# Facebook,are you on it?do you like it?waste of time and pointless?



## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

Are you on facebook?i am,i think it serves its purpose,there is alot of bs and personal twitters from those core people on peoples friendlist,i will say it is use full to contact a older friend,see whats going on in older friends lives,pics.

You can use as a "in" for dating even,and even self promotion if your self employed ect.Seems like everyone is on it,i know a few people over 50 who are.


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## stardancer (Apr 26, 2009)

I am a senior and am on Facebook. The main reason is to have a communication link with my children. We also use email and the phone. One daughter is a lawyer and one is in school, so I never know when is a good time to phone. Right now, one is in Europe, and is posting her comments on each stop on FB. For more private conversations, we use email and phone.

I also use FB to keep in contact with my more distant relatives who are all through the country. It's great to see their photos of their grown-up children and now their grandchildren. I post photos of my mother and my local family, so they can see how they are.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I use facebook for two things, first to stay in touch with family, post pictures etc. I find it easier, albeit less personal. Secondly, since I am married to a soldier and we move every few years, I find it a great way to connect with people who live in the place where we're moving to and find out information in order to buy a house in a good location for our family (and not rely solely on what the real estate agent tells us).


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## ddkay (Nov 20, 2010)

All social networking sites are almost a time sink... My closest friends and I switched to Google+ now exclusively, partly for the better feature set, but mostly because it's not Facebook and prone to personal data leakage. My family is quite small, lives close together and we meet several times a year, so we don't have the need to share anything on social media. I feel more genuine writing personal e-mail to family members, either way.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

I'm on it.

I don't mind it.

It's not a waste of time for me cause I'm on it maybe 10 minutes/week. I never go on from my laptop, I only use the facebook app on my iphone, and more often than not I only check it when my phone beeps me and says somebody said something or posted on my wall. Occasionally I make a post about something new that I bought, but thats about it.

Sitting in traffic is a waste of time. 

Facebook > Traffic.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I have it but almost never actually log in to the application. Messages are forwarded to my email. If I want to respond, I send that person an email. I don't really trust Facebook.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

I resisted dozens of requests and downright demands from friends, but finally gave in last year and joined because I was required to for work (I got asked to help manage a program that was linked to Facebook).

It's funny to watch phenomena like the Facebook Birthday Bomb: before I was on Facebook I might hear from one or two friends and family members on my birthday; now I get flooded with birthday wishes even from people I barely know. 

It's also funny to see how different people approach Facebook: after I'd been on it a week I got a friend request from someone I had met maybe twice and his name was only vaguely familiar to me, but I accepted his request. He's one of those "friend collectors" -- he has thousands of friends on Facebook, which brings into question the whole notion of friendship and how you define it. 

To me the most valuable part of it is being able to "like" organizations, stores, public figures, bands, etc. and get their news, schedules of upcoming events, etc. You can do the same thing by subscribing to RSS feeds, of course, but somehow it seems easier with Facebook. 

Another thing I've enjoyed is joining the "alumni" pages of places where I've worked and reconnecting with former colleagues. People come and go in your life and sometimes you need to lose friends, but there are also people you wish you'd stayed in touch with. Facebook is a way to find and reconnect with those people, and I've gotten a lot of joy from rekindling those old friendships.

Facebook is a waste of time if your friends just post drivel and idle chat. As I mentioned in another thread, it's like TV: the medium has lots of potential, it's just that it tends to get bogged down by the lowest common denominator. But if you find good content and subscribe to it by "liking" it, and if you have a few friends who post useful information, then Facebook can enrich your life.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

donald said:


> i know a few people over 50 who are.


I'm not 50 yet, but lol, you sure make those folks sound ancient.  

Facebook, or fakebook as a friend calls it, is definitely a time sinker for many, in fact, it is an addiction for a lot of people if you consider/believe below statistics:

http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/facebook-nielsen-stats/

As well, many devote too much time to virtual friends & idle talk than to family members and close friends.

No denying it can be very useful in many circumstances, but I have not caved-in; I much like the personal touch, besides, I have a very small family & small enough circle of friends to contact by phone/email, especially these days when one can even speak long distance for free or close enough.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

brad said:


> I resisted dozens of requests and downright demands from friends.


Ditto, so I guess I'm stronger than you!  

And oh, books can enrich your life far better!


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

The one thing I cannot understand and steadfastly refuse to participate in is Twitter. I'm also pretty resistant to chat and instant messaging; if someone wants to talk to me they can email me or pick up the phone. IM, chat, text messaging, and Twitter are intrusive and distracting.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Very interesting comments by all. I agree with most of what has been said. Does anyone here remember the big IM/MSN craze of 5-10 years ago? God that was annoying. The moment I would log on, I would get about 5 "hey!" messages from good friends. Don't get me wrong, I love them to pieces, but don't really want or need to engage in discussion, even if the msgs are brief, every single time I log on. Then if you don't respond they start pestering you and are later offended "Gee TRM, you keep logging on but never msg me back, are you mad at me?".

email is unbeatable. People can send me msgs and I read them through Outlook at my leisure and when I have time. I usually reply quickly but I may not be able to reply to every msg every time I log on. That was the thing about IM: people expected instant responses, it was like having a cell phone (something else I feel is way overrated). 

The quality of discussions with people that matter is much better when you're not "always on" in every medium imaginable.


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

I'm just over 50. I still can't get used to saying that.  Like others I find Facebook useful to share pictures with friends and family and it's a convenient way to show pictures of my family or vacation if I'm visiting someone. (Much easier than carrying around photo albums.) It's also allowed me to reconnect with some old friends or cousins. We are unlikely to physically get together again, but it's still interesting to catch up a little and see pictures of their family. The only thing that I find annoying is getting a notice that someone has scored 10,000 points on some silly game.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> And oh, books can enrich your life far better!


Of course, but in a different way. A book can change your life, but so can a conversation with a good friend. I've reconnected with a few long-lost friends via Facebook, people I haven't been in touch with since the mid 1980s, and that has been a great experience. Plus I've gotten to know a few of my current friends better and discovered new interests that we share in common. Some of these are people who live far from me and we only see each other once a year; our time for face-to-face conversation is very limited. 

Last December I posted a poem every day (not poems that I wrote, poems that meant something to me and that I've collected from books and newspapers, magazines, etc. over the years) to my Facebook wall. The responses to those poems from my friends in many case led to long and deep conversations, and I think we all know each other a little better now.

In a way, Facebook is like going to a party with your friends every day in which you can observe them talking and learn about their likes, dislikes, and interests. You get to know them better, and I've found that this leads to more engaged conversations during those times when you do get to see each other in real life.

I wouldn't knock it; as I said it has potential, it all depends on how you use it.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Brad: I didn't knock it, rather, I meant that not all use it wisely or responsibly even. 

I absolutely agree that many things/people can enrich one's life, I just meant from a learning perspective, nothing beats a good book, but I'll admit that I'm a bit old-fashioned with respect to many things. I liked life better in the 90's & earlier. 

By the way Spidey, I hear 50 is now the new 40 and someone said life begins at 50, so enjoy every minute of it & have no regrets! Everyone was a certain age once and only once; the way to think is that many have not reached to be 50, like Const. Garrett Styles for example & so many others.


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## stardancer (Apr 26, 2009)

Spidey said:


> ... The only thing that I find annoying is getting a notice that someone has scored 10,000 points on some silly game.


At one point, you could block the posts on games, as they are automated. I went through and did this with all of them; I was given the choice of blocking the game or the person. It cut out all those annoying posts. As FB has been going through so many changes, I don't know if that option is still available, because I am not getting any of those kind of posts.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Spidey said:


> The only thing that I find annoying is getting a notice that someone has scored 10,000 points on some silly game.


Clcik on the game entry (Farmville is a leading example) and select "Don't show any posts from Farmville" by clicking on the X. It will be silent forever.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Ah yes, I forgot about those games and all the changes. That was a big part of the time I was wasting when I was on FB ever so briefly. I spent more time doing cleanup and getting rid of unwanted cr-p than actually accomplishing anything. And then FB would come along again and change a bunch of things. It's basically just a big advertising machine. I have much better things to do with my time.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I think what drove me from Facebook was when they let the apps run wild and you had zombies, werewolves and vampires biting you, giving you livestock, cupcakes, poking, being shot in a mafia war or something. It was really obnoxious. I just backed away.

It seems like the social networking equivalent of that acquaintance who sends you chain email, with little curses at the end if you fail to send it to everyone you know.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

It's funny, I've never encountered any of that stuff. I do see some of my friends playing games and showing their scores, etc., but I refuse to use any of the games or apps on Facebook -- I think that's where most of the invasiveness and privacy issues come from.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

My wife's computer got hacked via some stupid Facebook "app".
Normally, the security settings on all our home computers are set to High.
But FB didn't work on High settings, at least the apps didn't.
So I lowered it.
Didn't take long to get hacked.
A ton of spamware, viruses, browser highjacks and all kinds of stinky stuff showed up on her computer.
I had to entirely wipe and rebuild.

Since then I have blocked FB at the firewall level.
None of our computers will even recognize the URL or domain name.
Any emails or web pages with embedded links or images from FB simply show a red *X*
Goodbye, Adios, and Good Riddance!


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## travelgeek (Nov 29, 2009)

I don't have an account and will not be getting one anytime soon. Any family or friends already have my contact info and we keep in touch outside of FB. I have absolutely no interest in having my privacy invaded, nor be part of a huge database of info that may later be sold or used against you.


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## DanFo (Apr 9, 2011)

I use FB.. just for quickly keeping up to date with friends. I played a few games awhile back but they get old quickly and they're annoying asking to send crap to your friends all the time so I don't play them anymore...Privacy is controlled by what you allow to have your page...I have a lot of pictures on there which makes it easy to show family and friends from almost anywhere without dragging a camera or memory stick around, and your albums can all be set to private so no one else can see them.... It'll be a fad in a few more years something else will come along and replace it.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

T. gal,

Those statistics are insane.

7 hours for the month of January 2010? Wow.

I'm probably 7 hours for the YEAR. 

And then it says Wikipedia was only 15 minutes per person. I am probably the polar opposite. For me, its more like 15 minutes a month on Facebook, 7 hours a month on Wiki.

I love Wikipedia. If I were a billionaire, I would donate.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Baha I've learned more from Wikipedia than I did in University. Sometimes I get reading and one topic leads to another and another for hours lol. As far as FB it's great but it doesn't take a minute to check out the pics people post from time to time. You can block all the annoying posts you don't like people... you just click on remove or change your settings to only show people to interact with..


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

KaeJS said:


> T. gal,
> 
> Those statistics are insane.


You mean that people are insane, yes! 

Between Facebook, the various forums that people are on + various dating sites, etc., etc., I wonder when some of those folks have time for work & sleep even.  I'm not so much talking about retirees, but the young ones.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

The young ones are doing all this from their phones now. If I'm stuck waiting anywhere alone the first thing I do is check the news, FB, forums etc Unless you have the star power to skip all lineups, a smartphone means you can have this all done during the time you'd be starring at the wall or your watch


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