Facebook is down :(

[gsgary]

I won't have anything to do with facebook if I want to talk to friends I go round to their houses or I ring and talk, even on forums if I get friend invites I just ignore them

 

[limr30 3]

I won't have anything to do with facebook if I want to talk to friends I go round to their houses or I ring and talk, even on forums if I get friend invites I just ignore them

That's fine if that works for you. It doesn't for many of us. Facebook itself is a neutral tool. It doesn't get the blame or the credit. Use it or don't use it.

 

[gsgary]

I won't have anything to do with facebook if I want to talk to friends I go round to their houses or I ring and talk, even on forums if I get friend invites I just ignore them

That's fine if that works for you. It doesn't for many of us. Facebook itself is a neutral tool. It doesn't get the blame or the credit. Use it or don't use it.

I know 5 marriages that have been broken by facebook and 2 people who have lost their jobs because of it, my partner works for the police they love facebook it helps them catch lots of scum bags

 

[Vtec44]

I'm glad I'm not a scum bag. If I am one, I now know not to use Facebook.

 

[limr30 3]

Once again, that is a function of the PEOPLE who are using or misusing the site. If someone is an arsehole in real life, that person is going to be an arsehole on Facebook, too. That's not the fault of the program; it's the fault of the person.

Facebook doesn't get a person fired. Posting something stupid on Facebook gets a person fired. The lesson is not, "Don't use Facebook." The lesson is, "Don't be an idiot."

 

[pgriz]

The problem, Leonore, is that many people treat it as an extension of their private conversations... And forget that their weekend shenanigans will, sooner or later, end up in front of people they really didn't mean to show their stuff to. Yes, it's the fault of the person, but the technology now never forgets, and gives wider access to many more than would have seen this kind of stuff before. So there are consequences.

 

[limr30 3]

The problem, Leonore, is that many people treat it as an extension of their private conversations... And forget that their weekend shenanigans will, sooner or later, end up in front of people they really didn't mean to show their stuff to. Yes, it's the fault of the person, but the technology now never forgets, and gives wider access to many more than would have seen this kind of stuff before. So there are consequences.

It's true that it makes it easier to be a fool, but I still have a hard time demonizing (or canonizing) something that is, in and of itself, morally neutral. Believe me, I'm one of the first ones to be cynical about the effects of social media on behavior, social interaction, and even on cognition, but I am cynical about the people who use the platforms, not the platforms themselves.

 

[Vtec44]

In the old days all we had were VHS sex tapes to hide from others

 

[tirediron]

Once again, that is a function of the PEOPLE who are using or misusing the site. If someone is an arsehole in real life, that person is going to be an arsehole on Facebook, too. That's not the fault of the program; it's the fault of the person.

Facebook doesn't get a person fired. Posting something stupid on Facebook gets a person fired. The lesson is not, "Don't use Facebook." The lesson is, "Don't be an idiot."

You can't fix stupid!

I don't blame facebook; I don't like it, and I have enough trouble remembering to update my business page (Sad when having that page gives my business credibility!), never mind a personal page. I just don't care enough (Read, "At all) about what other people are doing. I can see the value of it as a communications tool, assuming that for some totally unfathomable reason you needed to communicate with someone else, but as for using it? No thanks. I'll sit and watch apple cores turn brown first.

I don't think facebook either brings people closer together or pushes them apart (in the grand scheme of things), but what it does do is isolate them. Many people replace their whole social life with facebook, and all you have to do is spend a few minutes [trying] to talk to a high-school age child today to realize that conversation and face-to-face socializing are lost arts!

 

[runnah]

I could take it or lose it.

 

[pgriz]

Then there's this whole other thing about Facebook monetizing my eyeballs. It's the current reality, but I don't have to like it.

Oh man, do I ever sound like a curmudgeon.

 

[sm4him]

Once again, that is a function of the PEOPLE who are using or misusing the site. If someone is an arsehole in real life, that person is going to be an arsehole on Facebook, too. That's not the fault of the program; it's the fault of the person.

Facebook doesn't get a person fired. Posting something stupid on Facebook gets a person fired. The lesson is not, "Don't use Facebook." The lesson is, "Don't be an idiot."

You can't fix stupid!

I don't blame facebook; I don't like it, and I have enough trouble remembering to update my business page (Sad when having that page gives my business credibility!), never mind a personal page. I just don't care enough (Read, "At all) about what other people are doing. I can see the value of it as a communications tool, assuming that for some totally unfathomable reason you needed to communicate with someone else, but as for using it? No thanks. I'll sit and watch apple cores turn brown first.

I don't think facebook either brings people closer together or pushes them apart (in the grand scheme of things), but what it does do is isolate them. Many people replace their whole social life with facebook, and all you have to do is spend a few minutes [trying] to talk to a high-school age child today to realize that conversation and face-to-face socializing are lost arts!

Well said, both Lenny and John. That was my first thought is that FB doesn't break up marriages or lose people their jobs. People MAKE CHOICES, which sometimes involve Facebook, that cause those things to happen.

John. I absolutely agree about the isolation aspect of ALL social media, not just FB. I do believe that because of the ease of "communication" via the internet, true communication, and even more important, true RELATIONSHIP is suffering. What many of the younger people today are lacking are relational skills.
It has become so incredibly easy to communicate, in real time, with someone halfway around the world…but RELATING to them has become a lost art. We have become, as has been said, a "mile wide and an inch deep."

 

[tirediron]

Then there's this whole other thing about Facebook monetizing my eyeballs. It's the current reality, but I don't have to like it.

Oh man, do I ever sound like a curmudgeon.

Get off'n my lawn you little whipper-snapper!

 

[limr30 3]

Then there's this whole other thing about Facebook monetizing my eyeballs. It's the current reality, but I don't have to like it.

Oh man, do I ever sound like a curmudgeon.

No wonder I like you!

Curmudgeons are awesome.

 

[sm4him]

Then there's this whole other thing about Facebook monetizing my eyeballs. It's the current reality, but I don't have to like it.

Oh man, do I ever sound like a curmudgeon.

No wonder I like you!

Curmudgeons are awesome.

Yes!!
Curmudgeons of the world, Unite!!

Well, no, maybe not unite, but at least form some sort of loose, grumbling, irritable alliance.