How Do You Use Facebook? Why?

This is an offshoot of the Presidential thread. I thought Farscry hit on something that's really frustrating / hard to navigate this time of year. Your crazy uncle who believes Obama is a secret muslim? He's posting on Facebook. You might even try to refute him. Families divide or simply stop paying attention to each other. How do you use Facebook? Is it a net good or net evil?

My problem is this. Because of the mere existence of Facebook I have relatives who don't make phone calls any longer. They don't send letters to each other. We don't meet as a family as often. Facebook "handles" keeping in touch with relatives who weren't your favorites to begin with. Unfortunately those same relatives are now expressing themselves on Facebook. Often in radically and possibly offensive ways. Maybe you want to express yourself. I personally would love to walk away from Facebook. I want people to reach out to me via email, call me or whatever. But I know that won't happen. The world has changed. If I want to know how my relatives and distant friends are doing I have to be on Facebook. So how does everyone else square this? This isn't necessarily even about politics, although I put this here because of where it came from. But what is Facebook for if you can't be yourself? Is it even worth it?

Originally I loved the idea of Facebook as a network to keep family & friends in touch with me.

But then it morphed so that it was like dealing with regular internet crap (trolls, newspaper comments, etc), so I pared the list down dramatically last year to a select group of friends and close family members.

Unfortunately, with my family mostly falling into the hyper-conservative/fundamentalist Christian demographic, they've taken it upon themselves to post offensive crap under the guise of "following Jesus" on Facebook. It got bad enough that I made a public note that if people want to put meanspirited stuff out there (regardless of where it resides politically or culturally), I will be removing them from my FB network, because I don't want to see people I love say things that make me lose respect for them.

Really, all I want out of Facebook since I pared down the list last year is just a way to see news (like "I got the awesome job I applied for!"), event announcements that don't require formal invitations, and photos of friends and family.

The rest of it, the conversational stuff, I would far rather people just write a letter (or a letter-quality email) or - heaven forbid - talk on the damn phone (my closest family member is ~550 miles away, so that's a bit far to sit down for a face-to-face chat with any frequency).

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have any family members who post asshole things on FB.

Thing is, I'd respond the same way I would in real life if they were saying those same asshole things to me. Distance myself from them. On FB, that's easy with the Unfriend button. In real life, it means I stop making contact with them, while remaining civil when we encounter each other at family gatherings.

Just because they're family doesn't mean I have an obligation to respect or put up with their bigotry.

Back before Cracked became a cesspool of worthless life guides written by the vomit-soaked hands of idiots congratulating themselves on passing off obvious things for deep thought, Dan O'Brien wrote a really good article about how people are more alone and miserable now, despite it being an age of unimaginable communication. Part of it was how we, as a society, used to be somewhat forced to be friends with (or constant social companions of) people who aren't like us, don't share our points of view, and given infinite choices of whom to be friends with, we'd rather not know. However, we didn't see it that way - we saw the mouthy guy at the bar we always went to as just some guy who spouts off too much but in the end is probably an alright guy. Hell, that would probably be the exact description, "Joe runs his mouth a lot, but he's an alright guy."

Now that we have the Internet, we went through a period (that we're still going through, in many ways) where we could reach out to large numbers of people who share all our same thoughts and create wonderful echo chambers. We didn't have to filter ourselves, nor did we have to cope with the thoughts of people who didn't already agree with that. What's better, we completely dehumanized people who didn't agree with us as remote blips or, better yet, idiots that magically conformed to every bad stereotype we thought about someone who held those beliefs*. So we got used to being able to not just speak our minds (good), but also not needing to divest personal opinions about people from those things (bad).

Now, Facebook has brought us to step 2: Now that we are trained to speak our minds and that only rational, wonderful people will agree with us, we are now being thrown back together with old friends, family, and co-workers in the environment which is somewhat like I mentioned before - small communities where you see the same people over and over. But instead of feeling a sense of community and kinship with the people you know personally, you instead run people you should know better about through the same litmus test you run some jackass posting on Youtube.

My Facebook friends list is about 200 at most, at any given time. I prune it mostly based on whether or not I actually know the people relatively well, not if they agree with me or not. I've found that if you can appeal to people on a personal level, it can actually help base a real conversation. It can also lead immediately to the tired, "What happened to you, you were way cooler back X years ago" line of reasoning, but you win some, lose some.

(*read in conjunction with my description of Cracked. Laugh to self. Hope your children are never like me.)

Jonman wrote:

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have any family members who post asshole things on FB.

Well, in fairness, the one I removed is the sister who, several years ago, sent me a birthday card that instead of being a regular birthday card, was actually a letter detailing how worried she was that I was living in sin (my then-fiancee and children were living with me) and what a bad lesson I was teaching the kids and blah blah bullsh*t blah.

So it's not like she has any real sense of decorum to begin with anyway.

Jonman wrote:

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have any family members who post asshole things on FB.

Thing is, I'd respond the same way I would in real life if they were saying those same asshole things to me. Distance myself from them. On FB, that's easy with the Unfriend button. In real life, it means I stop making contact with them, while remaining civil when we encounter each other at family gatherings.

Just because they're family doesn't mean I have an obligation to respect or put up with their bigotry.

This 100%. My FB behavior is the same as my real life behavior.

Bloo Driver wrote:

Back before Cracked became a cesspool of worthless life guides written by the vomit-soaked hands of idiots congratulating themselves on passing off obvious things for deep thought, Dan O'Brien wrote a really good article about how people are more alone and miserable now, despite it being an age of unimaginable communication.

I need to find a link to that article. That exact thought has been bouncing around my brain for a while, but not quite as coherent. Thanks!

Jonman wrote:

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have any family members who post asshole things on FB.

This also applies to my friends as well - though I'm picky who I add in general.

I use facebook to keep in touch with people I don't normally keep in touch with and also as a sound board for various emotions I feel during the course of the week. It's also good for arranging piss-ups at breweries (or wherever!)...

I've never had a Facebook page. I guess I'm kind of a luddite that way. When I want to see what my friends/family are up to, I send them a text, email, or call them. The downside, if you want to look at it that way, is that I only have a handful of close friends that I speak to with any regularity. However, I think I'd rather be really close with 20 people than casual with 200.

OldMud wrote:

I've never had a Facebook page. I guess I'm kind of a luddite that way. When I want to see what my friends/family are up to, I send them a text, email, or call them. The downside, if you want to look at it that way, is that I only have a handful of close friends that I speak to with any regularity. However, I think I'd rather be really close with 20 people than casual with 200.

One of the most insidious thing Facebook does to relationships happens if you try to adopt this stance after having been on Facebook. Since this has become the chosen form of communication for many people cutting them off or withdrawing yourself is seen as withdrawing from the entire relationship. It's crazy.

The only reason I ever go on facebook is that my parents and siblings live ~2500 miles away and it's the easiest way to post random pictures of their 3 month old granddaughter. It seems like most of the people I have as 'friends' on facebook use the service for the same thing. The only exception is my grandmother, who no longer emails me after I somewhat layed into her about sending along forwards that a simple google search showed to be complete bs. I felt kinda bad about it afterwards, but not bad enough to apologize and deal with the emails again. I'd remove her from my friends list but other than the crazy, uninformed political stuff, I like her and know she enjoys seeing pictures of her great-granddaughter who she'll only be able to meet if we make the trip up there for the holidays.

OldMud wrote:

I've never had a Facebook page. I guess I'm kind of a luddite that way. When I want to see what my friends/family are up to, I send them a text, email, or call them. The downside, if you want to look at it that way, is that I only have a handful of close friends that I speak to with any regularity. However, I think I'd rather be really close with 20 people than casual with 200.

I've always been curious about the people who think the above is actually mutually exclusive. I've got a core of about 10 or so close friends, who are also my friends on facebox. Then there's about 200 or so that I keep in casual contact with on it and use FB to coordinate group events and share pictures... you know, what it's actually for. Like DSG said, it's a little weird when people turn their FB relationship into the primary expression of that relationship, but it doesn't have to be one or the other with having a lot of contact on FB and real life quality friendships.

I've only got the one, by marriage, who posts stuff like that. The sad thing is seeing her kids posting similar sh*t.

I for one can see Facebook as fairly therapeutic. I know when I hit a rough patch in my life it's nice to be able to talk to friends, ask them what they've been up too, or perhaps ask advice on certain situations. What I don't necessarily like is when people take it to the extreme and post constant updates on their horrible lives and how mistreated they are. I know that when I broke up with my girlfriend it was good to be able to have access to people, it was kind of like having them with and around me, like I was within arms reach of comfort.

GWJ is my Facebook. But then it's also my Metafilter, GameFAQs, Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, Pinterest and NeoGaf.

Okay, but I am on Facebook, but barely and not often. I have 20 friends, most them actual friends or family (or family-in-law, my family isn't on FB beyond my sister) and most of them hidden on my newsfeed. Only my sister uses FB as a primary communication tool, but I'll just text or e-mail back because my FB inbox isn't one I keep tabs on. Nobody posts anything inflammatory... or interesting, beyond vacation photos, which I don't look at and nobody gives me any grief for not doing so. I only post news articles about Facebook. I'm not happy with or confident about the way Facebook lets me control my content (including quality, privacy, and pruning), so I use Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube instead (and rarely—like I say, I'm mostly on this board!).

Now my wife is on Facebook all the time. Mostly for creeping on friends-of-friends photos, as a way to pass the time, and communicating with her friends and co-workers. But that's just path of least resistance, and if Facebook disappeared tomorrow (hope springs eternal), she would seamlessly shift to group e-mails and Gchat, or whatever was most convenient. When it came to keeping the world up-to-date with baby pics and news, FB wasn't even an option; she's also not happy with the slippery privacy controls, so she went with Shutterfly instead.

So, Facebook: ancillary communication tool, personalized Pinterest/Flickr.

I have two accounts. One for here in Curacao. For colleagues and friends I have here.
The other one is for my family and real close friends.

In the end I just do no like FB at all. It started out nice. But now that I am the product, they put it all where the sun doesn't shine.
When I don't have the need of it anymore, it is gone. Right now, I keep it because of the current situation I am in. That's all.

I'm really enjoying Path and Google+ as alternatives to Facebook. Might give those a try.

Edwin wrote:

I'm really enjoying Path and Google+ as alternatives to Facebook. Might give those a try.

The problem is moving all your friends over. I would gladly ditch Facebook for those if it didn't mean my friends / family assuming that choosing not to be on Facebook was tantamount to cutting them off completely.

DSGamer wrote:
Edwin wrote:

I'm really enjoying Path and Google+ as alternatives to Facebook. Might give those a try.

The problem is moving all your friends over. I would gladly ditch Facebook for those if it didn't mean my friends / family assuming that choosing not to be on Facebook was tantamount to cutting them off completely.

Exactly my reason that I 'have' to stay on FB for now.

Path can cross-post to Facebook so you can still feed them one way but not deal with the terrible UI or app experience.

Keeping up with family is so much easier with Facebook and for me I'd rather deal with crazy family members there as well. All I have to do is roll my eyes and scroll past an idiotic post. Sure I sometimes get suckered into replying, but it's usually a lot less heated than something I'd say in person.

No f*cking clue. Mostly I share photos of cute animals with my fiancee and make snarky jokes to other people for my own amusement.

Pretty much what I do on GWJ now that I think of it.

Basically, I use FB to keep up with close friends. I have 160 friends, and I think i've hidden all but maybe 30 of their news feeds, so I've managed to easily sidestep most of the political hogwash that goes on. I check once, twice a day, post something every week or so that's generally inoffensive jokey BS, rinse, repeat.

More often than not, I use it to figure if there's a social gathering coming up that i'm invited to and should go to.

I log into facebook maybe once or twice a week. I mostly lurk and post pictures of our cats.

MacBrave wrote:

I log into facebook maybe once or twice a week. I mostly lurk and post pictures of our cats.

No, we're talking about Facebook here, MacBrave, not the internet in general!

I sometimes feel like I'm missing out by not participating in Facebook, but when I look at other people's accounts I rarely see something interesting and assume that nobody is going to be interested in my news. There may be some advantages I'm missing, but it sounds like there's aggravation there, too.

One of my pets died this morning, and I used Facebook as a means of reaching out for support. People on my friends list with whom I disagree vehemently about myriad topics all gave me support.

I don't have a Facebook account, never have, never will. Zuckerberg is slimy and I won't have anything to do with his company.

Sorry about your pet, Seth. That's always such a bummer.

Facebook has enough ways to filter posts from people you don't like and to segregate who sees stuff you post that I don't find it to be much of a problem these days. My family is spread all over the country though, so Facebook has allowed me to keep up to date on people that I rarely talked to before. Overall, it's a good thing.

Malor wrote:

I don't have a Facebook account, never have, never will. Zuckerberg is slimy and I won't have anything to do with his company.

I cannot fault the guy for being the latest one to get rich on selling pixie dust to fools. Still wondering what the SEC will find from their investigation. On investing in a company that has no product, caveat emptor I say. Is he any different than the machine that sold America on bottled water?

I stopped using Facebook a while back. Aside from the endless privacy scandals and the general scumminess of the company in general, I just realised there was nothing on there I cared about. Most of my "friends" were people I knew in high school who I didn't talk to and realised I didn't really want to. The only people I really care to interact with are either here or I'm able to talk to them in some other venue that's not mining my data to make someone else money. There were a few people on Facebook who said "But how am I going to stay in touch with you?" when I announced in my feed that I was deleting my account and my answer was "If you want to talk to me, here's the other ways to reach me." Never heard from any of them since. I find it's just a bad way to talk to people and it's the source of so much Internet noise (which I already get too much of from Twitter) that it's not worth the effort for me. I figure it's just as easy to send me an e-mail as it is to send me a Facebook message so anyone on there who really wants to talk to me can do that instead. The only thing that really annoys me is various contests and other things I can't enter because I don't have a Facebook account or sites like Fundrazr which require you to authenticate with a Facebook account for no good reason.