ninjafaery
Facebook Is Not My Friend
Posted on: 02/13/2013 12:09
I'm back in grade 4, my strange brain trying desperately to deal with things that other kids are adept with. Or a skating rink - everyone whizzing by while I'm just staying vertical.
I don't quite get it.
It appears I'm unable to manage even a small roster of "friends". Privacy is huge for me. When I first opened my account, it was easier since my "friends" were few and I could just phone them, so I just abandoned it for a year or so.
When I got back to it, I was uncomfortable with how much info became public domain & set my privacy controls more tightly and just ignored it again, for the most part.
Truth is, I certainly understand the advantages it must have for those who want to be in touch with significant people who are far away and for extroverts who love being surrounded by people in the virtual world too:
For someone like me, it's not so attractive. Luddite? No. Introverted control freak - maybe. I did try a few times to reach out and was rewarded with masses of posts chewing up data and burying other, more personal posts.
How many "friends" can a person tend to anyway?
Right now, my account has been taken over by an acquaintance who is using it to post all of her "Idle No More" YouTube vids. Good use for it, anyway.
At least they might get watched by a few people. I'm fine with that.
This is also an open apology to any poor soul who attempted to connect with me there. Just tooooo confusticating for this hopeless curmudgeonette. What's wrong with an email?
I do like visiting people's blogs though, and am going to dust mine off too.
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Comments
chemgal
Posted on: 02/15/2013 05:25
I really like what facebook has evolved into. I'm not happy with all the changes, but I find it's less of a time suck now than when wall-to-wall was the way to communicate publically. Looking back, there are some personal details I wish I hadn't included with all the privacy changes. Just basic things like having my full birthdate connected with my name. It can be hidden, but fb will always know my birthdate.
My FB friends are not all real close friends. For me, it's more of a modern roladex, with a simple way to message a large number of people in a group.
What do you mean by someone has taken over your account? Are they actually signing in as you? That is something I would not be comfortable with! That is not something that just affects your privacy, a friend might send you a private message expecting it is you. For people concerned about privacy, I think it's actually best to have a facebook account as then you have more control with what others are posting about you. Ie. Photos with tagged real names have often been posted, if you have a nickname as your profile, people you know will tag with that instead.
ninjafaery
Posted on: 02/15/2013 08:45
Thanks for your input Chemgal. No, my account hasn't been assumed technically, I just chose not to not hide their posts and to allow other "activist" posts to appear on my news feed. I don't post anything anymore. I might "like" the odd one too.
I understand it's networking value, though LinkedIn is valuable too, and I have an account there.
I don't see a need personally for a large contact list of people who all have my real name, picture, city, schools I attended and birthdate. The problem I find is that if I "friend" someone, my name appears not only on their friend list, but gets added to the public "suggested" list. Not very useful for me, but I get why it is for others.
As much as I would love to add some acquaintances, it just opens new dilemnas in privacy. I could remove most of the personal info, which I may as well do at this point.
I think I liked the old version better.