Facebook is the Devil

  • Thread starter Thread starter Norm640
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
well you are definitely not alone in regards to your feelings about Facebook lol!

I deactivated my account 3 weeks ago or so. I admit I went through a few days of withdrawal ( I obviously was addicted as much as that pains me to say :D) but in all honesty I’m so glad I did it.

I’ve been on it for nearly 5 years and at first it was a fun thing to do…play games connect with old childhood friends etc…but after a while things started to go downhill. Part of it was my fault, I was guilty for posting the stupidest updates just like lots of others and I even had 2 falling outs with my cousins who unfriended me (over,what I think, were ridiculous reasons). One unfriended me 4 years ago and the other just recently did and that right there was the final straw. I also began to feel depressed about my life and overly preoccupied with other peoples’ lives, most of whom didn’t care one iota about me except to occasionally like a post I made. Before I deactivated I made a final post saying that I was doing so and that if anyone would like to stay in contact please message me their email/phone/address…the people who did I kept as “friends” the rest got unfriended. So if I ever do reactivate my account I think I might have 29 people on there lol!

I will also say that my work life was slowly inching its way into my personal life and I was not comfy with that at all…didn’t like having my boss as a friend! (nothing against her but I didn’t want her keeping tabs on me like that!)
 
I have all these people I friended when I first started, but we don’t ever speak. I had wanted now to unfriend some of these to get the list down to only the ones who will actually speak to me and vice versa. However, I don’t think I’ve ever done this and now hate to, because to do that would mean hurt feelings. I guess they’d receive an “unfriend” notification? I don’t know how that works, and that sounds like it’d hurt!

Somebody was on the forum lately saying he had been “unfriended”!

Normally, with e-mail, it’s easier. You just stop e-mailing somebody! You can take them off your list, block them, but I don’t ever remember anybody getting notifications!
 
the only way they will know is if they look you up and go to your page and then they will see the option to friend you…meaning that you had unfriended them a while back. They don’t get notifications when you unfriend them or even unsubscribe to their newsfeed.
 
Angel_Gabriel said:
the only way they will know is if they look you up and go to your page and then they will see the option to friend you…meaning that you had unfriended them a while back. They don’t get notifications when you unfriend them or even unsubscribe to their newsfeed.
Click to expand...
Oh, so I can unfriend away, then! Great! Thanks!
 
Or you can just find the setting - if I remember correctly you go to your Friends list and then find the drop-down that gives the option of whether or not to “Show in News Feed.”

I wish I’d found that sooner, because I don’t give a hoot about whether or not anyone reads my stuff; I know people are busy and don’t always log in that often, so why interpret it negatively when it may not mean anything one way or the other? 🤷 But what did bother me were the politics and religion posts by those who live very opposite to my Catholic faith and are “in my face” about it.:mad: Once I got those turned off, I am having a better Facebook experience.👍

However, I’m also more limited than I used to be. I don’t want to waste a bunch of valuable time on there, and I don’t want to post too much stuff. And I go back in my Activity Log and clean out old stuff periodically.
 
KrazyKat said:
I like Facebook !
Click to expand...
👍 I do too. Maybe folks are just expecting more out of it than it can give. I have family two states away, so I get to see pics of them and what they’re up to. But I don’t expect to make a stable of BFF’s. I don’t get involved in political discussions, and rarely post religious material and then only to my own timeline. What I do expect Facebook to do is make me laugh. There’s not a cat video made that doesn’t make me smile. 🙂 I like finding people that like the same movies and books that I do. I like seeing photos of nature and wildlife. My largest use though, is posting about missing pets, animals that need adoption, animal welfare, pet health, etc. In that regard, it is a **very **powerful tool indeed.

So, yeah, I like FB. It’s what you make it. You find what you like, or what interests you and then go!
 
NeedsMercy said:
👍 I do too. Maybe folks are just expecting more out of it than it can give. I have family two states away, so I get to see pics of them and what they’re up to. But I don’t expect to make a stable of BFF’s. I don’t get involved in political discussions, and rarely post religious material and then only to my own timeline. What I do expect Facebook to do is make me laugh. There’s not a cat video made that doesn’t make me smile. 🙂 I like finding people that like the same movies and books that I do. I like seeing photos of nature and wildlife. My largest use though, is posting about missing pets, animals that need adoption, animal welfare, pet health, etc. In that regard, it is a **very **powerful tool indeed.

So, yeah, I like FB. It’s what you make it. You find what you like, or what interests you and then go!
Click to expand...
A lot of people just can’t lay off the categories you avoid.

A network is only going to be as good as its members.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Or you can just find the setting - if I remember correctly you go to your Friends list and then find the drop-down that gives the option of whether or not to “Show in News Feed.”

I wish I’d found that sooner, because I don’t give a hoot about whether or not anyone reads my stuff; I know people are busy and don’t always log in that often, so why interpret it negatively when it may not mean anything one way or the other? 🤷 But what did bother me were the politics and religion posts by those who live very opposite to my Catholic faith and are “in my face” about it.:mad: Once I got those turned off, I am having a better Facebook experience.👍

However, I’m also more limited than I used to be. I don’t want to waste a bunch of valuable time on there, and I don’t want to post too much stuff. And I go back in my Activity Log and clean out old stuff periodically.
Click to expand...
That’s what the ‘Block’ button is for! 😃
 
I would not worry too much about facebook. Yes, it is popular right now, but it wont be here forever, things like this come and go and trends change, nothing new.

For proof of this, think back to something that was extremely popular when you were in middle school, now jump forward 20-30 years…is this thing still popular? Probably not.

I expect when the younger kids of today get older, they will be all be saying, “remember facebook, and how everyone thought it was so popular and would never disappear”, Just as older people do today with things that were popular back in their youth…facebook or anything remotely like it is nothing different.
 
As with many things in life, Facebook can drag us down if we let it. But it is also a tool that can be used well.

I am glad to have it. It’s an easy way to contact family and old friends without having to keep track of an addressbook of email addresses. But then, I also don’t spend a whole lot of time reading through what other people post and pretty much only log into Facebook when I really need to (which isn’t very often).

I don’t think I’ve ever unfriended someone. Some of my FB friends do post some pretty high-blood-pressure-inducing things, but I just ignore it. 🤷 I know of a few people who have unfriended me because I have gone to search for them and discovered they were no longer there. But I don’t read into it. Maybe they deleted their account. Maybe they’re culling their friend list (my wife will get in a decluttering mood and start unfriending people just because it makes her feel better to thin the herd). Maybe they harbor some secret old grudge against me. Whatever their reason, I will never know, don’t need to know, and honestly don’t really care that much. 😛
 
mikekle said:
I would not worry too much about facebook. Yes, it is popular right now, but it wont be here forever, things like this come and go and trends change, nothing new.

For proof of this, think back to something that was extremely popular when you were in middle school, now jump forward 20-30 years…is this thing still popular? Probably not.

I expect when the younger kids of today get older, they will be all be saying, “remember facebook, and how everyone thought it was so popular and would never disappear”, Just as older people do today with things that were popular back in their youth…facebook or anything remotely like it is nothing different.
Click to expand...
It’s certainly possible that Facebook will go extinct (just look at MySpace), but some things are able to maintain their level of popularity through the years. When I was in junior high, The Simpsons were popular. So were video games and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Simpsons are still on the air, the Ninja Turtles just rebooted themselves again, and there are still plenty of video games to be had.

Whether or not Facebook sticks around is certainly debatable, but I think social networking is here to stay. At least for the short term of the next few decades. I’m not sure about centuries. 😛
 
mikekle said:
I would not worry too much about facebook. Yes, it is popular right now, but it wont be here forever, things like this come and go and trends change, nothing new.

For proof of this, think back to something that was extremely popular when you were in middle school, now jump forward 20-30 years…is this thing still popular? Probably not.

I expect when the younger kids of today get older, they will be all be saying, “remember facebook, and how everyone thought it was so popular and would never disappear”, Just as older people do today with things that were popular back in their youth…facebook or anything remotely like it is nothing different.
Click to expand...
Junior high? I’m so old I don’t remember a thing. 😃
 
mikekle said:
I would not worry too much about facebook. Yes, it is popular right now, but it wont be here forever, things like this come and go and trends change, nothing new.

For proof of this, think back to something that was extremely popular when you were in middle school, now jump forward 20-30 years…is this thing still popular? Probably not.
Click to expand...
Hmm… vinyl LPs come to mind. I’ve seen bell-bottom pants come and go…and come back again…

Rap just **will not **go away…

FB may not survive the next decade and may go the way of MySpace. But “social networking” may actually be here to stay.

I’ve actually seen warnings that people who do NOT have social networking accounts are more likely to be criminals or psychopaths. Employers are warned not to hire people who don’t FB because “what are they trying to hide?”

Luckily, mose of those also make an exception for -]geezers/-] people of more “enhanced” age, as our opinion of things like privacy and relevance often differ from the -]dang kids get off my lawn/-] much younger generation… 😃

Me, I don’t facebook, I don’t LinkedIn, I rarely look at my emails, I only ever text 2-3 people, and that is usually to pass on a message. I am too busy with the important things in life – such as listening to Neil Diamond on my 8-track.
 
It is quite possible that people who are not on FB don’t have a thing to hide- they just don’t have friends and feel lower each time they log on and have that reinforced. This is why I come and go on it. I’m only on for my family. FB makes me feel even more isolated and alone.

I would like to see the research that criminals and psychopaths aren’t on FB. I question people who use FB every day and have 300 pictures of themselves that they change on a daily basis. This is very common. FB is also used to bully and stalk others, and “hook up”.

I thought FB was a place to meet new people and be, you know, “social”. The most ironic thing about social media is that it has created a generation of truly anti-social people.

And if I were an employer I wouldn’t base a person having FB as a gauge of “normal” behavior. Having a FB presence with thousands of “friends” who you think wants to know every single detail of your life signifies a bigger psychological problem than not having one.
 
Norm640 said:
It is quite possible that people who are not on FB don’t have a thing to hide- they just don’t have friends and feel lower each time they log on and have that reinforced. This is why I come and go on it. I’m only on for my family. FB makes me feel even more isolated and alone.

I would like to see the research that criminals and psychopaths aren’t on FB. I question people who use FB every day and have 300 pictures of themselves that they change on a daily basis. This is very common. FB is also used to bully and stalk others, and “hook up”.

I thought FB was a place to meet new people and be, you know, “social”. The most ironic thing about social media is that it has created a generation of truly anti-social people.

And if I were an employer I wouldn’t base a person having FB as a gauge of “normal” behavior. Having a FB presence with thousands of “friends” who you think wants to know every single detail of your life signifies a bigger psychological problem than not having one.
Click to expand...
I guess I never really thought of Facebook as a place to meet new people. 🤷 I’ve ignored any friend request that comes from someone I did not know personally. All my facebook friends are people I know from school, work, or because I’m related to them. 🙂

I’d never heard those stats about employers using Facebook as a gauge of whether or not someone has something to hide. That would suprise me if that were true. I’ve heard of employers looking up people on Facebook to make sure they aren’t bonkers before hiring them. But that’s a bit different. 😛
 
When I look up one or two of my particular FB friends, a long, long list of their friends pop up and I am asked if there is anyone on that list that I want to invite as a friend. So I have everyone on my friend’s FB list of whom I know a few and do not know them well enough to invite as a friend. I totally do not like my name going around as a possible friend for others to friend me. Also, it shows who looked at my page for the day, some of whom left a note and some who didn’t. So… what…is that being too picky?
 
How do you find out who looked at your page? Never heard of that. All I’m saying is that it isn’t really a social site…it is a clique site. You get those you care about and you’re social with them, but it isn’t about interacting with others. And because of that it can become very cliquey. By nature, I guess.

But of course part of its origin is to meet new people. That’s why there happens to be about one billion people on it…and it made an instant billionaire out of its founder.
 
I saw a news report that claimed most of the ‘friends’ people have on FB and other social networks are not really friends, in the sense, they can call them out of the blue to go out and do something, or need help moving, etc. most friends are just online friends and that is where it ends. Alot of people just want a high friend count to impress others, so they just accept anyone who friends them, or just start sending out lots of friend requests.

When I was on FB, I only had friends that I knew in real life, most of them were people I went to school with, and it was nice for awhile to catch up and see how everyone was doing, but eventually it got old and I lost interest.

I text with my friends alot, but the only friends I have are ones I can go visit in person and can call for help if I need it, whenever that may be. I prefer this over ‘fake or online only friends’ LOL
 
IfYouLeadMe said:
The whole idea of Facebook letting you connect with friends and family, share photos etc is great, but there is also a lot to question and be concerned about.

I’ve deleted my Facebook account recently. Some reasons are personal, a lot to do with all my increasing depression and anxiety issues that I’m dealing with.

I’m also tired of society “forcing” you to do everything via Facebook. For example in the past, to enter a competition for a product you like etc, you simply bought it and filled in the form. Nowadays they’ll say “Like us on Facebook…” - what if we don’t have an account, what if we don’t want to have an account?
Click to expand...
I hate that too.
I like following sites/blogs via RSS but most have dropped that option and replaced it with “follow us on Facebook” or Google+.

Their are legitimate uses for Facebook. I know people who have found long-lost friends & family or belong to hobby type groups.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top