Howdie all...I have a my space account that I rarely use does that count??

I really don't think there is anything wrong with it in addition I know a lot of people who do go on facebook and my space and they are...ahem...a bit older. Not at all the teen, tween, twenty somethings you may think.

I say whatever floats your boat!!

Cheers!
Susie

Another that doesn't quiet get it. I want to, at least I think I want to, but let's just say I'm not an early adopter! LOL

I accidentally opened up a "whatever" so now I have a "whatever" but I have no idea how to make it all work. Nothing to do this PM so maybe I'll go play.

You can't just check it out, can you? I think you have to sign up to be able look around and see who's there.
Anyway, I don't need another thing that makes me spend too much time at the computer!

Three of my four sons are active facebook users. The one still in college would be mortified if I got a facebook account. They often relate to me how they are So glad that I'm not a facebooker. Apparently the college students with facebook parents are a tad embarassed..... sort of like showing up at the frat house party when you're in your 50's..... just not my place!

Maybe if I didn't have a college student I'd be interested, but I'll let him have his social network all to himself.

Grace

My whole family, parents, cousins, siblings all have fb. My two youngest kids do not (yet). We use it to keep in touch on a casual basis. I never put anything on it that I wouldn't say in person, and I like that my friend list is, for the most part, not local. I need a little space. My mom thought that she couldn't be on my friend list because she thought it would be embarrassing to me. Yeah, about 30 years ago! My kids don't have me on their lists, but they have my sisters as friends, so I can check up if I need to (haven't yet). The best thing about fb is that it makes reconnecting from way back easy and so much fun. Just wait til a bunch of jr high friends start posting yearbook pictures.
I enjoy it.
Jo

Grace, you can have a account and your kids will never know....and they can refuse to 'friend" you and you won't be able to see what's on their accounts...
Go for it
Linda c

I get it, I just don't want to mess with it. The friends I want to keep in touch with, I do, so no need to do it on FB. Maybe it's a generational thing. The friends I have that are my age who have facebook accounts all do it in order to keep in touch with their kids (college age). Again, I keep in touch with my kids and they keep in touch with me without the aid of FB so why bother? But that's just me.

I see the use for it, but it just doesn't fit my needs.

You know, I've considered joining just to see who's out there, since so many people say they've reconnected with past friends through it. And maybe I will... someday. But for now, I don't feel the need.

LOL - I was thinking of asking the same question myself. I don't spend as much time here as I used too, since I got FB. I check it a couple times a day, just to see the latest. There's no way I could keep up with everyone, and I don't do the quizzes, notes, lists. I've connected with some friends from college, high school and have fun with it. I like to check out people's photos sometimes, too.

I discovered an interesting thing about groups. You don't have to be a member of the group (or friends with group members) to read the discussion threads. There are some groups that students from my school have formed to discuss what s*cks about the school and I wonder - if they knew that everyone could read their comments - would they really have made them? Well, on second thought - they probably would have said it anyway!

In just the last few days since joining FB I have:

Met up with a friend that was a neighbor, we went thru K-12 together.

Found another friend that I met in 4Th grade, we were both in band throughout school.

Another HS band friend has found me too.

It's fun catching up with these gals, I never have attended any of the class reunions, so this is great.

Daukerdawg (Duane) is on there, along with a few other's from here. Things can be as private as you want.

Nancy

I signed up well over a year ago and didn't do anything with it. I kind of thought it would totally embarrass my kids. The 26 yr old has her friends requesting to my friend now. Not that I'm cool by any stretch but it is getting a little "more" acceptable for your parents to be on there. Right now the baby boomers are the largest growing demographic on FB.

The best part has been reconnecting with a few high school friends and long lost friends. You can share as much as you want or as little.

I use it because a few of my friends do, but I seldom go there, and I don't accept many friends. It is helpful for keeping in touch with a few people who use it fiercely, but otherwise, it's not something that I would choose for myself.

Lars

DS #1 uses it, limited. I don't. He knows to not put his full face picture on the site. Apparently the TOS changed a while ago - FB now owns everything you post - so he and a lot of his friends removed info.

Employers and college admissions officials use it to check up on applicants. Anything you or your 'friends' have or do post will be used to evaluate you. There have been cases of 'friends' repeatedly posting pictures of stuff like drunken revelries that are now career killers. Once it's on the net, it's there forever, even when deleted.

I passed on to my kids a wise tidbit from MsAzadi.... paraphrased: 'one day, everything typed or submitted to the net will be read and noted...if not by a human, by a machine'. That was the day I realized 'anonymity' was gone. Anything can be used against you. It may not be traceable today, but it will be saved so it can be tomorrow.

FB etc. are fun tools, and I do believe we will all eventually need to use it, kicking and screaming. Just be careful out there.

Looks like we're taking it over. Today there's this headline on Wired: "Facebook Is Your Father's (and Mother's) Social Network." It goes on:

"Facebook (and other social networks) has been skewing older for a while, but the trend has been 'massive' in the past six months, according to InsideFacebook.com. In the past two months alone the number of new members over 35 has doubled. Marketers take note: the median age is now over 25, and the largest single group 35 to 44.
"Women over 55 remain the fastest growing group, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds."

The author wonders why: "Why the adoption in such accelerating numbers by people who (one would hope) are less inclined to toss virtual sheep at each other and turn their friends into vampires?"

Sheep? Vampires? Clearly Facebook is a lot more exciting than my present life....

Here is a link that might be useful: Wired article

CC, what in the world does that mean? Sheep? Vampires?

Like MsAzadi, I'm in a position where I believe nothing is secret. You have no legal expectation of privacy on the internet and now Facebook does claim ownership of anything you put there.

I tend to lead a very open life and am pretty relaxed about what people know about me. I post pictures of kids, grandkids, the farm, pets. I've made references to where I work but I always am certain to leave out personal things and I would never post about illegal activities, pictures of me doing stupid/embarrassing/illegal things, photos of family members in a drunken stupor, pictures of half clothed friends, whatever. Not only can they be used against you, it's just unnecessary, even between friends.

So Facebook is going to become the next social network for aging babyboomers. LOLOL Our kids are going to love that!

Annie

I believe FB reverted their terms of service back to the old version after public uproar over the proposed change.

I just joined! It's awesome and a bit overwhelming! I wouldn't know how to find any of you - don't know your last names!

"Sheep? Vampires? Clearly Facebook is a lot more exciting than my present life.... "

I can shed a little light on that. There are a bunch of RPG-type games on FB and it is easy to get really involved in them. Ask me how I know LOL! Anyway, one of the games I am sort of active in is Vampire Wars and the idea is to get your friends to join your clan - the more friends you have join, the more powerful you are. There is also Mafia Wars, Fasion Wars, Dragon Wars, etc etc etc

I think the sheep throwing thing has to do with "poking" someone on facebook or trying to get their attention. There are also Easter Egg Hunts, Mardi Gras Bead Throwing, Shamrock gifts, Flowers to celebrate spring, all sorts of virtual "gifts" you can give your friends.

I seem to get invitations daily for those sorts of gift things, but I usually ignore them (you do not have to accept ANYTHING that someone sends if you do not want) so I cant give too much detail about them.

Alexa

I've had invites too but I've not signed on yet...can't keep up with email and voice messages as it stands now. I won't even mention all this texting that everyone seems to be doing now....yikes! I'm starting to feel old....I remember the ONE phone on the kitchen wall...it had a cord..LOL!! NO, we couldn't answer it during dinner...

David

And if was like ours, David, 2 other neighbors used it too!
Good 'ol party lines.

That said, I joined Facebook. I'm learning things I don't want to know and it scares me. I'm scared for all those who put too much information out there and then are victims in one way or another of criminals, freaks, stalkers, etc.

I'm not a particularly paranoid person, but by golly if somebody wants to steal my identity, they're going to have to work for it.

Deanna (on the fence about it for now)

Just don't use your real name and you'll feel a little better about ID theft.

SharonCb

Isn't the idea to use your real name so you can connect with people past and present?

I'm new to it but the privacy settings seem good. Only the people in your network can see your info...

right? LOL

We had the phone in the kitchen with the short cord, too! LOL

David,

We still don't answer the phone during dinner! :)

/tricia

I found my son's FB account by searching on his email address. However, he didn;t use his own name, so I would not have found him that way. I told him I have an FB account and he said "that's scary."

Can you control who sees what among your Friends? Like if I want to share something with CF friends but not co-workers, can I categorize them?

I have a very common last name so it's hard to find me by name.

Maggie if you want to connect with past friends, use your maiden name so they can find you. Get present friends' IDs by sending them an email if you know their address or by asking around other mutual friends who could know. I also use Classmates to get in touch and have found nearly all members of my high school graduating class that way.

Otherwise I keep a very low profile with most options turned off.

SharonCb

Well i went back to my maiden name 35 years ago so I'm not hidden. But I'm not really worried. I don't have much of a profile. I joined because that's the place My DIL is posting photos. The whole family has now joined and it's nice to get some news about the older nephews and some old friends. But i don't spend much time there.

I tried FaceBook once. I hated it. LOL I couldn't figure out how to make it private to only those I wanted to see it, rather than the entire world. I figured enough people knew where to find me - those who I wanted to find shouldn't be too hard, considering how much information some people willingly post about themselves. It's kind of scary!

I used both names! The whole idea is to connect and share! It's fun. There would be no point going on there with a fake name...? I have one cf friend:D

Pam, I have noticed that some people have circles -so maybe that is a way to have separate groups...I haven't gotten that far yet!

You don't know unless you try!

not on. no interest. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering which was hard enough in the 90's and I'm not hard to look at - long blonde hair green eyes. I'm ok with me I don't need facebook.

huh? what does that have to do with fb, sands?

frequently people seek validation via fb maggie. Thats all I was saying. If people wanna find others thats cool but its not me is all I was saying. sorry if it didn't make sense, my bad!

Oh mercy, I thought it was a pun of sorts. "Face" book. LOL Goes to show you why I don't bother, LOL.

Annie

Deanna, I kinda of remember party lines at my grandparents farm....I didn't talk on the phone much back then but Mom remembers them for sure and they still had them in the early seventies.

Maggie, the short cord...lol..us too. I remember one of my aunts who had what seemed like a 100 foot cord on her kitchen phone.....really it was probably only six or nine feet but we were soooo jelous....LOL!

Tricia, good for you two!! I still don't get all phone stuff these days. A couple of weeks ago I was at a concert and most of my group was texting and talking on their cell phones??? Sorry, but I was there for the show and anything less than an emergency was not that important to me. They call me out of touch, old fashioned, and/or an old fart...fine with me. They are finally getting that I don't do it or get it at all..lol!

David

Yup Im on and in contact with a bunch of friends from High School its great!

Annie, there are some people that don't have a face - LOL!

I still don't get what the validation thing has to do with getting in touch with people that meant something in your life - it is also great networking if your looking for a job, friends, etc. Never know what one of your old friends, teachers, colleagues are doing. My mother passed away at a young age, so talking to childhood friends that have memories of her that I don't know is really special to me. I also got to tell a music teacher how he changed my life - so maybe that is validation for him but I should have validated what he did for me a long time ago.

David - that is so true. The more technology we get, the more disconnected we seem to become, right? Even in our own homes. I was out to dinner with bil & family and their two kids were on their gameboys at dinner. Not judging, I don't have teenagers yet - but it just is sad!

Jealous! The long cord! LOL We had the short cord so they could hear our conversations and we couldn't hide! Different times!

FB is what you want it to be. It is not for everyone - but it also not what I expected it to be...

It can be silly and powerful. That's kinda cool to me.

It is like a giant party line - LOL.

I don't get what the validation thing means either.... Some people seek validation where ever they post on the internet, even here on the CF, so facebook has no more to do with self validation or self esteem than any other forum on the net.

Anyway, I have reconnected with lots of people from college that I was sorry I lost contact with, a few HS friends, and mostly use it to keep in touch with friends that I don't see often. They sometimes post "private" albums of family vacations and it is fun to see how the kids are growing, etc. It is also a great way to keep up on local clubs and organizations, know when meetings or special events are, etc.

And as many have pointed out, it can be as public or private as you want....

Alexa

If anyone wants to find me, e-mail me through GW, or, I'm "friends" with Alexa and LindaC, with a Golden avatar :)

LOL, David, I remember party lines. Our ring was two short rings, Aunt Ellen's was one short ring. The neighbor was one long and one short.

It was fun because the neighbor was a single man and he drank...well.....kind of a lot and regularly. We'd be talking to friends and he'd join the conversation, profane and uninvited. Drove my Grandma nuts, LOL.....

Annie

I'm on there too. Duane Schiller. I don't mind posting my name. No bill collectors looming..yet. Heck, as for privacy if anyone knows your name they can go to zabasearch.com and find out your address, phone number and email address. From there you can GoogleEarth and get a closeup of their house! Nothing is private in the cyberworld, which means the entire world now. And yes, posting a fake name would be okay to just look around if you wanted to, but it would defeat the entire purpose of this 'social networking' site!

Duane

Duane

I've been on for quite a while and love it. I keep up with my friends, my work friends, my bosses, old boyfriends, old girlfriends and people from my high school (as well as a few people on this forum). I rarely post the banalities of my life (always aware that the boss "friended" me way back when). If you know my name, you can find me anywhere, from here to Facebook to photography forums, and you'd probably get more information about me from those other places than Facebook. My face is on Facebook but it's the same one I posted here two years ago and a recent one of me and my book club friends.

My social security number is not on Facebook, my driver's license number is not on Facebook, my address is not on Facebook, and my bank accounts are not on Facebook. That would be silly for me to put that up, wouldn't it? I just have my name and a vague Los Angeles for a location.

My obsession is with Word Twist and I must say, that's mostly what I use it for but I do enjoy getting a friend request from someone in my past that I think of fondly. You can waste as much time on there as you can afford and go in sparingly if you prefer. As others have said, you can control what kinds of personal information you put up there and you can control who sees it. You can anonymously defriend someone if you don't want them to see anything you do.

And Facebook does not own your information from here to eternity. Users rebelled and they changed it back before that ever took effect. Not saying you wouldn't find a cached post, but that wouldn't be a Facebook thing, that would be an Internet thing.

I'm not saying use it... I just haven't heard enough that scares me away from it. And I keep the cards I want close to my chest... close to my chest.

OK, now this is funny, or coincidental, or both. I opened my office email and found this message:

Messages from Your Friends on Facebook, April 03, 2009

You have 1 friend requests - Personal Message:
Watch the video titled "Drunk Charlize is dancing striptease on my Birthday Party, March 28, 2009! We're absolutely shocked!".

OK, so who here is doing a striptease on Facebook and who among us would be shocked. LOL There's even a link to the video, which I didn't copy here.

And that's why I don't do Facebook, LOL, next thing you know, they'll want a video of me dancing!

Annie

OMG that is hilaious! I can assure you - 'tis not me!

Alexa

Must be Lindac again! LOL!

I am there. I just joined a few weeks ago. I have found a few people from my school. It has been great catching up.
I am there under Lisa Rittel.
Lisa

I'm there, but you can't find me. Send me a pm through GW and I'll see if I can add you, if you'd like. I'm more active there then here for the past year. But still miss you all!
Nancy

How can I find you guys if I don't know your last names?
Lisa

Ditto... Anyone who wants to be "my friend" on face book can send me an email via GW, and I'll invite you...

My full name (first middle maiden last) are all on there... and a picture... so folks from the past can find me. I joined b/c of an invitation from one of my nieces, I think. We even have my dad on Facebook!! I traveled so much as a kid, that it's been fun connecting with some folks from HS... in fact BOTH my high schools... on opposite coasts. I also found some of them by joining the networks for those HSs or graduating classes. Many are signing up right now since 2009 will be our 30th reunion...

You also can find people if you know their email address, which some of have for each other. Facebook has a friend-finder feature (alliteration!), where you can give "it" permission to look through your email address book to find people who have the same email address on their Facebook account. I did this and was surprised who turned up, even though I still have not added them as Friends. I'll do it one of these days.

Facebook is blocked at work (good thing!) so I only look at it in the evening. I tend to not turn on the computer so much at night.

No no!! Not me sending links of drunk charlize! LOL!
Re the long cord phone...
In the days before cordless phones, we had 4 phones down stairs and one up. 2 of the downstairs phones in the kitchen and one with a LOOOONG cord in the family room. The family room has a door into the kitchen....so by artfully switching phones, I could cook a meal with a phone on my shoulder. The one in the family room could take me to the refrigerator, oven andscook top and the one in the end of the kitchen covered the sink, dishwasher and cupboards.
One evening I was talking to my son and chopping and dicing and sauteeing and took the familyroom phone to the sink....all of a sudden I was cut off!! And I smelled something burning. I had drug the phone cord over the lit burner on the stove and melted it!!
I hung up....and the phone rang immedietal, it was Stew saying "you OK MOM?" LOL!
I had to say...not really!!
Wanna be my friend? I am the crazy lady with the wine charms in her nose!
Linda C

I set up an account today. Strange to be able to justify it on work time, but social networking is the thing and we're supposed to embrace it. I had a high school kid set up a myspace for the library and no one has time (or inclination) to play with it.

Pam, I'm really glad you said that...I was a little disturbed that people in my address book popped up (including some CFers). I didn't realize I'd given it permission.

I'll have make time to mess with it. I can't keep up with my email or CF, so we'll see. Oh for high speed at home.

Jessy, you sound like me at work, lol. I have some interesting discussions with the kids about putting personal info out there. I love to watch their little faces when I tell them potential employers look at their FB/myspace.

I found Duane and Sue (goldgirl). I check Facebook a few times a day, but with the time difference, I am just going to bed when it get active (same with the boards), so I just do my posting in the mornings when everybody else is asleep. LOL
I am used to that, though.
Lisa