“Chocolate-Covered Facebook”
I still remember where I was the first time I heard mention of the word “facebook.”
My friends and I had just graduated from high school, and we were celebrating by being lazy. As we lounged around, the conversation turned to boys (as it inevitably always did). One of my friends kept going on and on about this guy she’d just met, while the rest of us rolled our eyes and said, “Yeah, whatever. He’s probably way uglier and more boring than you’re making him out to be.” (What good friends we were…) But she countered, “No, I can show him to you! He has facebook.”
Thus began–for me– the first of many hours spent on facebook.
Initially, I didn’t think I wanted a facebook account. It sounded like a big waste of time. But as the application became more popular, I realized all of the amazing things it could do. For instance, I could reconnect with friends from China, stay in touch with friends from Texas, and even find out where my friends from Japan and Pennsylvania were going to college.
What are your thoughts on facebook and privacy?
I’m not dumb enough to post info or photos on my facebook page that I would mind anyone seeing. But still, I’ve turned down a lot of friend requests simply because I just don’t know that I want strangers to have access to that much about information about my life. However, I’m betting that a lot of these “strangers” whose requests I’ve turned down are just bloggers and blog-readers. And I would like to be friends with them.
Therefore, yesterday, I created a facebook profile solely for the blog!
Chocolate-Covered Nail Art of the Day:
Hugging Squeezing a favorite fat: Artisana Coconut Butter.
Question of the Day:
Do you remember where you were when you first heard of facebook?
And what were your initial thoughts? I remember thinking, “What’s the big deal? It looks boring, and why did he pick such a dull name? This is one trend that’ll fizzle out pretty quickly.”
Hmmm, guess I was really wrong. Sorry, Mark Zuckerberg!
I was one of those older folks who wasn’t allowed on facebook. And I STILL don’t have it. I might be the only one!
I have a facebook to keep up with friends and family. My profile is on private though and I do not accept people I do not know.
You always bring a smile to my face when I read your blog. Thank you for brighting my day.
Stefanie,
Your comments never fail to make ME smile :). So thank YOU.
I didn’t want to have a facebook for a really long time. I’d already gone through an obsession with MySpace and deleted because I was addicted. Then a year later facebook became the thing to be on and I refused. Finally I was at my friend’s house and we were going to be seeing each other again in a few days, so she said, “If you make a facebook account, I’ll give you cake!” And me, not being able to resist cake, made one. I added friends, and then immediately regretted joining. Every day I’d log on and find a request for me to get some sort of zombie vampire application, and I’d get notifications telling me that so-and-so bit me on his vampire application game thing. Oh, and the poking? Very annoying. I’m actually not addicted to facebook because it’s more annoying than MySpace is (at least MySpace in 2006, it’s probably changed loads since then).
I have friends who move a lot though so it’s a great way to keep in touch. I check it maybe 1-3 times a day, I ignore most requests for joining stupid groups that suggest if I join a puppy won’t be put down or I’ll get $1,000, I don’t “friend” strangers and now it’s not so much of a bother.
And like you, I have at least half a brain and don’t put up anything that I wouldn’t want anyone to see. That’s why I have my privacy settings so that friends of friends can see most of my info. I don’t say where I live, I only share my e-mail address and not my phone number, and if I were to do something I wouldn’t want someone to see, even if I thought they’d never see it, I wouldn’t post a picture of me doing it on a social networking site. The people who are upset about their privacy being invaded are the ones who need to realize that no information you share on the internet is guaranteed to be private. That’s why you’re supposed to be diligent regarding the type of information you post. No one is going to find out my street address by knowing that I like to quote George Carlin and listen to Ben Folds. 😛
I dislike Facebook and what really makes me mad is I feel like I basically have to have it to “survive”. Soon we’ll be voting for president on Facebook. My friends arrange nights out on Facebook. I have to have a personal profile for IET to have a page. It’s one thing to not post not-so-flattering pics or personal information about yourself on there, but that doesn’t stop anyone else from doing it! If you don’t want your boss to see pics of you holding a beer, you just can’t hold a beer in public. Sure, you can untag it, but it’s still there. And everyone and their brother knows about your engagement, pregnancy, new job before you even get to share the exciting news because the first person you told posted it on Facebook.
I guess I just ranted and didn’t really answer the question. 😛 The first time I heard about it I was a freshman in college and everyone was excited our university was one of the ones that had it.
Keri,
I completely agree with your rant! There are some pictures of me on facebook that make me cringe. And honestly, just like you, I would rather not have it at all. It’s such a time-sucker.
Your “someday we’ll vote for the president on facebook” remark would’ve made me laugh… if it weren’t so true :-?.
I like facebook for keeping in touch with friends, but I never accept a friend request if I don’t know who they are, and sometimes even if I do! I get overwhelmed with all the stuff and I don’t even use most of the applications. Too much!
And I posted the recipe with your agar pudding if you want to check it out!
http://kellapillar.blogspot.com/2010/06/vegan-strawberry-shortcake-in-bowl.html
Ah, Facebook. (Proud to be your chocolate-covered friend, btw!) It’s weird for me because when it started, it was literally only open to a handful of colleges in Boston, mine among them. So it was really small when I joined. And then it started opening up to more and more colleges, and it seemed like it would only be a college thing. But of course, people graduate, and thus began the worldwide dominationImeanexpansion. So now I’m in this weird place where I DO have kinda wacky/quasi-embarrassing pics from college there, but on the other hand, these days I’ve got people like my parents and little cousins friend-ing me. What used to be a relaxed, immature site great for procrastinating is now practically a professional tool for social networking, and I’m still not sure how I want to use it, so I’m caught between two worlds, so to speak, haha. I used to not accept bloggers as friends for privacy reasons, but now I’m “friends” with a handful that I know aren’t creepers. 😉 I definitely do not friend my co-workers though. That’s what LinkedIn is for. And so the ridiculous amount of networking sites continue to take over my life…
I DO NOT have facebook– I’m a bit scared! My parents have warned me not to pout info about myself on the internet, and it’s freaky talking to people you may not know. I know some of my friends have a facebook and at school they talk about their conversations the night before. Couldn’t we just talk in PERSON all the time? Seems like another way to be lazy. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s great if you want to stay in touch with someone or something, but still…
vegirl
I have never viewed social networking as “private” so I wouldn’t put up thoughts or pictures that I don’t mind sharing with the world. People are up in arms about facebook, but most don’t realize that they publically share facets of their life on twitter – all of our twitter posts can be read by anyone and can even be found on search engines!
If I have something to share with loved ones specifically, that is what the phone, direct emails, and tea time are for 🙂
Oh, and CCK, have you thought about adding an email subscription? I am really trying to get off of reader, it is a pain and too time consuming. But a lot of bloggers haven’t switched to email yet. Very easy to simply sort the emails and even put posts into a folder that I want to have for later.