Facebook is a real puzzlement

[Fortkentdad]

I Facebook but seldom tweet.

I use it as a social network - what a novel way eh?

My family is flung far and wide and it is the best way to share images, stories and to generally keep up with my children, their children, my siblings, cousins, friends and acquaintances, even my 86 year old Mom is on FB.

I also select what news I get feed to me daily on FB, have joined a bunch of groups, photography, model railroaders, recumbent cyclist, parrot keepers and many more.

I run a children's centre and we use FB to connect with all the young parents who use our services - it is great - and free. We do have a website - not free, The Free FB generates 1,000x more business than the paid webpage.

BTW - FB is your Mother's Social network according to teens today - very few youth use FB and if they do that's the sterilized sharing suitable for viewing my Mom and Dad.

In our community there is an Adult Learning Council that offers courses for adults on soup to nuts, their workshops on ipads and FB are the most popular among the older generation (50+). See if there are any free or low costs courses on using FB in your community - or hook up with a FB nut and let her talk your ear off (FB has far more female users than males).

FB Really works for this old man.

Twitter - can't get my thoughts out in that few characters - and few of my friends tweet.

 

[Michael J.]

FB Really works for this old man.

.

Just sent you a friend request

 

[traceyjj]

My children are on Facebook, therefore I am on Facebook!

WM

Thats why I joined up!

My kids are now "past" that stage where I need to make sure they arent being cyber bullied etc, and they now seldom go on, but I log in once a week or so as my old school friends are quite active on there and we keep up to date that way. Some of my cousins and their kids post c-rap on almost an hourly basis, but I have now filtered them out, and I get requestes to play this game, and that game which I ignore... but I see some amazing photos and am getting some interesting feeds from a couple of sourses.

 

[RocketCowboy]

I do both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is more for friends and family, while Twitter has typically been primarily for work. With photography, those lines are blurring a little, but I really like Don's idea on having a separate photography page for anyone just wanting to follow that. I've set up the separate page, just hadn't promoted it as such. I do keep two separate Twitter accounts though, so photography is separate from the day job. I treat both the photo Twitter and photo Facebook page similar, with a lot of the same content on both, but that may change as well.

 

[Retro]

I was on FB from '07 until this past spring. I went too far with adding 'friends' based on interest alone, and I have too many interests, several of which were offensive (such as X-Sinner) to some of the 'friends' I had. I'm a Libertarian, so I had Libertarian friends, but most of them were atheists. I could handle that, but I also agreed with some of their views, which were offensive to my Christian friends, most of whom think heavy metal is satanic,:stupid: and I hated that I had to keep my opposition to the drug war to myself, to avoid further offenses. Then there's my appreciation of Adam Kokesh and Stefan Molyneux. But I shouldn't like those men because they think the Bible is false. Really?

Then there's my passion for Reformed theology, logic, and critical thinking skills, and nobody cares about that, but I did have a few friends who did. Then there was the debate about alcohol. I couldn't hide my contempt for the prohibitionist crowd. I've never been drunk, but I like whisky once in a while, and I'd like to be able to have a glass of wine with a meal.

I'll explain it this way: I'm on Nikonites because of my love for Nikon cameras and photography. It's not hard for me to keep my posts restricted to this topic, because that is what the site is for, and I don't struggle with any temptation to deviate from that.

What is FB about? It's about YOU. And what am I about? All kinds of things. And most of the people represented by those things don't like each other. I liked all of them for those various specific interests, but my 'friend' list brought them all into the same 'room', so to speak, where my interaction with any one of them offended someone else.

I just couldn't find it in me to eliminate an interest, as with Nikonites, where I eliminate everything but Nikon photography. I wanted everything all at once. I know I could have segregated everyone into groups, but managing what list each post is for, and who sees what, would have been aggravating.

So I 'unfriended' all of my 'friends' and now I have zero. I don't use it anymore.

 

[WayneF]

What is FB about? It's about YOU. And what am I about? All kinds of things. And most of the people represented by those things don't like each other. I liked all of them for those various specific interests, but my 'friend' list brought them all into the same 'room', so to speak, where my interaction with any one of them offended someone else.

That sounds very much like voters and politicians. There are very many issues that matter to running the country well, but some voters can only see one single issue (perhaps like abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, terrorism, etc, etc, but ONLY ONE of them), and absolutely nothing else matters (to them).

 

[Retro]

That sounds very much like voters and politicians. There are very many issues that matter to running the country well, but some voters can only see one single issue (perhaps like abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, terrorism, etc, etc, but ONLY ONE of them), and absolutely nothing else matters (to them).

Yes, I have noticed that. I'm a member of the Pirate Party of Canada, but I was on their forum a few years ago, and we could not agree on much. I gave up.

They want freedom for downloading music and movies, and I am opposed to the laws relating to this (“INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY”:A LIBERTARIAN CRITIQUE), but they only wanted this freedom and the freedom to smoke weed. I agreed with them about IP and smoking weed, but they didn't care about the freedom to direct your own children's schooling, for just one example. I've had my two children in a private Christian school since the beginning, and neither of them have even seen the inside of a public school. I'm very proud of that. But yet I pay taxes to support a school system I wholeheartedly oppose (look up Kathleen Wynn's sex-ed curriculum). These Pirates couldn't care less; in fact, they would support compulsory public education, and the forced abolition of all private education. How do you join forces with such a group even for a point you agree on?

To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure all of the parents who had their kids in the same school as my kids would have been happier than pigs in mud if the Ontario government gave tax dollars to private Christian schools, as they do in Alberta.:disgust: The moral stupidity here sickens me. I would rather have put my kids in a private secular school than a public Christian school. I'm not okay with a gun put to my neighbor's head to extort money to educate my kids. With government, there is always a gun in the room.

I think it's best I not be on Facebook.

 

[Fortkentdad]

I was on FB from '07 until this past spring. ......

What is FB about? It's about YOU. And what am I about? All kinds of things. And most of the people represented by those things don't like each other. I liked all of them for those various specific interests, but my 'friend' list brought them all into the same 'room', so to speak, where my interaction with any one of them offended someone else.

I just couldn't find it in me to eliminate an interest, as with Nikonites, where I eliminate everything but Nikon photography. I wanted everything all at once. I know I could have segregated everyone into groups, but managing what list each post is for, and who sees what, would have been aggravating.

So I 'unfriended' all of my 'friends' and now I have zero. I don't use it anymore.

I hear you.

I suppose it isn't such a problem for me because I'm a little more vanilla in my postings - and I try not to bite when the bait is put out by one of my more opinionated friends.

For example I follow several sites that denounce pseudo-science and all the BS that is posted as fact on FB and other places. I've liked sites like IFLS, Pro-GMO and Pro-Vax groups. Some of my friends are strong anti-vax and many have bought into big-organic's anti-GMO non-science. I tend not to share widely these postings - but I will share a post privately.

I have found that people in general do not appreciate your time and effort to point out the error of their ways. Even when you tell them the latest danger warning going around on Facebook is a regurgitation of the same old Facebook hoax that circulates ever so often on FB. Generally people respond to fear mongering and once there is some graphic image that 'makes the point' the mind is made up and people are "don't confuse me with the facts".

I have learned that if I go to the group page, say the group I've joined of pet parrot people - if I post on that group, only people in that group see it and not all of my friends see what I've shared with my parrot loving friends. And few of my friends are that keen about the finer details of model railroading - so posts to that group are posted where MRR enthusiasts only will see them. If I respond to a friend directly on my own page then I think more people see that unless I make efforts to keep it more private.

Speaking of "Private" - nothing is private after you hit the send button on the internet. Nothing - anywhere. It can be found and if you ever run for public office someone will find it and re-post it. The internet never forgets.

Remembering my Mother is one of my friends is one thing that I always keep in the back of my mind when I choose to engage in a debate on line.

But given the upside of connections to family. And my chance to engage many different people of many different interests I'm not ready to pull the plug as you did.

And I've got a few hundred (well OK thousand) photo's on FB that I can view anywhere I want to. - Yes I also use Flickr and even Google+ - don't want all my eggs in one basket.

 

[Retro]

@Fortkentdad, you and I would disagree on a lot of things, but for some reason I find this refreshing, and I didn't find that on FB. I guess it's because on FB, my contact with another person - say a Pentecostal pastor who is opposed to drinking alcohol - my connection with them had no context, so my view of them was as through a paper towel tube and we 'got into it' (I saved the whole debate). Since there was no positive context, like photography, there was no friendship or camaraderie.

Here, the context is photography. That's a bit like a disagreement with a brother where the context is a blood relationship. I'm not going to hold a grudge here against another Nikonite because he/she supports the 'climate change' agenda. I'm also not going to send that person a link to the Cornwall Alliance, or a Youtube video that debunks global warming. We're here for photography. I wasn't on FB for anything buy my own interests, which are pretty broad.

 

[john*thomas]

There are some very interesting groups on Facebook. Mostly for me the historical ones. People have pulled out their old family albums to contribute pics of the city where I live and the city I grew up. I enjoy seeing these pictures of the past. These people never would have made a website but it's easy for them to scan and add to the pics.

It's also incredibly easy for my kids to take picks of the grandkids and have them posted in seconds. They don't have to individually send them out to everyone.

I've been able to access some local old buildings that I never would have otherwise if it hadn't been through contacts I've made on the above pages. One of my favorite things to shoot is old abandoned buildings and I'm too old to break into them illegally. I posted a picture of my motorcycle and I had a photographer that saw it ask me if she might use it for a photoshoot. I said of course if I can come along also. It was fun.

I take a lot of pictures of the high school band (my daughter is in it) and people really appreciate being able to see the pictures. I've found 5-6 photographers that I really enjoy their work that I follow. A couple are constantly posting pics. I love seeing every one.

Yes, there is a lot of crap on there. People bickering and posting things I've never consider posting but you learn to skip right past it like markers along the highway.