How do you nicely not participate in all of this?

Don't join FB? My sister's having similar issues. She's to the point of wishing she'd never joined. Definitely not for me!

Skype, messengers and I guess facebook (which I don't use) all have default settings to be open and available when you are online. You can change the settings so they won't do that or you can just close them when you log on.

I agree! I feel stalked, too. I set up a Facebook account and now wish I didn't have it. Coworkers friended me, and comment on more of my personal life than I like. Because of my position, I find I need to be very careful what I say. Just this week I deleted all coworkers from FB and asked them to network with me on LinkedIn instead.

I also have a friend from high school who calls me on the carpet for things she sees on my FB page. For example, I had told her I'd call her the next time I was in her town for work so we could get together. I was there last month, but didn't call her because I had late meetings as well as a dinner meeting. After my visit, I mentioned to a sibling on FB that I had been in that city. Friend from high school got huffy that I hadn't called her.

Same friend was upset that I was posting comments on other people's FB pages, but not hers. Please. For pete's sake, we're not 13!

I don't do FB, but my sisters and daughters do.

When my grandmother passed away, a few months ago, I decided not to call my daughter at work, knowing it would upset her, and decided to wait until she had safely made it home before I told her the news.

After I spoke with her, she called back within 5 minutes. She already had friends calling her with their regards. When asked how they knew before she did, they replied, "Your aunt's facebook!" (My sister). Why she felt the need to post that, I don't know. I guess nothing is sacred online.

I also feel like they all talk about me. Occasionally I'll say something to my other daughter and she'll say, Oh, yeah, I know - Aunt's FB, cousin's FB, etc., already had that on there. WHAT???!!!

Makes me not want to talk to anyone that I know has a FB account.

I love FB. I keep it private and only those I invite can see my page. It's just for family and close friends.

When I get invited to join a "friend's" page that I don't want to join, I ignore it. That way I don't have to go through the process of denying them which they'd see.

In fact it was on the news today that women over 55 are really getting into FB now and there's more oldies than youngies on it.

No one can stalk you on FB unless you allow them to. Just ignore them. If they ask you in person, tell them that your whole family shares the one page and it's just for family members. Sometimes a little white lie is okay. :)

Another FB fan. I've been able to connect with long distance relatives and friends. My Mother isn't too happy because I hear from my siblings and my Dad's family and I am in the loop more than she is. She's more than a little put out, she prefers to be information central. haha.

No one can access your page if it's set to private and if you don't want a particular person, don't accept their request.

Haven't tried Skype yet, but might look in to that. I have to say, this new means of communication is great.

I have a FB page, but admittedly I'm a terrible FB friend. Mostly because I don't understand fully how to use it.

Interesting to read about these experiences, and thoughts, and in's and out's of FB. Definitely helps me to understand how -- or even if -- to get into using it more....

I'm not a FB user, but I remember reading something recently about getting around all the invites. Think some sort of spamming was invading their site? or something like that. Can't remember clearly. Anyway, a quick google turned this instructional up. May be helpful and a starting point for figuring out how to configure FB to your enjoyment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blocking Things on FB

Well, I registered for Facebook in the Spring. I needed to have a FB page so I could look for someone else. I've had quite a few friend requests and quite a few relative requests. For the most part, I've ignored them, since that doesn't suit the way I want to use Facebook. But recently, I relented and allowed my sisters to see me, a couple of friends, a couple of cousins, etc. Two things have happened as a result. A long-lost relative (of the near relative variety) found me and emailed. I will probably travel to her to see her soon. I was glad to find her, and through her, another long-lost near relative and a cousin of sorts. I probably won't do a lot with these people but I want to see them at least. The other thing that was wholly unexpected and very irritating...........(please look away from your computer now if you are the sensitive sort and will get your feelings hurt by the Mean Red that family and co-workers know and dread.......)is the myriad postings on my wall from the farming people.

What the heck is the deal with the Farmville and Yo'ville thing? Why in tarnation would I want YOU to clutter up my 'wall' with request for pigs and gifts and flowers and cowbells or whatever it is that you are intrigued with in your online game? Why would you be led to think that I would care about your sheep game? What would move you to send me thirty requests for ridiculous items at a virtual mall or who knows what? If you are playing any type of online game, (I am NOT.......just for the record and for anyone not paying attention!) then, why not send me a note or ask.......So Red? Are you into Yountville? Red, do you Farm? Red, would you like to know about Pig-Station-Zebra?
Then, I will send you back a...

"Why no.......as it happens, I use the 'net for email, banking, some news, recipes, movie reviews, paint color chit-chat, and may even scroll a blog now and again. I do play Trivial Pursuit to the death will real friends while eating Baked Brie with Brandied Pecans and English crackers. I have played Apples to Apples while balancing a wine glass and trying to out-think another dozen people while actually sitting on their very real couch. I read books while watching t.v. I go out, I eat at restaurants and shop. I do volunteer work. I may even chat online for about 10 minutes with you if you happen to see me before I can cover myself in a veil of online invisibility. But I don't care about your stinkin' farm. Sorry. You want to farm and exchange brown packages, then, please do so. But stop posting your stuff on my FB wall! I will just delete it!"

And just a further note for those still reading who have not yet Unfriended me from Garden Web.......Don't post stuff you don't want everybody in the world to see on your Facebook page. And if your aunt Meg posts something on your page and you don't want it out there, go in and Delete it. Really. If she asks you later, explain it to her in simple sentences. It's just like those rampant forwards and jokes and funny pictures that the girl on the other side of the office sent you by the truckload when you first got office email. You have to send out your own and tell them you just don't have time for all that. And just let the Friend requests languish in your mail box. After a while, they will go away. You don't have to invite anyone who knocks on your door into your living room, and you don't have to 'friend' anybody. It's insidious and you may have to learn to manage FB by trial and error, but manage it you must.........if you want to keep your sanity!

Red

p.s. Most of my 'farm request people' are people I love. I do not understand why they want to play their game on my page, but I still love them. I may have to unfriend them, but I love them.

I have this bookmarked. It may be useful to others.

Red

Here is a link that might be useful: Privacy on Facebook

I just tell people I leave my chat lines open, whether I am present or not so I may not be 'there' when they think I am. If I don't feel like chatting, I ignore them. They may think I am away from my computer just like many times when I am.

Red, you can block that stupid farmville and MafiaWars and all the other stupid, annoying requests but not your friends. Go into the upper right corner of the screen, under REQUESTS. Then click on IGNORE on whatever ones you're sick of seeing and that blocks those from posting.

Saves A LOT of clutter on your page.

Red - I couldn't have said it better. Farmville and Mafia Wars, I just cringe when I see FB friends using those applications. I joined FB (dragging feet) back in the summer so that I could keep in touch as our family is scattered across the country and it is a good way to share photos and other life milestones.

I got to the point where I hit the HIDE next to the FB friends who insist on cluttering things up with so and so just won the title gentle farmer....

I have a pitiful number of FB "friends" as my FB page is really just to stay in touch with friends and family who are living in other parts of the country.

It is really sad when I see people who've posted all day long what they have been doing, using Farmville application and the like, all while they are at WORK????

Red, come and sit next to me and be my new best friend. I am the worst Facebook person on the planet. I signed up and then immediately felt creepy about Facebook, so I have absolutely no friends and nothing about myself.

Question: if I go searching on Facebook for someone else, does my name pop up as a possible friend to them? And why do I get friend recommendations for people I have never heard of? It's not mistaken identity - I have a very uncommon name.

graywings- I probably have even fewer friends than you- LOL. When I signed up for FB I knew so little about it that I used my maiden name until I could figure out how it worked and what settings I needed.

I was shocked when I learned that FB somehow went through my email address book and then offered to make 'friends' out of any of those people who were also on FB. Then I got requests to be friends from businesses who were on FB who had my email address - like the local nursery who had emailed me a landscaping estimate last year.

It was kind of scary- so I rarely even log on.

LOL, graywings! I have just under 30 friends, but I know people who have 100 - 500 friends. I don't even KNOW a 100 people!

Sometimes I think people invite so many others, people they went to high school with, every tom, dick and harry, just to make it look like they have loads of friends.

Every morning I check into FB to read my family's and friends postings. It lets me know what they are up to that day.

Thankfully, none of them do Farm, or if they do, they have a separate page for it.

And it's a great place to look at pictures of those you love.

Oh the FB friends thing is too funny! My teens laugh at me because I only have something like 27 friends. I feel so pressured when people request to be my friend, that I don't deny I just ignore -very stupid, I know. DD tells me I'm supposed to friend everyone. That is definately not going to happen. People I barely know have requested me -it's just weird to me.

One thing I've learned from this post is that I need to be more pro-active about managing my privacy options. I don't use FB very often, and so haven't really explored it much to do that. Just hiding the Farmville thing would be a huge improvement!

mcmann - I read your post and was a bit concerned so I questioned DD who is pretty FB saavy about your post. DD says its not possible. I am curious to why/how you feel that FB would be able to access the addresses contained within your computer's email program. I've never heard of that happening. I do notice that FB will "feature" someone with whom I have a friend in ccomon with who is also on FB, suggesting that I add that person in common as a friend, but accessing a FB user's email address book, I don't see how that would be possible even if you have your email program open while on FB.

With regard to businesses that have your email address, those businesses/vendors sell lists of email addresses to other businesses, etc.

Also, if you have a FB "friend"" who is a "fan of" a certain business or service, if you click on that person's link to that business or service, it can reveal your email address, but FB should not be able to access your address book in your computer's email application. Can you post more info about that particular aspect of FB?

TIA.

Sure it's possible. These articles are likely the 'invasion' I had read about not long ago, that FB was trying to address:

Augusta Business Article on FB Hackers

Reuters Article Phishing Attack on FB

I "had", past tense, problems with family members, plural, asking me for "large" sums of money. Then throwing temper tantrums, calling me names, you get it....when I said politely, "no". I didn't win the lottery. I went to college, then went to work and didn't spend our last dime. I shop at thrift stores for "everything", get a clue. :0)

Moral of this story....
People are hard enough to get rid of and out of your business without a fb account. lol

This is an interesting thread. It's the "what" could happen thread. lol

Absolutely FB can access your email address book. In the process of signing up your permission is asked for just that. Every site that is a combo of social networking and groups that I've ever been to (Ning, Groupbox, Yuku....) all have that permission embedded somewhere in the sign up. It's our responsibility, unfortunately, to read all the fine print and uncheck the box.

So the hackers are using FB to hack into your computer, not that FB is using unscrupulous business practice to access a user's email address book? Do I have that right?

I definitely read the FB "sign up" and found no spot requesting permission to access my email addresses contained in my email program.. I would never have given permission for that. And yes, I am definitely a reader of all fine print.

Well, I'm confused by Deb's post, as what I had read initially was that people were being swamped with invitations from people they'd never heard of and FB was trying to resolve it as they'd been hacked into. I guess it could be a combination of features that don't get turned off and hackers. I don't use FB so don't know the ins and outs of how it works.

Definitely hackers, spammers, and scammers at play, though. I had looked it up because people I knew were complaining about their email accounts being flooded with FB stuff and they'd never even heard of it before and didn't know those people.

work in progress- I hope I can explain this correctly.

When I log onto Facebook on the right hand side of the screen is "Connect with Friends" Underneath that are 4 names with the little photo square next to them. I know 2 of the 4 people listed there and we e mail each other. However they don't know my maiden name which is what I used when I joined.

To the right of "Connect With Friends" you can click on "See All" If you click that 27 names and photos come up. Of those 27 I know and email 6 of them- 4 are work related, 1 is my exterminator, and 1 is a relative. I have no idea who the other 21 people are.

All of my settings in FB are private, I'm only listed under my maiden name which I haven't used in over 35 years and I've never requested anyone to be a friend. So the only thing we might have in common is my email address book. And that connection startled me so much that I've never done anything else with my account.

It's been a long time since I joined FB and they have made changes since so I don't remember the exact set up and wording but the friends they suggest are tagged through your email addresses. If you don't use FB this may not make a lot of sense to you but it's typical of the way FB works - things get stuck in that you aren't expecting or looking for and when you click to go to the next page you are in essence giving them permission to access your addresses ***unless you opt out***. But if you don't see the fine print, you don't know there's something you need to opt out of! And when I say fine print, I mean it - they make it small and very light - it almost disappears into the page. All the quizzes and games work that way - not that you're doing them but just as an example. You do know, they want to take over the world, right? That's why they need your contacts ;-)

I don't do FB and I wish people would quit inviting me on there.

....Jane

I've got one for ya all to try. Go to google and type in your name or one of your childrens names. See what comes up......
Interesting....

From my point of view, Facebook is harmless and not annoying. For me, it's mostly been a way to find out about high school people and get to know a little more about about my brother's girlfriend. I think Facebook is fine, as long as you set your privacy settings the way you want, only add people to your friends list judiciously, and are sensible in what you do/don't post. Most of what happens on Facebook seems pretty superficial, but (imo) it's okay.

To offer some thoughts for some of the things mentioned in this thread:

* The suggested friends on the right side of my Facebook page are all people who are friends of people in my own friends list. I think their algorithm may give preference to people who are friends of multiple friends, because I do recognize some of the names that show up the most often as people from high school. It may also give preference to people within your network, if you've defined one. I haven't.

* Facebook can access the e-mail address you have listed with them if you give it permission. When I access my Friends list, I always see a box asking me to give permission. I never say yes.

* I've used the Hide [App] function to hide the Farmville, Fishville, etc. stuff on my Home page. There's a faint gray line between posts. If you hover your mouse under the right end of the post's line, a Hide button will appear. You can choose to hide the person or hide the application. I choose to hide the application, and I never see that stuff again unless I visit the person's profile page.

* To make yourself unavailable for Chat, if you click the Chat thing in the gray bar at the bottom of your screen, a pop-up will appear that has an options box at the top. Click that. One of the choices will be Go Offline. Pick that option. No one will be able to contact you for a Chat session until you re-enable it.

Well, FB has helped devastate our family. My sister met an old boy "friend" (not boyfriend) from high school and has now divorced her husband, and they have three kids. Her kids are not doing well at all, they don't know, of course the REAL reason mom and dad are not together, just that it was my sister's choice.

A lot of my friends use FB, and are completely fine and have really good stable marriages. This guy just caught my sister at a "low point" in her marriage-we all have them, and she fell, hook line and sinker. Just beware, there will be more divorces and infidelity because of FB. I just ask everyone to be careful. My friends have told me of two other instances where a spouse has met up with an old friend and BANG-there goes another marriage, that could may have otherwise been worked on before it got to that point. It is just another way to bring people into your lives that maybe doesn't need to be there.

I personally do not have the time for the people in my life right now, to even mess with people in my past. I do think it is good to keep up with family most of the time.

Our familiy is just devastated because of this, and I just do not have good feelings about FB right now. It is still new (all this has happened within the last couple of months. We found out about it a month ago.) So, sorry if I sound so negative about it. I think it was a great idea, but, there are a lot of weak people in the world that can't handle it.

Please note: I am NOT saying everyone will be affected by this, but, mark my words, there will be many.

McMann-- FB asks you if you want to import your address book from various email accounts. So, if you know people who have your address in their Gmail account, for example, they might have invited you to be their FB friend.

But you can control this stuff. Go the the Settings tab at the top right of your FB page, choose Privacy and set everything to the most private setting. You can block applications from people, you can block people, you can make sure than only your friends can see your information.

It's not hard or time-consuming.

And people had affairs long before the internet was dreamt of. People dumped their spouses, took up with younger mates, and made fools of themselves since the beginning of time.

And if you don't want anything to do with FB, set your email prefs. to send anything coming from Facebook to your SPAM folder.

ideefixe, I totally realize that. FB just makes it even easier yet. Even before this happened, I think people get caught up in what everyone is doing, and this takes away time from your own family. Maybe you have a lot of time to give to people, I just don't.

My friend set me up about a year ago, at her house, saying how much fun it is. So, I go home, and get on my computer, and some guy I hardly knew from high school contacted me to be his friend. I got scared and deleted my account asap! I'm like, this guy hardly knew me, and he is wanting to be my friend? Not that I don't not want friends, but, I can't keep track of all my real life friends as it is. Why complicate my life? But, that has been me the last few years anyway, to simplify my life, not make it more busy and having to have "yet another thing to do." LOL!

Thanks for the laugh, Red. That was hysterical - and SO true! I've hidden those games instead of deleting. Although I did delete one gal from HS who was DH and my sister's age - small private school, so I knew everyone. Why do I want to be friends with someone who hit on my DH? *eyes rolling*

I joined to see pictures of babies. Friends said "it is so easy to post pictures to my FB for family. If you want to see them, you'll have to join." I was pleasantly surprised to find numerous friends from school and have enjoyed catching up with them. Even had lunch with one when in town.

I only post on my wall once or twice a month. I comment now and then, but only log in about once a week. I am friends with DD2, but not DS or DD1. I'm not friends with any of our tenants or past tenants still in my address book (commercial, not residential). No sure why I would want to be friends with Denise Richards, Roseanne Barr or any other celebrity (one is a "friend" to many celebrities). I guess some just feel the need to have as many friends as possible.

I've also found out a cousins wife is quite the party gal. I want to ask her just why she feels the need to go out with GFs etc, when she has a DH and 5yo DD at home. And if she does need to go out, why broadcast it to the world and/or befriend me so I have to hear about it?!