Facebook is down :(

[mmaria]

Marija, it's not uncommon to have large families. My mother-in-law has/had seven brothers and sisters, and my father-in-law was one of thirteen kids. Most of my wife's aunts and uncles also had large families (from four to eight), so as a result, when I went to my wife's first family reunion, there were something like several hundred first cousins. No way everyone remembers everyone else, and it is a common exercise for them to start enumerating who the parents and grandparents were just to figure out where in the family tree they belong.

My father had 7 brothers and a sister, but most of them died. 4 of them died very young, the sister died when she was 25,a brother died a few years back.... so not so large familly

 

[astroNikon]

Facebook is the "next generation" photographer that gets transformed to greatness that we all love (WB off, bad lighting, movement, et all).

If the stock doubles, triples, quadruples or more then I'm all for it !!

 

[waday]

Yes, you do have to take the good with the bad, like with anything. I usually just ignore the "So blessed..." bragging posts. I come from a very large family (my mom has 8 brothers and 3 sisters and I have over 40 first cousins) and we are pretty spread out along the East Coast so it's a great way for us to keep in touch and share pics of our kids and updates on everyone's lives.

My wife is in a similar situation... each of my wife's parents are one of ten. She has over 100 first cousins.

Needless to say, I've introduced myself to people multiple times when we've already met multiple times.

 

[SquarePeg]

I love being from a big family. I am right in the middle age wise. I actually have a 1st cousin who has 8 grandchildren and another first cousin who is a Jr. in high school.

 

[Vtec44]

Yeah I don't get the Facebook hate either. It seems like a lot of ppl that hate Facebook just have the wrong Facebook friends. My feed is clean and drama free. I keep it that way because I use it for my business. If that crappy Facebook photographer is getting business and you're not, maybes you should try to learn what he/she is doing right on Facebook instead of hating. It just a thought. Haters gonna hate.

 

[Forkie]

I also have a very large family, My Dad being one of seven and my Mum one of three. I have nearly 50 first cousins, but haven't met most of them and the ones I have met, aren't really my kind o' people - I just have nothing in common with them...

 

[minicoop1985]

I will admit, I have one woman on my Facebook feed whose life is an absolute cluster (4 kids from 5 dads...) just because she's so dense it's entertaining. Other than that, I don't understand Facebook drama. Then again, I don't understand most drama anyway.

 

[JustJazzie]

I planned to delete Facebook a month or so ago. Emailed everyone for alternative contact information and was surprised at how few responded. Anyone who didn't respond was deleted from my friends list. I tried to be good about texting and email out pictures and what not but no one else returned the favor. So, now the only reason I keep it is to see everyones pictures that they post.

It makes me a little sad really, because I feel like Facebook is so self serving. Wouldn't it be nice for someone to think "Ohh, Jazzie would LOVE this picture of the kiddos" Instead of thinking- "Oh Ill post it to Facebook and see how many likes I can get!" ( I suppose that comment is in itself self-serving. it assumes that I should be important enough to be thought of ;-) )

I feel that in an effort to pull people together Facebook has mostly just pushed us further and further apart. I would personally, rather receive once a month, (or even less!) personal phone calls with true human connection and updates, than see 100 posts on Facebook this week about weather or not you exercised this week. Unfortunately, my trial run of no Facebook showed me that I am down to only one option here, so I suppose Ill be grateful for what I get!

 

[waday]

Most of my FB "friends" are those from school and a few from work. Sure, I have family on there, but my family communicates mostly through face-to-face, phone, or text message communication. While there are several friends I do keep in touch with, I would say I could remove 80% of my "friends" and wouldn't see a difference in my feed.

I feel that in an effort to pull people together Facebook has mostly just pushed us further and further apart.

This sums FB up perfectly, IMO.

FB has pushed one of my cousins further from her family. I'll keep this brief:

My aunt and uncle had to get a Facebook account because my cousin (aged in her late 30's) stopped calling her parents when she moved to California from New York. One day, my uncle sees my cousin post on Facebook similar to this: "My son is missing! I can't find him!" Well, my aunt and uncle start freaking out--like any normal grandparents would do. They tried calling her, and she didn't answer. After about an hour, my cousin finally picks up the phone and says, "Oh, we found him. You can read about it on Facebook."

My aunt's response was the best: "You either tell me what happened or I'll fly out to California just to slap you."

 

[SquarePeg]

Sounds like there is more wrong with their relationship than just FB.

 

[waday]

Sounds like there is more wrong with their relationship than just FB.

Without getting tooooo personal, there is to a certain degree.

 

[limr]

I dunno, I think it all depends on how you use it and if you're willing to put in the work of tailoring the site to better suit your preferences. I was a vagabond for a good chunk of my life, and so I have friends scattered around the world. And many of them are somewhat vagabondy as well, so it's nice to be able to keep in touch with them even as we're all moving around. I've also re-established some older friendships. I don't have any family members on FB. The people I know that tend to post inane "inspirational" memes or brag about how wonderful their lives are...well, they're tucked away in lists that I don't read. The ones that show up on my feed regularly are the ones who like to post interesting links they've found or news updates or pictures of things I actually give a crap about (like cats )

I'm terrible at keeping touch on the phone because I hate talking on the phone, so in some ways, I've felt the opposite - I've gotten closer to some people because in many cases, I can connect to someone better in writing. I also have friends who are similar and who also prefer written communication, so this suits us just fine. And when we feel the need to connect in person, we can make that happen more easily because we can get in touch using FB.

So yeah, I get that it can be annoying because people can be annoying, but it's also quite easy to ignore those people. In fact, it's probably easiER to ignore them on FB. Just scroll past or defriend or hide them in a list. In person, you can't really just suddenly walk away or tell them to shut the hell up

 

[SquarePeg]

We are on the same page with this one limr. I too prefer writing to talking on the phone, but mostly because my job involves me being on the phone 80% of my day so the last thing I want to do after work is talk on the phone! FB has been great at keeping in touch with my old friends and getting to know new friends better. It's also a great way to collaborate and make plans with a group.

I do keep my FB friend list limited to family (the ones I like) and actual friends. Not my hairdresser or friends of friends or people from high school that I didn't even know then! I use the "would I have them over for dinner" test.

 

[limr]

Yeah, that's the other thing. Just limit who is "friends" on FB. I probably accepted more friend requests than I should have when I first started, mostly because I was curious, but I still kept it to a minimum. I remember getting a request from my elementary school bus driver! Um, no.

 

[Vtec44]

Facebook, and other social networking platforms, is nothing more than just a communication tool. I use it for both personal and business. I am a Facebook photographer and I embrace it.