Hi,
i came to the conclusion that, if you have no real friend nearby you are mostly stuck with not a lot to talk and have little (in my case) interaction via facebook.
I have some friends i knew from long ago, but not a lot of friends i chat or stay really in touch. Maybe i just can’t communicate anymore via internet.
Now i am thinking of just closing my facebook account, but i wonder if thats even wise to do since so many things go with facebook.
Did anyone here close his facebook account? How did it affect you?
I tried it a while back with some friends. I couldn’t ever get into internet social networking sites, they just aren’t for me. If you want to close your Facebook account, I don’t see anything stopping you, nothing stopped me that’s for sure. I feel if you don’t want to use something, don’t use it. You won’t be a outcast or anything like that by not doing so ;).
I don’t use Facebook. But from what I’ve heard and seen it’s basically a Myspace-twitter hybrid with much more data mining.
But maybe I’m the wrong person to ask since I’m a bit paranoid about my security.
The last panel in this pretty much sums it up. xkcd: Infrastructures
Well, thing was, i originally got an account because i am overseas and so it was a good thing to stay in touch, but to be honest i think i am not that in touch with anyone.
Gee, maybe this is really for the network people (young and old) that have a large friend community and all.
I feel somewhat like an outcast, since no one writes on my wall. Thats sounds silly, but considering that this a socialsite and the whole point is to be social, it did not play out well for me. Or maybe i just did not understand the whole point of facebook and their like.
I think i will deactivate it and see if there is any motion going on, but i second the notion that you stay in touch with emails too.
Sad, i am an outcast now for web 2.0.
Welcome to the club. I never saw the value in the info-tainment and the instant gratification, especially with what we sacrifice in privacy and anonymity in the process. I guess it’s supply and demand, but this isn’t what I asked for.
yester64 wrote:
> Did anyone here close his facebook account? How did it affect you?
just like everything else, facebook is not for everyone…
i find it an extremely easy way to stay connected to real friends
and family spread all over the world in many time zones…
no, it is not the center of my life–it is only one more way to
maintain contact…i have some friends on facebook that i talk with
(often) by Skype, others are a very short drive away and i talk to
them on a telephone, or just sit and talk over a cup of joe, or
arrange to rendezvous at a sidewalk cafe for lunch or a blues joint
for an evening of music, or …
those folks who think facebook is anything other than a medium for
communications…well, they need to look again…
personally, i don’t plan to unplug my phone, or turn off my mobile, or
shut down my email account, or uninstall Skype, or throw out my IRC or
disconnect my IM client or tear the mail box off the front of my house OR close my facebook account…
ymmv…oh, i do avoid myspace and hotmail as much as i can, as they
never seem to work very quickly with my firefox on linux, i wonder why?
It is a bit more, mainly a medium to collect data about its users and selling it to others who will send you personalized advertising - that’s how FB makes money. These companies will get every information you provide with your profile and anything you do within FB: hobbies, age, sex, political point of view, favourite movies or books, your connections to others within FB etc. etc. Facebook is also known for changing their terms of service often, so when getting an account on FB you can not be sure what terms there will be next week. Not many FB-users are aware that today these terms include FBs right to keep and use anything you ever provided to FB, be it comments, uploaded pictures, videos or whatever and use these in whatever way they please - even after you canceled your account. Many accounts can be used by third parties as well as by default the private settings are set to “public” and it seems (so I have heard) a bit tedious to set them to private. I have come across some FB-members who thought they had their profile set to private and yet were public. This is also critical insofar, as the profile often contains for example EMail-adresses of people who are not members of FB.
FB has a very lax attitude towards privacy, and one should be aware of that.
do I really want my personal info out there for all including advertisers, spamers, data miners, identity thieves, and clients/employers to read? Nope!
people near and far can email me, people near and far can talk over the phone, and of course the locals can always meet with me in person maybe over coffee. Just leave their IM, Texting, tweeting, device in the pocket till we’re done conversing right!
I signed up to contact somebody I had met and lost touch with and found again on Facebook.
An old friend also found me via my entry.
Nonetheless, I’m hardly ever on it. Maybe I login once a month out of curiosity to see if anybody has messaged me. I do however post campaigns that I have subscribed to my wall. But I seldom check to see if anybody has commented.
I know people who have to be on it everyday. But then they are chatty people so I’m not surprised. I’m sure too that some people have an addiction to it.
If you thought that Facebook could help you socialise, you were wrong. It doesn’t help you anymore than having a mobile phone does. It’s just a tool. No more so than this forum either. In the final analysis you have to have common interests and the best way is to meet people.
I’m also amused by (I suspect older folk) dumping on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Sure, perhaps 99% of use is vacuous, but I bet they said the same thing about the telephone. I’m sure that caused addictions too in it’s day.
So close it by all means. Or not close it and ignore it. It doesn’t really matter either way, don’t you think?
Hahaa dare you say it! Blasphemy! How dare you mention meeting anyone in ‘real-life’. Thats so old fasioned! No body actually wants to SEE their family and friends!
Actually the detractors have this idea that people who use social media hide behind their computers in curtained rooms. Well you could use it that way, but many people use it as an adjunct to real socialising and it’s what they do in between F2F meetings to keep in touch. Certainly the prolific posters I know on social networks are outgoing or chatty people in real life too.
It’s just another means of communication. I don’t use them, but I can see why they attract some people.
I was not referring to your behaviour within FB (which I do not know). I am warning generally here - and suggest to take some time thinking about whether one wants to support such business models. I was contradicting to your statement that FB is simply a platform for communication - to me this statement is trivializing what Facebook is doing.
There are no free rides these days. If you go for a stroll, billboards assault you. If you rent a landline, marketeers call you. If you want to view news videos, they play you an ad first. If you get gmail you get to see ads, same with Yahoo. So expect that like everybody else they will try to commercialise your entry. But there is no requirement that you provide them with all the info they ask for. And you can provide one of any 365 possible other birthdays. lol!
That is too much resignation for me. In fact there are many ways to remain private and avoid ad-bombing. And my actual point: I simply do not like the model that private info and behaviour is shared with parties whose only interest is to exploit such information commercially. I think we should refuse that kind of control.
No, I’m not resigned. I gave up my landline. If people want to call me they can use my mobile which will cost them a little, not much for a person, but costly to an advertiser. I stopped buying newspapers years ago. Anything interesting can be found on the website of national broadcasters so why should I support those newspaper dinosaurs. I have a squid ad filter for browsing, it saves me bandwidth also and eliminates a lot of flashing fields. Anyway I go straight for the information I want and seldom get distracted by the sidebars.
In fact I have got more telephone spam ever than from signing up for Internet services. Some email I do want, like from community and advocacy groups that I support. I’m satisfied with my level of control.
