Corp000085 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 So, I made a lifestyle change this weekend... I woke up from a nap and immediately went to my computer to look at Facebook updates rather than to go directly to the noise of my kid and wife playing trains downstairs. I decided that was enough and promptly deleted Facebook entirely. I cannot believe I wasted like 5 years of my life checking online statuses, rejecting farmville requests and looking at bikini pictures of my former high school classmates. I will admit to suffering from something more than psychological withdrawals but something less than DTs on Saturday night, but good grief! I'm glad I'm done! My question is, has anyone else made the jump off of Facebook?
Weave Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 It is a very minor time waster for me. Probably less than 15 minutes a day. This place however seems to be an addiction.
Drunkard Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I had facebook for about 2 years and then ditched it about 8 months ago when I started looking for a new job and I haven't regretted it at all, even though I was never a big time user of it. I'd mess with it from time to time at work and occassionally on my computer at home but didn't have an app for it on my phone or anything like that. This board and the official Bills message board are much more important time wasters for me.
R_Dudley Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Good for you. I have an account that I update once or twice a year(typically after family vacations). I have never gone full in(checking daily) like I see so many other people attached to it. I found the frequent pings for drink sharing, farmville, mafia wars,etc... as annoying as spam e-mail. Personally I think my lack of preoccupation with it has a lot to do with my occupation in the computer industry. I am on a computer at least 5-6 days/ 30-45 hours a week for work so when I get free time the last thing I like to do is feel like I am back to work.
kishoph Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 My experience with Facebook has been good (you can not obsess with it), I have contacted or been contacted by childhood friends and former co-workers that without FB I may never have been able to get in touch with again. My Daughters and other Family members use it and it's a good way to share things with them, such as videos, pictures and jokes. Also with the right contacts (friends) it can be used as a source of keeping up with news and events. The choice is yours as to how to use it, I'm not very nosy, so I don't stalk other people's accounts and I never feel the need to tell people what I'm doing at this moment in time. As with just about anything, it's how you use it.
RazielSabre Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I don't play games, but i do find it useful for checking friends updates, finding out what's going on locally and as a general time waster. I am a daily user though I'm anything but addicted (less sure about my girlfriend, who's normally on it). Good for you for getting rid of it though!
Ohiofan Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Oh I am a daily user. I have a large, far flung family. FB allows us to stay connected through updates and pictures and videos. For this reason...I love it. I originally joined to keep a look-out on my teenagers, but now most teens have all but abandoned FB in favor of twitter. Now FB is mostly for adults keeping in touch. There are a lot of controls available to you. It is easy to block that annoying chick from high school that is STILL annoying. I block all games and game requests as well. So, for staying connected with family and dear friends, I feel pretty good about facebook
ROC Sabres Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I will post something to my facebook maybe once or twice a month and only read things once or twice a week. I mainly use it for people to get a hold of me that don't have my phone number already. My wife on the other hand sits there and reads everything everyone posts and complains to me about it so I guess I am subjected to it one way or the other.
bunomatic Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I go on for no more than 2 or 3 minutes a day. FB has put me in touch with good friends I haven't seen since highschool and allowed me to keep that contact. Family overseas is my other excuse for staying on. Other than that I don't play any games nor do anything that it asks to access and share personal imformation. I don't see a problem with my own usage of facebook as far as being hooked. I see it as something akin to my cell phone but use it far less.
MattPie Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 There are a lot of controls available to you. It is easy to block that annoying chick from high school that is STILL annoying. I block all games and game requests as well. This. I block every game and just about every app I see in my news feed as soon as I see it. I don't wait for the numpties to start bothering me about it. Mostly daily user, (as mentioned) never play games on it, mostly for keeping in touch and some event planning. One group I ride with will post up rides and my few local friends will put dinner and happy hour notes up. It's all in what do with it. The girl I'm dating has made some really useful inroads into the Buffalo art scene just by having some of her photography on it and following a few groups. Really, really useful for her. I waste *far* more time on here.
frissonic Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 i used to be a farmville addict. for 2 years, i planted, grew, harvested, shared, herded, and built little 1s and 0s. for a solid year, i played cityville. fishville, backyard monsters ... played them all. like the OP, one day, i woke up and had an epiphany. i immediately quit and 'unliked' all those games. haven't looked back, and i certainly haven't regretted. as far as usage goes, i have high school friends, college buddies, previous co-workers, and extended family, all of whom i communicate with regularly. it's how my buddy from san francisco keeps track of how his dog (who we're watching while he's in germany for the next two months) is adjusting and doing. it's how my brother and i swap ideas for making iphone apps. it's how i share pics and vids of my family with family and friends. to be fair, though, i completely understand deleting your account. it *can* be a gargantuan time waster. it takes a strong person to walk away from something so potentially addicting, so to that end, i applaud your ability to do so.
eball Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Good for lurking and general "keeping up with" old friends and whatnot. Can't stand the games and if I start seeing that crap I immediately place the offender on "ignore." Much bigger fan of Twitter. Get in, get out -- none of the b.s.
Bmwolf21 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Oh I am a daily user. I have a large, far flung family. FB allows us to stay connected through updates and pictures and videos. For this reason...I love it. I originally joined to keep a look-out on my teenagers, but now most teens have all but abandoned FB in favor of twitter. Now FB is mostly for adults keeping in touch. There are a lot of controls available to you. It is easy to block that annoying chick from high school that is STILL annoying. I block all games and game requests as well. So, for staying connected with family and dear friends, I feel pretty good about facebook This is pretty much where I am. I love Facebook. It keeps me in touch with all the family and friends back home, keeps me up-to-date on news, events, sports teams, etc. There are minor annoyances, like friends requests from random people you've never met, or the constant game requests. But blocking aps and whatnot is an easy fix most of the time.
Claude_Verret Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I'm with most of the crowd here, I'm on Facebook but maybe look at it 20 minutes a week at most. It's nice to keep up with old high school and college friends and thats about it. Twitter is pretty cool, but I only follow peole and news on there. I don't tweet and probably never will since I have all of 0 "followers".
Ohiofan Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Well, that's another thing...I get word of a lot of events through FB. all of the places and organizations I like update frequently with news and events. It works like a social calendar in this way. Monday morning Live Nation put up a post announcing Radiohead at Blossom Music Center. The info was so new that it wasn't even on their site calendar yet, nor was it on Radioheads tour calendar on their site. the post told me to get the Live Nation app on my phone so I can buy tics at the presale. The only thing my teenage daughter and I share is music haha so we like to go to concerts a lot. I suppose twitter does the same thing but I am not interested in twitter at all. Maybe someday, but for now it's not for me.
Robviously Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Oh I am a daily user. I have a large, far flung family. FB allows us to stay connected through updates and pictures and videos. For this reason...I love it. I originally joined to keep a look-out on my teenagers, but now most teens have all but abandoned FB in favor of twitter. Now FB is mostly for adults keeping in touch. There are a lot of controls available to you. It is easy to block that annoying chick from high school that is STILL annoying. I block all games and game requests as well. So, for staying connected with family and dear friends, I feel pretty good about facebook It's such a phenomenal tool for this. It has completely changed the way big, spread-out families can communicate and keep in touch. It's basically like every new piece of communication technology. Can cell phones be incredibly useful? Yes, they can save lives in the right situation. Can they be abused and a huge waste of time? Yes, because we've all sat next to someone in a public place who couldn't stop blabbing away and annoying everyone. Texting? Same thing, can be super useful and can be a giant obnoxious waste to time. The internet? A force for good (helping people communicate, helping commerce, etc.) and a force for evil (internet addiction, etc.).
biodork Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I love that Facebook lets me keep in touch with friends who live far away and see pics of their kids when I would have otherwise lost contact, and I've reconnected with a few (as in 3) high school friends that I actually missed through the site. But, I despise how you can't block "friends of friends" from sending you requests for things, because once you end up with one of those people who idolized their high school experience and feels the need to inexplicably "friend" everyone from your senior class, all of those people can now try and connect with you. (Really, people? I wasn't your friend in real life 10 years ago, and I don't want to be your fake friend on Facebook now.) Apart from its usefulness in some regards, I have three main beefs: 1) Too many people, such as the aforementioned high school classmates, use it mostly as a way to be nosy and check up on others without any intention of actually spending time with said people in the real world. 2) It's become an unfortunate enabler of lazy friendships. It's too easy for people to just post what's going on in their lives and assume their friends will read it, and unless you're spending more time a day than I care to on Facebook, you sometimes miss these things because one-on-one conversation is largely eliminated. Yes, you can send private messages through the site (what's wrong with email?), but most information is shared via mass dissemination on the wall rather than between individuals, and I hate that. 3) Weird mixing of social circles. I was recently sent a friend request by someone who used to be faculty here (and has since retired), and while he's a nice guy and we get along well professionally, I don't really want him knowing about my personal life. I don't share much of anything in the way of personal info on Facebook, but it still forces you to have this strange combination profile where you have to think twice about sharing a dirty joke or making certain types of comments with actual friends because people you know in a work capacity may see it. I think that's the big thing Google Plus has going for it (separating your "friends" into groups with different privacy settings) but I don't have the time or patience to mess around with setting up a new profile. /off rant
MattPie Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 3) Weird mixing of social circles. I was recently sent a friend request by someone who used to be faculty here (and has since retired), and while he's a nice guy and we get along well professionally, I don't really want him knowing about my personal life. I don't share much of anything in the way of personal info on Facebook, but it still forces you to have this strange combination profile where you have to think twice about sharing a dirty joke or making certain types of comments with actual friends because people you know in a work capacity may see it. I think that's the big thing Google Plus has going for it (separating your "friends" into groups with different privacy settings) but I don't have the time or patience to mess around with setting up a new profile. FB has similar group controls, but it's not as up-front as Google+ is. But, put friends into a list and you can make status updates and whotnot visible only to those friends.
Knightrider Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 Facebook was instrumental in getting out the word that my mother passed two weeks ago. I posted the info on my own page as well as my mother's. BTW, for those who are Pembroke alum, it was nice seeing Mr. Kinal, Mr. Abramson, Miss Neuer, Mrs. Reed, etc... I just wish it had been under different circumstances. While it can waste vast amounts of time, it does keep family and friends connected. I remember joining 5 years ago after seeing to Newsweek that Facebook was the next big thing after Google. Quite frankly, I think it is bigger than Google.
biodork Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 FB has similar group controls, but it's not as up-front as Google+ is. But, put friends into a list and you can make status updates and whotnot visible only to those friends. Good to know; I'll have to check that out. The privacy settings have changed so often that I can't keep up (which I guess is beef #4)! lol Facebook was instrumental in getting out the word that my mother passed two weeks ago. I posted the info on my own page as well as my mother's. BTW, for those who are Pembroke alum, it was nice seeing Mr. Kinal, Mr. Abramson, Miss Neuer, Mrs. Reed, etc... I just wish it had been under different circumstances. While it can waste vast amounts of time, it does keep family and friends connected. I remember joining 5 years ago after seeing to Newsweek that Facebook was the next big thing after Google. Quite frankly, I think it is bigger than Google. My condolences. A good friend of mine had a similar experiece in that FB allowed him (or rather a close friend) to get the unfortunate news about his father out in a way that was least painful for him, which I can certainly appreciate.
Strow Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 If it wasn't for farmville I wouldn't be on facebook at all. PM me if you want to be farmville friends ;)
IKnowPhysics Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I have no family members within 2500 miles of me, so it's useful for staying connected. That said, the games and apps are ruses to pluck your personal information and sell it to evil-doers and marketers. Facebook game developer Zynga has made several billions thorugh microtransactions in games that are addictive, but by game theory defintion are not even games, they're just repetitive clicking. Eventually Facebook will have a comprehensive map of our personal relationships and consumer habits so enormous and thorough that sociologists and anthrpologists would commit hari kari just to get a glimpse of it for betterment-of-mankind research purposes. But because your personal information will all be considered Facebook's propriteary data, it'll never happen.
darksabre Posted March 7, 2012 Report Posted March 7, 2012 I think facebook is a pretty handy too if you know how to use it right. Much like twitter, I use it for news. It's also a great way to connect with members of communities you are a part of. I've been a paintball player for over a decade and I've made a lot of acquaintances in the game along the way, whether it be through games or forums, and facebook is a nice way to keep in contact with them. It's also fun to see who has dispatched themselves to different parts of the world. As my highschool and college friends get different jobs and progress through life, you get to see where it's taken them. Which can be handy if you end up getting a job somewhere near them. You instantly know someone in the area who, even if you weren't best friends before, can be a good guide to the area and the start of a social group. I think for me the biggest advantage has been reconnecting with some cousins that had ostracized themselves from the family about 14 years ago. The four boys were effectively brainwashed by their lunatic mother during a period of time where both of my grandparents on my mother's side had died. We lost touch with them (and my mother's brother, my uncle). A few years ago he started speaking with my mother again, things having gone down in the family to where he was now divorced and wanted to put his life back together. Because of this, my four cousins have slowly come back into our lives and facebook has been a great tool for reconnecting. We all live different places now, but it lets us catch up and see things we have in common with relatively little effort. I can't be thankful enough for it. All that said, facebook is great, as long as you recognize that it's not the only way to communicate with people, and that it's not real life.
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