I am addicted to farmville, I have a myspace also but dont really use it.
__________________
Live for today and not tomorrow
Live for the Now and whats here
Stop living for what maybe or what may never come
Live for the day already here
They still have a long way to go to make up for the abuses of the past, but I must say their new approach to privacy settings is a vast improvement. The main privacy page gives you a high-level overview of all your privacy settings and makes it fairly straightforward to modify them.
I try to keep my opinions to myself for the most part, because I don't have a Facebook account and do not fully understand the motivations of people who do. And also because, without direct experience, I am not entirely sure how the privacy settings work, e.g. what are the options available with 'other' for the various settings?
However, what really stands out for me are two things:
1. If the Facebook user agreement is what I think it is, they maintain the right to do what they want with your information. Many if not most user content sites effectively give the site ownership of anything you contribute there; and they reserve the right to change the terms of the agreement without consent, like a nonnegotiated contract.
2. The fact that they don't allow you to opt out of being tagged in photos is also troublesome. The one big uncontrollable factor in maintaining your personal boundaries is other people. People have a tendency to project, so people with very minimal personal boundaries will apply those same boundaries to you, and completely ignore anything you tell them otherwise. So if you know someone who says things like, "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have to worry who finds out about it," or someone who happily hands over their personally identifiable information to anyone or anything that asks, then that person is almost guaranteed to broadcast personal information about you in places that you'd prefer it weren't broadcasted. And Facebook will apparently be happy to facilitate that, and leave the burden of controlling and managing what other people are saying about you. Of course, you can't even completely avoid that by not having a Facebook page, but by having one, you open yourself up to greater abuses and you accept more responsibility just by having an account that is tied to information others post about you.
Here's the page you get (today) when you click on "Customize settings", except I changed my actual email addresses to "email address #1 and email address #2".
I try to keep my opinions to myself for the most part, because I don't have a Facebook account and do not fully understand the motivations of people who do.
One of the nice things about a facebook-like presence is the ability to tell your friends/colleagues/coworkers/acquaintances/et-al the same thing in one update. It's a little different from email in that you don't have to manage the cc/bcc list and accidentally leave out that one friend who just changed their address but you forgot to update their information. It's similar to but not the same as email. A blog is the closest comparison but even that is a little different. Your friends would have to know to check your blog for the inane updates (if you tried to run it like some use facebook). Its the ability to network with new friends or look in on old ones (if they are on the facebook network).
But there, it becomes a bit of a double edge, at least with the way Facebook currently runs it. There's no segregation between close friends and acquaintences or coworkers and your boss (if you are foolish enough to friend your boss). Once on your friend list, or even on a list of a friend, they can track your activities, musings, rants and so forth.
The only thing more boring to me than hearing someone else's administrative updates like that is having to recount my own. I can't even think of any personal update that too many people would need to be notified of except that I died. And when that happens, I will be DEAD, so it won't be my job anyway.
- reconnecting with old friends I'd lost track of
- online chat
- sharing some laughs, pictures, videos, not unlike much of the activity round FF
- finding out about and promoting gigs, including networking with venues
- personal administrivia like posting that I couldn't make the trip to visit some people in another town last weekend due to floods
- getting updates about stuff I'm interested in, like bands or charities
I'm not quite sure why it would be hard to see the motivation behind those. I'm sure some people are quite happy to do all these things via phone or email or RSS feeds or IRC or whatever, but on FB some things seem easier, more accessible, more comfortable, or conveniently in one place for my tastes.
Of course, things I don't use FB for are anything over which I'd like to maintain much expectation of privacy.
I'm not quite sure why it would be hard to see the motivation behind those.
I didn't say I don't see the motivations. I said I don't fully understand them. Meaning that I do not share them, so I can't really address them in any real informed way. Most of the things people enjoy about Facebook are the sorts of things I find almost consistently tedious and often sort of distasteful.
Personally, I don't have much interest in finding out what old acquaintances are up to, or reestablishing connections. For the most part, I don't lose track of people accidentally. I usually have about as many social obligations as I can handle.
It's not that I'm happy to do these things via other venues. It's that I don't want to do them all that much in the first place, and am far more likely to be looking for ways out of existing commitments and obligations than I am to be looking for new ones.
And I'm not really directing that at you, but that attitude has been a HUGE pain in the ass for me recently. I have weathered several extended pro-Facebook campaigns just in recent months from people trying to convince me that they somehow know better than I do what I'd like and what I'm interested in; as though I either already share their motivations even though I tell them otherwise in no uncertain terms, or that I must somehow aspire to be more like them. Which would be incredibly offensive if it weren't really just kinda comically oblivious.
So I am aware of other people's interests and motivations, and I recognize that they enjoy activities that I don't. But other people almost never seem to recognize that I don't share their interests and motivations even when I have told them that clearly and explicitly. And Facebook seems to be a pretty big catalyst, at least in my experience, for rude and pushy people to get up in my grill even harder than usual.
OK WHO WANTS TO STEP TO ME AND EXPLAIN HOW GREAT FACEBOOK IS NOW? HUH? HUH?
I use it to keep up with neighborhood things. I don't post much on it. My neighborhood is rapidly changing, and it lets me keep tabs on the neighborhood associations, news and businesses without having to go to another meeting with a screaming child in tow.
Basically the entire internet functions for me to keep track of adult stuff without having to drag a reluctant child around.
Facebook is great for keeping general tabs on friends, or connections (school, work, etc) but the more I use it the less connected to people I feel. In many cases I would rather participate in or at least get to hear the story from the person instead of reading it in such an impersonal two sentence post
Not to mention a lot of people's activities aren't that interesting.
I'm not quite sure why it would be hard to see the motivation behind those.
I didn't say I don't see the motivations. I said I don't fully understand them. Meaning that I do not share them, so I can't really address them in any real informed way. Most of the things people enjoy about Facebook are the sorts of things I find almost consistently tedious and often sort of distasteful.
Personally, I don't have much interest in finding out what old acquaintances are up to, or reestablishing connections. For the most part, I don't lose track of people accidentally. I usually have about as many social obligations as I can handle.
It's not that I'm happy to do these things via other venues. It's that I don't want to do them all that much in the first place, and am far more likely to be looking for ways out of existing commitments and obligations than I am to be looking for new ones.
And I'm not really directing that at you, but that attitude has been a HUGE pain in the ass for me recently. I have weathered several extended pro-Facebook campaigns just in recent months from people trying to convince me that they somehow know better than I do what I'd like and what I'm interested in; as though I either already share their motivations even though I tell them otherwise in no uncertain terms, or that I must somehow aspire to be more like them. Which would be incredibly offensive if it weren't really just kinda comically oblivious.
So I am aware of other people's interests and motivations, and I recognize that they enjoy activities that I don't. But other people almost never seem to recognize that I don't share their interests and motivations even when I have told them that clearly and explicitly. And Facebook seems to be a pretty big catalyst, at least in my experience, for rude and pushy people to get up in my grill even harder than usual.
OK WHO WANTS TO STEP TO ME AND EXPLAIN HOW GREAT FACEBOOK IS NOW? HUH? HUH?
the only reason I have it is for the games. some people I know some I dont. If I want to talk to them they have my email. I think I talk to like 3 people using facebook, other wise it goes through email.
__________________
Live for today and not tomorrow
Live for the Now and whats here
Stop living for what maybe or what may never come
Live for the day already here
OK WHO WANTS TO STEP TO ME AND EXPLAIN HOW GREAT FACEBOOK IS NOW? HUH? HUH?
OMG PEA ALL I SAID WAS SOMEBODY MIGHT FIND IT USEFUL BECAUSE THEY'RE LAZY OR STUPID OF WHICH YOU ARE ONLY ONE AND I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHICH SO GO AHEAD AND SEND YOUR DÆVIL DOG TO COME GET WHAT'S LEFT OF MY FACE(LOLBOOK) AND BESIDES THAT I WASN'T GOING TO ASK YOU TO GET A FACELOLBOOK JUST SO I COULD FRIEND YOU AND THEN MAKE YOU READ ALL ABOUT HOW AWESOME I AM AT FRAMVILLE AND NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT A LITTLE BIT I SHOULD TOTALLY GET ANOTHER FACELOLBOOK AND PRETEND I'M ZSAZSA AND SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE MEAN.
I'm not quite sure why it would be hard to see the motivation behind those.
I didn't say I don't see the motivations. I said I don't fully understand them. Meaning that I do not share them, so I can't really address them in any real informed way. Most of the things people enjoy about Facebook are the sorts of things I find almost consistently tedious and often sort of distasteful.
Personally, I don't have much interest in finding out what old acquaintances are up to, or reestablishing connections. For the most part, I don't lose track of people accidentally. I usually have about as many social obligations as I can handle.
It's not that I'm happy to do these things via other venues. It's that I don't want to do them all that much in the first place, and am far more likely to be looking for ways out of existing commitments and obligations than I am to be looking for new ones.
And I'm not really directing that at you, but that attitude has been a HUGE pain in the ass for me recently. I have weathered several extended pro-Facebook campaigns just in recent months from people trying to convince me that they somehow know better than I do what I'd like and what I'm interested in; as though I either already share their motivations even though I tell them otherwise in no uncertain terms, or that I must somehow aspire to be more like them. Which would be incredibly offensive if it weren't really just kinda comically oblivious.
So I am aware of other people's interests and motivations, and I recognize that they enjoy activities that I don't. But other people almost never seem to recognize that I don't share their interests and motivations even when I have told them that clearly and explicitly. And Facebook seems to be a pretty big catalyst, at least in my experience, for rude and pushy people to get up in my grill even harder than usual.
OK WHO WANTS TO STEP TO ME AND EXPLAIN HOW GREAT FACEBOOK IS NOW? HUH? HUH?
What the hell is wrong with you? It's Facebook! It's like......not eating Wonderbread or something. Or being a Socialist.
__________________
Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church.
Facebook is great for keeping general tabs on friends, or connections (school, work, etc) but the more I use it the less connected to people I feel. In many cases I would rather participate in or at least get to hear the story from the person instead of reading it in such an impersonal two sentence post
Not to mention a lot of people's activities aren't that interesting.
My aunt updated her status each day last week with some comment about how her son was making her crazy and how she was ready to strangle him, or something in a similar vein. I ignored the first one or two, but after about a week of it, I got concerned for both of them and hit her up in a little chat window. I just asked if everything was okay and what was going on, and I got the full story, and I think she felt better having someone to talk to, and I certainly felt better knowing the whole story. But I never would have known to even ask in the first place if it hadn't been for the status updates.
I turned all my privacy settings to "only me", except one little blurb on my bio and my email address. The note on my bio says I am only maintaining a FB account for far flung relations and long losts to find me, and anyone who wants to talk to me should email me and I am happy to hear from them.
Most every long lost has started out with a few catch up messages, then been lost again (though I did resolve a 20 year old thing that had been bothering me). 98% of my friends list are nothing more than acquaintances, anyway, some of them barely that, more like people who once shared a ZIP code with me.
I do not feel any sense of loss. Oh, and haven't yet received an email.
THESE ARE VERY GOOD REASONS AND MR. PEA NOW THAT YOU HAVE READ THEM I AM SURE THAT YOU WILL SEE THE ERROR OF YOUR WAYS AND GET THE FACE BOOKS!
OKAY YOU GUYS HAVE CONVINCED ME OF THE ERROR OF MY WAYS. I AM GOING TO START THIS BOOK OF FACES TODAY, AND YOUR GUYSES WILL BE THE FIRST ONES I COLLECT.
OKAY YOU GUYS HAVE CONVINCED ME OF THE ERROR OF MY WAYS. I AM GOING TO START THIS BOOK OF FACES TODAY, AND YOUR GUYSES WILL BE THE FIRST ONES I COLLECT.
Everyone watch out for pibble shaped packages coming in the mail!
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Much of MADNESS, and more of SIN, and HORROR the soul of the plot.
Re: Bend Over, Facebook is Back
Linear Mode
