Facebook
 

Who the hell is Mark Zuckerberg and why on earth would anyone pay attention to this little twit who screwed his room mates at Harvard to become a billionaire?

Quit sending me invitations to become your "friend" at Facebook. There is no better way to unfriend me. I am deeply resentful of the fact that I didn't become a billionaire.

Like!
...........

But, Tim, imagine how good you would be at Farmville.

I'm on Facebook. Friend me if you'd like.

I didn't become a billionaire either, curse it. But there's still time. I must nip out and buy a lottery ticket.

I used to have a few contacts on Facebook - it was a way to stay in touch as the other poetry fora we met on got torn down.

But they have all left college now and work in PA for international pollution management firms. Either they sent me their Vcard, or we lost touch. I don't think any of them still has a working Facebook page.

So young Tim Murphy is getting aerated about something I stopped doing maybe back around 2006 / 07.

I need to just ease up and accept that I am elderly, don't I?

Social Net
 

Elderly? Lucky, I'd say. Marketing tools are ok on their own but facebook is an invitation to Fascism in my experience. Take this as a warning - imho, facebook is run by thugs.

The entire planet is run by thugs, but you still have to participate.

true
 

true but not on facebook. :)

The best way to not have people try to friend you on FB is to not have a FB account.

Thanks Ann. With your help, I'm no longer a member of Facebook, whose CEO just bought Instagram today for a cool billion. Stupid boy.

I like to think of the planet-runners as more like evil clowns than thugs. But, what Roger said.

Facebook to reveal more of the data stored about you --->

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-574...red-about-you/

It seems I am one of the few that doesn't "do" facebook.
I was thinking of getting an account. Maybe I'll rethink that.

Cyn,

Please don't let the luddites discourage you. Facebook can be very useful.

You should hear the woodworkers: "Why would I want one of them new-fangled feriegn table saws? Why, my grand-daddy's unisaw worked fine for him, and it works just fine for me! And it's good old american cast iron."

"Um, what happened to the blade guard?"

"Took it off back in the winter of '72. It was in the way. And who needs a fancy riving knife, anyway? I just jam a screw-driver into the kerf, and keep on pushing." ;)

Seriously, I know some people like that. They don't do facebook either... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Facebook helps you to react to stupid things faster and with more energy!

For one thing, Facebook is a free source of advertising. So if you're trying to sell a book, an album, a concert tour... it's a very useful social medium.

Duncan

It's helpful, too, if you have a "friend" or two who "like" your advertisement but, more importantly, are willing to "share" it.

Tim - the reason I had that link to hand was because I had saved it to my "favourites"; I feel better knowing that getting out is that easy. Like the last-resort pills in the place of safety. It's about control.

I've been feeling less and less happy about Facebook for some time. I don't like what it can do to people - most of all me. I am becoming a snitcher, a sniper, a stalker. But not a Luddite. Oh, how I resent those accusations of techno-fear.

Remember when Google-plus was a topic on here? I was sceptical about that, but I did listen when people spoke of meetings and poetry readings and stuff and so, when I was gently twitted about being a-feared of progress, I just joined the bloody thing. I gave it a go.

But it wasn't what people said it would be. I used to go there from time to time and all I ever got was a couple of friendly communications from Karen and a brilliant video of a camouflaged octopus. I sent out a general cry of loneliness which Alex answered and then it all fell silent again. I quit. Nobody, I dare swear, noticed!

I warm to the person Bill describes. I'm not quite as "bad" as that, though. I did save up for an excellent reciprocating saw a few weeks ago and I haven't cut my arm off yet. And the state-of-the-art hoe I bought with the reading fee for last year's Ledbury Festival is a constant joy to me.

I don't "do" androids and blackberries because I can't afford them. I don't have a TV, come to that. But I embrace the technology that pleases me and does me good and reserve the right to reject what I find to be unnecessary or harmful.

And, yes - I still prefer to conduct my online searches without the interference of predictive text. So sue me.

facebook is a space
for sharing images
and messages
a nightly kiss
with those I miss
and I imagine
it's what gossip was
in a roman marketplace.

cynders! leave the ball,
the draughty hall,
step into the agora, waste
a little time with us!

facebook
 

Well said, Ann. My experience was similar, plus, some so-called friend penetrated Facebook security and gained access to my information, not once, but twice (my being stupid) I got out before a third attempt was made.

Unfortunately, Facebook seems to be swarming with a great many other people who are interested in selling a book, a concert, a tour, a crappy painting, a wonderful opportunity, and the like - and most of them seem to somehow be connected to, or friends of friends of, those fortunate individuals to whom i would like to sell my book. And there are far more of them than there are of me, and they have much more shit to sell, and often seem to do it through websites which are practically impossible to extricate oneself from without ending a sentence in a predicate. So I desist. It just isn't worth the hassle.

I started using it to keep in touch with family. But as time went on, I added by request (real) friends and (virtual real) friends. Step three, I asked some whom I don't know personally but greatly respect.

I almost never go there because there is so much yadda-yadda about what friends of friends had for breakfast and a gazillion issues that I am not at all interested in.

However when I do go there I always find something interesting posted by real and virtual friends and am especially glad to hear of publications by my friends. Sometimes, but not always, I tell my friend-world that I have had something published too and I value the comments immensely, as I hope my real and virtual friends value my comments and likes--when I do them.

I have to admit it. My virtual community is important to me, just knowing they are out there. It is hard if not impossible to know (as Ann) says if a friend has flown the coop. I don't tally how many are still with me on a daily or yearly basis. But even if you are gone Ann, you are not gone from the friend list written in my heart. So there.

But I admit was going batty there for a while what with notifications turning up in my email several times a day about spammy poems by friends of friends of friends ad infinitum and messages urging me to check out the latest breakfast menus my so-called wall and not being able to delete them. Sometimes there is a delete that works, sometimes not. And just when i thought I had learned it, I discovered I was playing in a whole new ballgame.

I am really, really of two minds about this. One of my daughters (who urged me to participate to start with) flew the coop, but she told us first so now we telephone.

Decisions, decisions, always decisions.

What Cally sang.

Nemo

Really, the only reason to have a lot of Facebook Friends is that when your next book comes out, you have an easy (and free) way to get the message instantly to all those people. Says the old cynic.

Janice,

These are all settings, which you can change, at your discretion. And the things Michael was complaining about? Also settings, which he could easily manipulate, to his heart's content.

Ann, I jumped into google plus as well. Most Americans seem to have abandoned it. I'm still on it because I have some overseas friends, mostly in Asia, who still seem to like it, perhaps for local reasons.

Oh, and please be careful with that reciprocating saw. I use mine for deconstructing things, like walls and pipes. They can reduce things right quick. I don't even need a sledgehammer anymore... ;)

Best,

Bill

You have to learn to use Facebook in a way that makes sense for you. With six hundred million people on Facebook, you naturally want to avoid most of them, but there are ways of limiting your exposure to people whose occasional company you find congenial, and when it works well, it really can't be beat. For example, you can be "friends" (unfortunate term that is not to be taken literally) with any number of writers, authors, or other people you admire. Authors who in the past would have been completely inaccessible are right there happy to accept your greetings and answer your questions or just exchange bad puns with you. If you have other spheres or interest, from charitable causes to hobbies to professional matters, it is also easy enough to limit your interaction to people who share those interests. My public library and my town both have Facebook pages, and it's a reliable and convenient way for me to make sure I'm aware of matters of local concern, from changes in garbage pickup to little league rescheduling to snow days. Yes, there are people who get addicted to Facebook and spend too much time there, but there are also many millions of people who stop by for just a few minutes at a time and use it as a sensible tool. The same could be said of Eratosphere, no? It has its uses, and it has its limits. It's not supposed to be everything, but that hardly means it is flawed.

This captures my feelings on much of the "networking" on Facebook:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_likes

But really, if one approaches the thing for the networking per se, well, you'll get what's coming to you. As for me, I'll look at photos of Cally's living room and Nemo's mother's garden, followed by an internet chat with a long-lost friend in Europe, and before I log out, I might well post a picture of break-dancing midgets from my evening commute. Which is kind of cool, I think.

I am not techno-fearful. I am just busy and an admitted card-carrying procrastinator, and I know how much time I would end up spending on it.
Once I am finished with the commitments I have made to this degree program I will come join you all, promise.

To the agora!

Actually I have tried all the settings. Multiple times.

They worked initially until a change came along, and then I would update and they would work. Now they don't and I can't make them.

FWIW I spent seventeen years of my life working for a computer mfg as translations manger and other posts writing technical manuals on hardware, software, applications (pre-app). I could take my own computers apart and reassemble them and I used DOS to customize their pre-Windows guts. Later in my own business, for decades, I have written for innovator clients about technological products still in development ranging from control of nuclear power plants to to supercomputers. One would think, wouldn't one, that it shouldn't be too hard for me to understand FB and make it work as I wish it too.

I don't use my FB to sell books. I don't have any.

And it may be old-fashioned, but the people who are my FB friends are people with whom I would be delighted to sit down to a delicious meal and converse.

PS Hey Quincy, Multiple Likes to your Oatmeal post above.

I'd be delighted to sit down to a delicious meal and converse with any number of people here at Eratosphere, but that hardly constitutes an argument against Eratosphere. On the contrary, it's an argument for it. It shows that we can use social media -- and the Sphere is indeed social media -- to get to know people we like well enough to wish to know in person, while not being deprived of knowing them and interacting with them simply because in many cases it is not practical for us to have dinner together.

I'm not saying anyone "should" use Facebook who doesn't want to use it. It may not be for everyone. I've never been a fan of Twitter, though millions of people make it a constant part of their lives. What bothers me a bit is when people (and I'm not speaking of anyone in particular) justify their decision not to do Facebook with generalizations that subtly (or not so subtly) contain judgments that are dismissive of those who do, often extolling their own superior humanity for preferring (as if others don't) actual human friends and contacts, or dismissing what they perceive to be the unworthy level of inane chatter that they themselves would never tolerate.

It's analogous to how many people (and I'm not speaking of anyone in particular) react to e-books. I'm not saying anyone who doesn't want to read e-books ought to do so, but what I resent is that some people feel it necessary to justify their decision not to read e-books in self-serving terms that, once again, extol their own superiority for preferring a purer reading experience, or "loving books" more than the people who stoop to read them electronically, etc.

I suppose there's a lot of societal or peer pressure to use Facebook or read e-books, etc., and the reluctant minority may feel besieged or criticized to the point that they are tempted to fight back. But when someone (no one here, of course) makes a comment that essentially boils down to "I do not use Facebook because I have a superior sensibility, I like people more, and my life is too busy with other wonderful things to spare the time," I can't help thinking that the Facebook users in the room have been criticized at least a little bit.

Thank-you, Roger.

Nemo

Welcome to the world of cognitive dissonance reduction. Some social psychologists, starting with Leon Festinger, have speculated that when people have to make choices for or against some controversial action, they subsequently intensify the intensity of their committment by defending it more strongly than their previous doubts would have suggested. This is a theorized method of reducing any mental discomfort that might arise when they meet another person, regardless of whether that person might agree with them or not. If true, this analysis helps explain a lot of things we see every day, and might be a pathway to understanding fanaticism.

I'm more active on Facebook than I should be (and I think it has its uses!), but I don't hold it in high regard. Facebook is where you find the people you went to high school with. Twitter is where you find the people you would have liked to go to high school with. The constraints of Twitter invite both inanity and wit, and you follow the latter and unfollow the former. If you're good at it, you find yourself discovering talented, interesting people, and if you get lucky others might even discover you.

Spot on, Roger! I'm always amazed when people who habitually use the e-lit/social medium of the Sphere (often those who also regularly publish in online journals), then go on to rubbish e-books and Facebook as vulgarly electronic or wotevz, and to represent themselves as romantically old-fashioned paper-and-ink face-to-physical-face serious traditionalists. And to post that self-representation on an online forum!

Rather like sitting in a pub with a pint in your hand and a table full of empties in front, telling the world you're a tee-totaller.

Right (hiccup!) you (hiccup, belch) are (hiccup!)!

I either bake my poems into bricks or carve my poems on marble like The Deeds of the Deified Augustus were carved, which still remain in Greek and Latin forms long after (hic) the papyrus scrolls (belch) and parchment (barf) codices (more beer, here) rotted to pre-electronic (urp) dust.