To Facebook or Not to Facebook.

[platinum]

I want to emphasize, repeating what multiple people have said here, that you can decide what information to post on Facebook, therefor, Facebook, if configured correctly, will only show people information you allow it to.

My Facebook is set to private. I publicly share one photo, my name and who I'm friends with. Someone browsing my profile can then figure out if they know me and choose whether or not to add me as a friend, at which point I have the choice of ignoring them or accepting their request, in which case they can see what I don't mind sharing with an uncle, my parents, my best friends and all sorts of business contacts -not to mention ex-girlfriends and some people I don't really know that well.

Also, if some person or entity wants to figure out who I associate with, I really doubt they need Facebook to do it.


-Jonathan

[Laserman532]

i found this interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tntv6LzpG0k

eff all that crap.

[White-Light]

sounds like your FB friends are a bunch of 12 year olds? lol

All 30 somethings.

[ppporch]

I was a relatively early adopter of facebook and thought it was quite cool in locating some friends I had lost touch with. I found that after the initial rush in getting reconnected with some old friends that it lost its luster with me. I was sorting through seemingly endless posts from my friends and friends of friends about where they were at that moment in time. I ended up removing more and more of the folks I had added to cut down on the noise.

When Facebook changed some of their policies and made me opt out of sharing some of my information rather that making it private by default, I decided I had had enough and got off of Facebook. Getting out of Facebook is an interesting process by the way. When you try and delete your profile, You are told your account will be put on hold and if you don't use it for 2 weeks, it will be deleted. The problem is the other things that can be linked into Facebook could mess you up there. I also have used Twitter from time to time and it was linked in so that if I posted in Twitter, it would have gone to Facebook and reactivated my account... So absolutely no activity for two weeks and my account was deleted. During the time I was waiting, I received several messages from Facebook stating a certain friend of mine will miss me on Facebook trying to entice me to reactivate my account.

Facebook is not a place that I would expect to have business contacts (I am a physician) and I don't miss it.

To each his own though and if it was a place that might generate business, I might reconsider an create a purely "professional" Facebook account.

[polishedball]

I'd sign up Steve, just follow the rule don't post anything you wouldn't show Mom and don't accept friends you do not know, then all will be OK. imo

[Meatball]

Some people think social websites like Facebook are just ways to get attention, and to advertise themselves.. in a sense.

If you don't become one of those people with 500+ friends, I think you'll be fine.

I keep my friends down to ~150, which is more than enough people in my everyday life involving work, school, church, and whatever else to keep track of.

Only add the people that you have no problem talking to normally, on a very regular basis in your life and you'll be able to find benefit in staying connected.

But to be honest, it seems like more and more that I only use FB to share a quote I heard, or to link my friends to some youtube video I liked. I mostly use it for sharing content, not for sharing conversation.

Do the same, and you can stay connected without sharing much about yourself. If you only have your real friends as 'friends', then they already know you anyways!