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Author Topic: Why I'm done with Facebook
scifibum
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I was tepid on the whole thing at first anyway. I don't really pine to be kept up to date on the happenings in the lives of anyone I know, or to socialize in that particular format.

I think I signed up because a few people at work and a few family members suggested it and hey, how bad could it be?

So I signed up. I found those few people and added them as friends. I filled out my profile and added a few pictures. Figured I'd pretty much leave it alone after that. I occasionally post what I'm doing at the moment - some random bit of oddball humor - but I don't spend more than a couple of minutes a week on the site, if that.

Slowly, my network started to expand. My wife was friends with a lot of people and they all send me friend requests. Sure, why not. Then some of my old high school classmates added me to their networks, and, OK, nice to see some old names (and peculiar how now, after 13 years, some people want to be my "friend" who never said a word to me back then, but that's not a bad thing, right?). Extended family members and other past acquaintances found me through those networks. Nothing big, as far as FB goes I'm sure I'm in the bottom decile of friend count.

As the network grew, I started getting strange invitations. Odd games that didn't sound interesting at all, applications I didn't need. I would let the invitations build up for a while and then just decline them all. A minor annoyance - well, not even that, just a quick bit of housekeeping - to deal with whenever I happened to log on.

But those invitations kept building up. Then I started getting friend requests from people I don't even know. Friends of friends, I guess. And from people that were actively mean to me, or to people like me, in high school. I start declining friend invitations because I can see that it doesn't end, and I have no desire to increase the amount of time I spend nursing facebook.

At this point I am right at the break even point: I get a minor amount of satisfaction from knowing that some past acquaintances and distant relatives exist and that I can find out about what's going on with them if I choose to (even if I never so choose). I also get a minor amount of annoyance at the list of unwanted invitations that show up in FB whenever I log on.

Then it happens.

My mother-in-law sends me a friend invitation.

It's still sitting there, pulsing and ominous. It's been a week.

I can't decline it...she's my MIL. She will notice. She will care. She will talk about it to family members.

I can't accept it...she's my MIL. I have no desire for my infrequent status updates to be seen by any parental figure of any kind. I admit, I filter the information they receive, and I don't need the hassle of one more filter application to maintain. What's more, she will try to be hip - I know her - and some of that will be directed toward me, and I don't know if I can handle it.

All I can do is ignore it. As long as I don't update Facebook, there is no way she can figure out that I'm ignoring her on purpose. If she mentions it to my wife, I can be all "Oh, I never go on there."

This has actually awoken me to the dark possibilities. What about my grandmother? What about my boss?

It simply cannot work out in the long run.

I have to walk away. I'm toying with removing myself entirely, but I'm not sure whether that is wise. I've heard sometimes it's best just to play dead.

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Sean Monahan
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This was not just a forum post; it was great literature.
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TL
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I don't know that it was Great Literature; nobody died.
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Alcon
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Perhaps an excellent op-ed column. [Wink]
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Godric 2.0
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quote:
Originally posted by TL:
I don't know that it was Great Literature; nobody died.

...well, not yet, anyway. It could just be the prologue.
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Starsnuffer
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Yeah it reads a bit like the introduction to some tale of intrigue about how facebook is used to fake the person's death and disappear or something...
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King of Men
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Indeed, the obvious solution is to hire a hitman to take care of the mother-in-law. This not only takes care of the friend request, but also gives the post Great Literature potential. Also, you can mention at the funeral, in a grief-stricken sort of way, that you wish now you'd accepted her friend request; word will get around and people might take the hint. Make sure she's got powerful life insurance first.
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Orincoro
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Honestly Scifi, the many stories I've heard from people who feel oppressed by Facebook don't seem to get that it is not just what you want it to be, or what you wish it was, but in itself something that comes with positives and negatives. I would have sympathy, except I think of what my father says about cell phones- about how he doesn't want to be reachable when he's on his own. But he's a type 1 diabetic who doesn't drive, and does get disoriented from time to time, and the refusal to use a cell phone is worrying to his family. Though he owns one now, it stays powered off in the car he doesn't drive.

Part of me just rolls my eyes and says "boohoo." Adoption of new media of communication is tricky- there are pitfalls and problems aplenty. It doesn't *particularly* impress me that all of a sudden your idea of net anonymity or net privacy has been altered. This was bound to happen, and in fact it has to happen in order for the internet to become a fully functioning medium. I find the opposite state to be more troublesome- I mean the state in which net anonymity is so widely assumed, that it is taken for granted, and affects the behavior of whole groups. I've been taunted on Hatrack before for saying things that would only be said under the veil of privacy... except that I have repeatedly and openly revealed my full name and general location many times. This pairing of a full voice, and anonymous existance on the net is not a natural state, and in many ways it is not a healthy state. People should have a chance on the internet to allow their work, their ideas, their output to be their credentials, but they should also be willing to accept that what they say, what they do, and what they post on the internet will have an effect on their lives outside of their personal control. This is a blessing and a curse, but it is also the natural flow of events- it is unstoppable, and those who withdraw from social networking and the internet now are jamming fingers into a dike that is not going to stand much longer.

You should always be allowed to control to what extent your personal life is represented on the internet. However, if you choose to represent yourself on the internet, I feel that aspects of your personal life related to your activity on the net are not things that you should reasonably feel are completely private. So, I have a facebook account, and guess what, the world doesn't revolve around me, and my mother has one too. We are friends. The internet is not my place to live free of all consequences. I should have a reasonable level of control, and a reasonable expectation of privacy, but only a reasonable one- and that I should guard carefully, just as I do in all other aspects of life. Why have we come to expect this privacy on the internet, when we knew it could never last?

Control your privacy settings, be firm with your friend acknowledgments, set reasonable boundaries with your MIL (she wouldn't expect to be invited to have beers with your friends after all), and you will be fine in the end. It's a changing world, and we have to change with it, or shape it into what we need- there is no use retreating from it.

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rivka
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To a significant extent, we can choose the degree to which we change. No one needs a Facebook page. Some of us are perfectly happy without one.
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Orincoro
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This I have no objection with. It's people who actually expect it to be only what they want it to be when they do join, that kind of annoy me. I've been a member for much longer than most people (I was one of the very first adopters outside of the Ivy League), and I've seen plenty of people come and go, piss and moan about it, and I can only shrug. The ability of a complete stranger to ring your house phone and cause your day to be interrupted by the sound has been present in a majority of homes, until quite recently, for half a century or more. And yet most people didn't cancel their telephone service because telemarketers could call, or the in-laws could call, or because it could ring in the middle of the night, over and over again. And there are many reasons why a telephone line is a greater intrusion on privacy than a facebook page.
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rivka
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No. They got answering machines to screen calls and/or answer when they didn't, and services that filter out unwanted calls.

Objecting to the things one doesn't like about Facebook seems pretty reasonable to me. I wonder why you take it so personally. If no one complains, nothing will change. With feedback, things may, or other alternatives may be created.

And sometimes people just complain to vent, which seems to be the case here. Going off on someone because they are venting seems pretty odd. Unless, as I said, you take it personally.

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Lanfear
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You can add your Mother in law and whoever else you don't want to see things, to a locked category on facebook.

You can pick and choose what information she is able to see. That way, you have added her and she has no idea that she is still being filtered information

Problem solved.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

And sometimes people just complain to vent, which seems to be the case here. Going off on someone because they are venting seems pretty odd. Unless, as I said, you take it personally.

I've been the unfortunate recipient of more than one paranoid rant from a family member about how facebook is the root of all evil. This is not a family member I particularly like, but it was one of those conversations that puts you always on the defensive even though they person's opinion doesn't actually matter to you- you know people who do that I'm sure.
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scifibum
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I was trying to be funny. End of story.
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Noemon
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And you succeeded; it was an entertaining piece.
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rivka
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Indeed. [Smile]
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Uprooted
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quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
I was trying to be funny. End of story.

It was great. Have you been studying Chris Bridges? ;-)
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Orincoro
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Am I supposed to be ashamed of disagreeing with you because you were just trying to be funny? Whatever, I guess if you weren't being serious, I shouldn't really care.
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Noemon
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Yes. Deeply, deeply ashamed.
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scifibum
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Ashamed? Of course not. I'm absolutely sure you're right: I could manage it in a way that would make it work better for me. Not doing so is an invitation to have it work poorly for me. Makes sense. [Smile]

For those who were, thanks for being entertained. [Smile] I'm here all week.

"It was great. Have you been studying Chris Bridges? ;-) "

Not really...but he is funny.

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El JT de Spang
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Am I supposed to be ashamed of disagreeing with you because you were just trying to be funny? Whatever, I guess if you weren't being serious, I shouldn't really care.

You shouldn't care either way. He was either joking or venting, or some combination of the two.

Not the sort of thing that requires a rebuttal filled with righteous indignation.

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Orincoro
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I don't believe my rebuttal was righteously indignant. It was just indignant.
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katharina
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Which is funny in its own way.
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scifibum
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quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I don't believe my rebuttal was righteously indignant. It was just indignant.

Maybe "bodaciously indignant"? [Wink]
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rivka
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quote:
Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
Not the sort of thing that requires a rebuttal filled with righteous indignation.

How DARE you!?!
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Orincoro
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That was righteously indignant.
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