I use facebook for a lot of reasons. I play some of the games, but mainly chat with my friend through the messaging thing. I'm always looking for new ways to use facebook, and there are days when I wish we had the original college facebook back. Considering that's not going to happen, might as well adapt.
This sums up my views about it almost completely. Except that I do believe it can become a self-destructive obsession (like anything), and I am personally dealing with someone who is in this situation, so I have a little bit of hate for it at the moment.
Me neither. I have 43 friends, mostly people I know in real life, plus a couple from here and a few I met on Facebook itself. And I have about the same number of pages "liked." What I love about Facebook: 1. FB private messaging is the most convenient way to communicate with certain friends. 2. There's an active private group of chordoma survivors, patients, and families. It's virtually the only place to meet other people who are dealing with such a rare disease. 3. It's the only way I can get my young-adult godchildren to (occasionally ) communicate with me. I enjoy commenting on some pages, especially the NYT and local newspaper. But I don't update my status all that often, and I never play games. In fact, I have all apps blocked and my privacy settings as tight as possible.
The current emergency situation in Tasmania has showed just how useful Facebook can be. My sister's friend Janet lived outside one of the towns that was under threat from bushfire. Though my sister had had a text from Janet on Friday night, fire flared up in Bicheno again yesterday and we became concerned about Janet. My sister who didn't know how to use Facebook (she had only joined up a couple of days before), telephone me to tell me she couldn't reach Janet by phone. and ask if I could find Janet on Facebook. Janet has a common surname and there many women with her name on Facebook but none giving there place of residence as Bicheno. So then I had to look through the feeds of those Janets who didn't list their place name. My sister had told me that our Janet had a saluki and I found one feed with a picture of a saluki. Looking through other photos I found one that look it could be a beach near Bicheno so I sent a link to my sister. She confirmed it was Janet and we kept watching the feed. We found out she , and her three dogs, had made it to muster point at Cranbrook but then the police told everyone to leave there and drive to Swansea. Janet ended up on the wharf at Swansea but later, after being told that her house had survived the fires, she sneaked back and informed her Facebook friends that her house, horses and chickens were all OK. Many other people have discovered the whereabouts of loved ones in similar ways to ours. A page Tassie Fires - We Can Help has worked wonders. Through it people have gotten information out of what is needed and what they could give. Such as Farmers in the north of the state started a Hay Drive and were able to arrange a delivery point in the south and arrangement to get it out to southern farms using volunteers is being arranged. Vets in Hobart have offered free boarding to cats if their owners are going into emergency accommodation that won't accept their cats. Bororong Wildlife Park has offered to take in injured wildlife and also has a field in which homeless farm animals can be placed. The Hobart Showgrounds have also offered camping sites for people with animals and also to set up some boarding facilities for animals whose owners cannot stay with them. An owner of a dog begged for it to be rescued. As the fires approached Eaglehawk Neck the owners had taken the dog to the relative safety of the jetty and tied it up and then gone off to fight the fires. The owners ended up being evacuated and couldn't get back to the dog. After a post on Facebook the dog was rescued and reunited with its owners. On Facebook people were told were the could drop off bottled water and food for the firefighters. this are only some of the ways that people have been using Facebook to help during the emergency.
This is a minor thing but it really bugs me about facebook - it has my home town in the wrong country (Wales rather than England) and it's impossible to fix - you can edit places *within* a town or city but you can't fix an incorrect one.
^Yeah, FB insists that the graduate school I attended is in a different city than it really is. Won't let me change it, either.
I just use it for keeping up to date on what my friends are doing, and let them keep up to date on what I'm doing (assuming they care). I don't play games, or use any apps, or anything like that. Occasionally there are some interesting topics posted which generate a lot of conversation - conversations we probably would have in person if we were together, but we have them on Facebook because it's more immediate. You can talk about something right away rather than waiting a few weeks until the next time we see each other. Right now, I have 635 friends (though some of them are accounts that have been deactivated, so it's probably closer to 625). They tend to fall into four major categories: - people I know through fandom - people I know through this place (which is, I suppose, a subset of fandom) - people I went to school with (mostly university and high school, though there are a few who predate high school) - people I know through other random activities (such as the bowling league I belong to), people I was friends with on Livejournal when I used it, etc. I have very few friends who don't fall into any of these categories, and they tend to be people who have sent me friend requests and they seemed harmless enough, so I accepted them. Every once in a while, though, I get a friend request that just confuses me. Usually they're from authors with whom I have several mutual friends, but I'm not sure why they're friending me. It's not as though they're likely to have heard of me (though I've certainly heard of them). Not that I'm complaining, because it's interesting to keep up on what they're working on.
Maybe to get their own friend count up? Or, less cynically, because they've seen you on their friends pages and think you might be interesting.
I love Facebook. It's how I keep in touch with far-flung friends, both old RL friends and friends I've made online over the years, including quite a few here. I have about 135 friends, but several people aren't active. I have very few relatives as friends, mostly because few family members are on FB.
I resisted for the longest of time...until I finally caved in film school to just be able to easily keep in touch with people at school. As it is, I use it to keep in touch with friends and family, and to share stuff I find cool in an easy way. I am not a facebook gamer. I played a bit of Tetris Battle, because Tetris, but that's about it. There's a reason I spent so much on my computer, I want to actually run proper games on it. Also, I don't just collect random people. I have to actually sort of know the person I add as a friend.
Maybe. Or, also speaking cynically, maybe they're hoping to be invited as a guest to a convention I work on. (Actually, a couple of them would have been good guests, I think, had we not shut down Polaris after #26. Maybe someone will submit a proposal to the Board that will revive it in a few years...)
I use it mostly to keep in touch with family and friends I don't see often, and to connect to others within the pro-life movement. Totally addicted.
^If you have any kind of cause it's a pretty great ride. Lots of enthusiasm and updates. Of course that's why I blocked people in the last election LOL.. and yes I blocked BOTH sides.
Love me some Facebook too.. However, I was just about to suspend my account during the election.. The amount of hate being spewed by both sides was unbearable.. At least here on the BBS I can choose to stay out of TNZ.. LOL... I am a heavy user of Facebook and Twitter for professional reasons, as I manage my office's social media output.. I find it very useful and effective. That said, on a personal level, I tend not to post much about me personally.. I restrict access to my kids photos and personal information.. I exist as somewhat of a "public figure" in New Mexico and have to be careful what I post.. In that respect, I can't/don't post anything political in nature and refrain (generally) from replying to other's political posts... Most of my status updates are comprised of song lyrics, movie quotes and general observations... I tend to stay away from posting that I'm going out to dinner, have a sick child, am frustrated with my job or that my wife pisses me off sometimes... I will, however, bore you with comments about how the Cowboys, Lobos and Cornhuskers are performing.. LOL... I also run the facebook page for our official Smokey Bear Historical Park (since Smokey is from New Mexico, we take great pride in him)... Check it out if you like!
Nope! The only time it's "officially" been "the Bear" was in association with the song that came out in the 1950s. The only reason the "the" was used was to make the words fit the melody... I've been known to argue with folks who insist on using the "the"... I really should learn to let it go, but seeing as I get to wear the Smokey suit and teach about him in schools, I tend to take it personally. LOL! It would be correct to say Smokey Bear the bear... Hee hee!