and say, "I refuse to be assimilated."

 

I love this!

 

I am sick and tired of hearing about how I need Facebook. It's usually from people I know who can't manage to pick up the phone, send an email, or gasp, send a letter; but I need Facebook.

[Tohru]

Actually, these days it's about much more than entertainment. It's about knowing what is happening.

 

 

 

Yep, it's the way I find out about HS excursions, it's the way we communicate with our Scouts. It's the way I find out what courses places are offering.

 

How? I mean seriously, how?

 

If they install a cookie and you don't clear your cookies regularly, well yeah, I can see that. But it should be standard practice for you to regularly clear your cookies. If you don't, more fool you, it's not just FB that is tracking your every move.

I can't imagine that they install tracking software on your computer!

 

There is something called an IP address that you have when going online. It can be traced to your location and apparently it's pretty easy to track too.

 

Logging into a FB account means you've already given them your identity and correlating IP address.

[momsquared]

Except email (or phone in some cases) is just as fast and effective as Facebook, and email (or phone) is not as open to personal information.

 

You don't put your Facebook account on a resume, or list it as your contact info under more formal situations.

 

Facebook is purely entertainment. I have other forms of entertainment.

 

Besides I like going against the current. :D

 

Your kind of wrong. In this economy FB has regularly been used as one of the number one ways to network and find a job. People are connected to friends of friends which increases your opportunity to get yourself out there when looking for work. We don't post resumes yet, but I bet someday soon we will.

[imagine.more]

:iagree: -- and I hate that other things like Pinterest are "tied to" FB and Twitter!!

 

Yes! I just made a fake twitter account and that worked fine for me, I love pinterest.

 

I'm one of those hold-outs on the facebook thing, I just do not see the point. Why would I want to be 'friends' with every idiot from my high school or whatever? That's ridiculous, if people want to chat they can call, text, or e-mail, I never change my phone or e-mail address even through 5 moves in 5 years so it's not like I'm hard to reach without facebook.

[LAS in LA]

Facebook is the public square.

 

I agreed with everything you said except for this. A public square means everyone can show up and participate, not just my "friends". It's more like a members-only club than a public square.

[3Blessings]

When asked, I tell people I am not on facebook because it is the Kraken.

 

That usually gives me time to get away or change the subject...

 

:lol: I am laughing so hard that I'm crying!!

 

I was on FB for a while, but I found that it did nothing positive for me. In fact, what it did was:

 

1. Suck all my time

 

2. Give me a place to whine (like I need more of that!!)

 

3. Keep me from walking down the street to talk to my neighbors because I could just FB them instead (false sense of community)

 

4. Give me more reasons to dislike someone due to narcissistic posts and/or attention-seeking status updates.

 

It isn't inherently bad, but it wasn't good for me. It was, like she said, the Kraken!! :lol:

[T'smom]

Well, I'm on facebook and I LOVE it! I really don't get where some of you guys are coming from. There is no drama on my page. There is very, very little of "my life is so perfect", there is a LOT of cute, funny kid stories, a lot of playdate announcements, a lot of interesting stories. We just had dh's very extended family Christmas and I knew a lot of what was going on in people's lives and could ask questions about it. I knew who had been doing a lot of canning, who had been watching Storage Wars, whose kids had done fun projects at school. Dumb stuff? Yeah, but it gave me a point of connection with people I don't really know all that well. I'm a fan! A big one!

[In the Rain]

 

How? I mean seriously, how?

 

If they install a cookie and you don't clear your cookies regularly, well yeah, I can see that. But it should be standard practice for you to regularly clear your cookies. If you don't, more fool you, it's not just FB that is tracking your every move.

I can't imagine that they install tracking software on your computer!

 

I can't find the original article I read. It was something my dad forwarded to me. Doing a google search, I turned up a bunch of hits, mostly quoting this information:

 

And Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, expressed alarm at how Facebook's technology could potentially be used to build extensive profiles of individual Web users.

"Whoever visits Facebook or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years," Weichert said in a statement. "Such profiling infringes German and European data protection law."

 

Adding fuel to such concerns, Arnold Roosendaal, a doctoral candidate at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Nik Cubrilovic, an independent Australian researcher, separately documented how Web pages containing Facebook plug-ins carried out tracking more extensive than Facebook publicly admitted to.

 

Noyes says Germany doesn't understand how the company's tracking technologies work. And he blames "software bugs" for the indiscriminate tracking discovered by Roosendaal and Cubrilovic.

 

I don't understand how it works.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Well' date=' I'm on facebook and I LOVE it! I really don't get where some of you guys are coming from. There is no drama on my page. There is very, very little of "my life is so perfect", there is a LOT of cute, funny kid stories, a lot of playdate announcements, a lot of interesting stories. We just had dh's very extended family Christmas and I knew a lot of what was going on in people's lives and could ask questions about it. I knew who had been doing a lot of canning, who had been watching Storage Wars, whose kids had done fun projects at school. Dumb stuff? Yeah, but it gave me a point of connection with people I don't really know all that well. I'm a fan! A big one![/quote']

 

Good! It works for you. It's just not something I want or need. It's one of those "different strokes for different folks" kind of thing. I have no problem with people having it or not but I do mind if people judge me for my decision regarding it.

[Crissy]

:iagree: -- and I hate that other things like Pinterest are "tied to" FB and Twitter!!

 

Yes! I just made a fake twitter account and that worked fine for me, I love pinterest.

 

 

There is (as far as I can tell) always an option to log in without either of those accounts.

I do not care to connect any of my other online activity to my fb account, so I don't use the fb or Twitter connection options.

I just use my email address and a unique password on Pinterest.

[Happy2BaMom]

Everything you type or upload is their property. They can load tracking cookies onto your computer and see the other things you do online when you're not on FB, regardless of privacy settings. Why would any one want that kind of stranger intrusion into their life, online or not.

 

On a side note, I now have to switch my e-mail from Google, because Google automatically signs me into YouTube! when I visit. If I cancel my YT account, it doesn't matter, because the very next time I visit YT (not that that is that often, but regardless), I am signed into YT automatically via my Google account & everything is tracked. Unless one's YT account is older than 1999, you cannot avoid this unless you cancel your Google account. Then I won't have access to Google docs, etc. but I don't care. It just ticks me off - Big Brother.

 

I have a FB account, but I have literally one friend (my dh), and I post no information, pics, nothing - I just use it for tracking organizations that I need to follow, because so many (including my church) use FB for posting updates - a lot of places don't even update their web pages anymore. I hadn't thought of using a fake ID, but I like that idea. Of course, with one friend, it may not matter!

 

Oh - and I've had two (formerly) good friends now who have fallen by the wayside because "life has just gotten too busy", yet they have 200+ FB friends each and spend hours each day on FB. It has nothing to do with intimacy, IMHO.

 

However, I can see how some people can use it in keeping up with long-distance family members.

 

Glad to know there are those who are drawing a line in the sand!

[annandatje]

Well, it's true that many younger people communicate through either facebook or texting. Many of them shun email and phone calls. Email is for old people like us :lol: and work related communication. Phone calls are for when you have no other choice. Whether it's facebook or some other social media, the way we communicate is changing. Yes, it's assimilation, but you either assimilate or get left behind.

 

 

I wonder if people who clung to telegraph as preferred communication mode did so with a sense of superiority as the early adapters were moving to landline telephones. Same probably transpired when cell phones began capturing a larger market share from landline phones.

 

I do not have much to add except that I loudly proclaim my indifference to facebook, twitter, and any of their ilk. To view a friend's pictures, I had to set up a facebook account. Shortly thereafter, it was used in place of an email loop to arrange homeschool get togethers. I look at it once in awhile. I do like that I get an email to notify me if someone has sent me a message.

 

Someone mentioned facebook drama participants. Were those people drama seekers prior to fb? My guess is that drama seeking is more a component of personality and not related to which method of communication a person uses.

 

Facebook's privacy invasions are not a concern for me. With the technological advances of the electronic era, privacy is fast becoming a relic. However, I have advised one of my teens to be more discreet about what she is willing to post online. Employers look over a potential job candidate's internet footprint.

Edited December 15, 2011 by annandatje
ETA: privacy

[mytwomonkeys]

i'm status free too. i have no FB account. i did make a google circle account thingy...but couldn't figure it out to save my life, so i deleted it.:)

[annandatje]

Almost everyone that I know socially is on it. I rarely go anywhere where I don't hear about this or that "on Facebook." I am pertually out of the loop, but by choice.

 

I went to a work-related seminar in November, and they were strongly recommending that anyone in that profession avoid it entirely. I already figured that. ;)

 

Hm. I work in what is considered a stodgy field. Virtually all the larger firms in our area are on facebook and twitter and encourage their employees to link (not sure if that is right word) to firm's facebook page.

 

Last year, our firm required all employees to sign an internet conduct agreement regardless of whether they were linked to firm's twitter and facebook pages.

 

Were they recommending avoiding internet altogether or just refraining from putting personal information out there on web?

[Lilymax]

Your kind of wrong. In this economy FB has regularly been used as one of the number one ways to network and find a job. People are connected to friends of friends which increases your opportunity to get yourself out there when looking for work. We don't post resumes yet, but I bet someday soon we will.

 

:iagree: As a freelance writer, I have gotten several well-paying gigs from friends-of-friends on Facebook. For me, it is mostly about easy communication, but real, valuable connections are made there. My family has been able to help an orphanage in Africa due to Facebook connections. I can't imagine I'd have ever known of this small organization otherwise.

 

So it's not all evil! LOL

[lewelma]

I am just busy. Facebook steals time as far as I am concerned. I consider it entertainment just like a movie. And I would rather watch a movie.

 

no facebook here,

 

Ruth in NZ

[keptwoman]

There is something called an IP address that you have when going online. It can be traced to your location and apparently it's pretty easy to track too.

 

Logging into a FB account means you've already given them your identity and correlating IP address.

You give every site you go to your IP address. As admin of a forum I have access to everyone's IPs and yes, I can track them through that. But many IPs are dynamic rather than static, ie they change every time you log on your computer.

 

The plug ins mentioned by another poster make more sense and its a good reminder not to link too much of your online life to any one provider, and IMHO that includes google. Again, regular clearing of your computer of extraneous content can help with this.