Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Facebook

Will someone please explain Facebook to me? I've had multiple urgings from multiple sources to join Facebook lately, but I am in the dark on it. I have been inexplicably resistant to joining Facebook and/or MySpace, so I know nothing about that other than everyone seems to be on them but me. I have a family blog, so what is the point? Unlike blogs which omit personal details, the point is to provide personal details, yes? How does the whole social networking thing happen? Does everyone use their first and last names? If married women, do they provide maiden names so old high school friends can find them? How does this work? What are your user tips? Would you recommend it? Please explain it to me like I'm a know-nothing, behind-the-times out-of-touch person because well, I am a know-nothing, behind-the-times, out-of-touch person when it comes to these things.
Thanks.

4 comments:

Karly said...

I'll be honest and say that while I have a Facebook page, I rarely use it. The point seems to be to "be" somewhere where you can find friends and get new ones...yes, often I see married women put their maiden names on them. There are tons of silly quizzes that you can take and challenge your friends to take, there are various "groups" to join, such as the group for where you live, groups that are fan sites of various shows, etc... You can also do things like post what you're doing right now, exchange messages and e-mails via the site with your friends, and so on. Mostly, I got one because James did and he urged me to do it...but, as I said, I'm rarely on there. I've logged on recently because some friends (people that I actually know) have found me and requested to add me as a friend...usually I get sucked into taking a quiz or two, but other than that...I don't use it. I've often thought of deleting my page, but have been too lazy to do so! Do you need a Facebook page? No. Might it be fun? Possibly. Could it be a serious time waster? Definitely.

Just my 2 cents! If you do get one, though, you better let me add you as a friend (if I still have my page)!! :)

Anonymous said...

You're cute.

I was resistant to Facebook, as well, but finally gave into The Beast due to a particularly persistent friend. Karly's description is pretty spot on - it can be a huge procrastination tool, and you can definitely waste away the hours on silly quizzes or games (like the world cities challenge that Dan and I got caught up in several months ago. For the record, I totally kicked his butt.) I like the tool for reconnecting with people -I've been able to get back in touch with some people that I lost contact with through the years and am now very happy to be back in touch with. I can't think of any other tool that it makes it so simple. As far as sharing personal things goes, I don't share much that is "personal" on the site. I always adhere to the adage that even with security settings, the internet is the internet and all can be seen by future employers, "students, etc. I keep the "personal stuff for my personal correspondence. I give it a thumbs up - give it a whirl and, if you don't like it, no harm no foul.

Anonymous said...

I quite agree with what Gail has written above and I do check in quite often, just to keep up-to-date with friends' status updates.

Gayle

Anonymous said...

Since I'm the one of the main campaigners for you to get on Facebook, here's my reasoning. Whenever you and I get together, we seem to wonder whatever to ... well, facebook in my opinion connects those dots. People ask me all of the time about you and while I try to explain, she's living in Australia, yes, she was in New Orleans, but now she's not, I obviously can't do your story justice because well, I'm not you. Yes, facebook can be a big time waster, but I only go on there to see what friends have been up to through status updates and I'm finding that it's an easier way to keep with people versus regular email because everyone has gathered in one (pretty much central) I don't really do any of the quizzes and all of that stuff.
Do you get the friend requests from random people from high school that you barely remember and have to refer to the annual just to half way figure out who they are, yes. But do you find out about the people that you've been wondering about for years, and have no idea how to get in touch with them, yes. And to me that's been more of the payoff. Maybe it's my curiousity about people that compels me to like it so much.

But here's the other thing that social networking in general does. It gives you another network of people to refer to when things are going on. So maybe right now you don't necessarily need it, but maybe later on down the road you're looking for a job and you just happen to mention that on your page, you might be surprised the response that you get from people who may know someone, etc. Not so much with myspace, but with facebook and Linkedin(another social networking site)it predicates that you have some type of relationship with the people that are on my list. And most of the people that I have on both sites, I already know, so I know how to judge the information that they are giving me. So... that's another way of looking at it.

So going back to the original thing, do you need to be on facebook? No, but I think it's something that you would enjoy because it does connect those sometime nagging dots of whatever happened to so and so...

As far as the married thing goes, it depends on who you want to get in touch with. Some of the women in there use all of their various names, while others don't and if they have posted a picture, then you might be able to figure out who they are. It's really up to you.

So to me because you already have a blog,I don't see why you can't add facebook to the repetoire, if only to send people to the blog if they really want to know what is going with you....

Sorry for the opus. But since I am one of the more vocal ones, I just wanted to give you a good sense of my reasons.