Apart from my parents, it seems like everybody else I know has a Facebook account. Many of my friends are active Facebook-ers. (Is there a name for people who actively publish on Facebook?) I'm one of those late adopters and only signed up sometime last year, and, I'm definitely not active.
When I first joined, I was very enthusiastic about finding my friends. That died down after a day or two. Since then, I get another surge of enthusiasm every couple of months when I find one friend that opens the links to a bunch of other friends. We spend a few days exchanging messages. Then, it dies down again. Some weeks, I only login to the Facebook page if I get a notification of a new message there.
I never update the "Whats on your mind?" box and often wonder why some people feel the need to tell all their friends that they are about to go to sleep. I'm not saying that all the thoughts and updates are useless. There are plenty of tidbits out there that I liked reading. I guess everyone is free to write whatever they like in their own space. Although these days, with the new Facebook, there seems to be so much additional clutter that its hard to actually find a genuine "thought" from my friends.
I can see why Facebook would appeal to many but I don't quite understand the addiction that many of its 200million users feel. I'll use it as a tool to find my old friends but once I find them, I'll either meet up with them in the real world or just drop back to the occasional "Hi How are you?" email. Of course, I sticky beak into people's photos and get that warm, fuzzy feeling "seeing" them again but I am always reluctant (maybe lazy) to upload new photos of my family. Maybe its because I do enough of that on this blog! Then again, sharing one's life, in an unrestricted way, with friends and strangers alike is a whole other story that I don't think I want to get into.
4 comments:
Good to know I am not the only person left not on Facebook. It's me...and your parents;)
I started up my Facebook page as a way of reconnecting with some of my high school friends before our 40th reunion this fall. I put up a lot of pictures and tied it to my blog. Since then, I've pretty much left it alone. I update once a day with a quote for the day (which seems to be pretty popular), but I tend to ignore all the various invitations and requests that pop up by the dozen. I don't think anyone wants to know what I'm doing every second of the day...those who want to know are the ones who visit the blog. So, I'm with you. Facebook is an okay tool for keeping up with friends, but it's easy to overdo it. Blogging is enough for me.
I had a facebook account just so I could sign in and keep track of my kids. Then then closed their accounts to invited friend only. (which was a good thing) I haven't used it in years.
I have one and use it fairly often. I think it's a great tool for reconnecting with past friends. I do think it's hurt blogs though as many people want short posts.
I could easily quit Facebook, but would really miss blogging if forced to quit either.
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