Why I'm Wary Of Facebook by JeaNette Goates Smith


KeithLBrown
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I came across this interesting article this morning in Meridian Magazine and after reading it, I feel that it is something that we all should take time to read and seriously consider what the writer is saying. I believe that some very wise counsel is being given here. I know for myself personally, I am beginning a hous...e cleaning campaign particularly as far as group invitations and application requests. I have already blocked many applications and will be blocking more. I will also be taking a closer inventory of the groups that I am a part of now as well as any future group request. I applaud the author of this article. I would be interested in your responses.

Link: Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Why I’m Wary of Facebook

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i agree with her concerns.... which is why i don't have 400 friends. i use the fb to keep track of old friends and family that i'm close enough to to care about what is going on in their life but we don't call each other regularly. i do keep track of my privacy settings. my photos are set to friends only not friends of friends. i don't join groups and i don't play the games.

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Sorry, the writer of that article is guilty of "getting into something without understanding it".

It's like somebody buying a gun without knowing how to fire one and not knowing what it is supposed to be for.

Just like everything in life you can pretty much use anything for bad IF YOU are bad. Back to the gun analogy - Guns don't kill people. PEOPLE kill people. FB don't shun people, PEOPLE shun people.

I have waaaaay more than 400 people in my facebook friends list. And no, it's not because I want to be popular. It is because I have THAT MANY friends and family.

And here's the lesson: Don't go doing something just because everybody else is doing it. Learn about it first - figure out what impact it will have on your life. That goes for EVERYTHING - not just facebook.

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I've heard everything in the article before. It, and the others similar to it are written by people who do not understand "Social Media" as it's called today. If you don't manage them, just as in your daily life, then you can get overwhelmed. Anything you say, any picture you put up, any game you play, can be mined for data, advertisers, market research. Your abusive ex can find you through your pictures and posts. Your boss can find out about the office supplies you stole, etc. Social Media is fun.

There's a great site out there, failbooking.com (sometimes questionable content, you have been warned) which shows what can go wrong if you forget your privacy settings, or forget you are announcing things to the world.

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I think she has a very negative view of people. I have 136 people on mine that I know and value in real life. Then I have 144 people that are added on strictly for a game, and have no access to anything but my game posts and private messaging.

Her perspective of her daughter sending pictures to her privately is laughable. If I were to send all the pics I want to share with the people I love in an email I would do nothing but spend all my days composing emails due to message size limits and the size of my family. FB is a lovely convenience to share with multiple people without restrictions AND for everyone to have the opportunity to join in on a discussion, such as when my daughter had stitches removed and I was worried about the healing, I was able to post it there and got tons of good input from not only the grandmothers (who are medical professionals), but from other friends who I would never have bothered to send the pic to.

It's also clear that she has no idea how to use the privacy settings. All of the negatives that she pointed out it allows people to do: bashing, cheating, what have you, those people are going to do anyway. FB didn't cause it, it just is another outlet for them to do it.

I have rekindled friendships with people I haven't seen in 15 years that are now my closest REAL LIFE friends, I have found amazing books to read, this website, forgiven past wrongs, learned a new art, and even had my nearly dead computer rescued saving me $400 all from facebook. It has the potential to be used badly, but it can be an amazing tool for accessing a more rewarding life too.

All in all, it's poorly written from someone who sounds like she just wants to complain about something she doesn't actually know anything about.

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From the article:

I first became concerned when I noticed Facebook was too often used as a popularity contest. It was often an arrogant, self-aggrandizing way to keep track of your own fan club. People post pictures in order to “brag” about how cool their life is, what original things they do with their weekends, what exotic places they go on their vacations. They want to be admired, perhaps even envied.

Reading the rest of the article, the author pretty much just sounds like she's bitter that she's not popular.

With all of her privacy concerns, I wonder if she checked with the parents of the youth in her stake before posting pictures of them all over Facebook.

Also from the article, at the end:

If people would stop flirting, cheating, comparing, beating, besting, minimizing and stalking, I might convert.

Perhaps she needs to pull from a larger sample size than her patients, who are in therapy for a reason.

Edited by Wingnut
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Wow, she seems really wrapped up in the idea of a hierarchy of friends. I think it's a bit unhealthy to be offended that your friends and family share things with people who aren't you. There's no reason baby pictures should be restricted to grandmas and, you know, closest bosom buddies. I'm glad she's not my mother-in-law, that's all.

She also projects an awful lot of very sleazy motivations on other people. How does she know people are posting to brag about their awesome lives, and not just because they want to share something with their friends? How does she know whose pages other users visit and why? Well . . . she doesn't. She's assuming, and it's a little disheartening that she chooses to assume they have the worst possible motivations. What a sad way to view the world.

Facebook isn't bad; it's ubiquitous. It's so big and so multi-faceted that it can be used to do really good things (my visiting teachers make appointments with me over Facebook!) or really bad things. Saying that Facebook is bad because of the way one married woman used it is like saying newspapers are bad because some married people post personals ads. Trying to generalise something about "Facebook users" is like trying to generalise about newspaper readers; it's pretty much a non-starter.

I don't really want to be defending Facebook, because I don't actually like it. I think the website is pretty clunky, I hate games and apps and fan pages for everything and 'I dropped my cell phone in the toilet, please leave your number here!' groups. And I think most people would benefit from a bit of spring cleaning on their Facebook pages. But Facebook is a tool just like any other, and it's not inherently bad.

(Ironically, when I googled the title of a book she wrote, one of the first pages to come up was a Facebook page which recommended her book. What does that imply about Facebook users, I wonder?)

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I first became concerned when I noticed Facebook was too often used as a popularity contest. It was often an arrogant, self-aggrandizing way to keep track of your own fan club. People post pictures in order to “brag” about how cool their life is, what original things they do with their weekends, what exotic places they go on their vacations. They want to be admired, perhaps even envied.

Which is why she also opposes the sending of family Christmas letters, I suppose . . .

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I just don't get the whole facebook thing as far as why its so popular, it seems like a silly waste of time to me.

If I want to let someone know something I'll pick up the phone or send them an email.

I don't 'share things' with large groups of people. I don't post pictures or personal info online anywhere - that's just asking for trouble in my opinion as an IT Professional

To each their own though

Edited by mnn727
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I just don't get the whole facebook thing as far as why its so popular, it seems like a silly waste of time to me.

If I want to let someone know something I'll pick up the phone or send them an email.

I don't 'share things' with large groups of people. I don't post pictures or personal info online anywhere - that's just asking for trouble in my opinion as an IT Professional

To each their own though

Yep, to each their own.

I'm an IT professional too. And I bank online. That's more personal info online than Facebook - you just need to know how to use it properly. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in my opinion), my family is already a "large group of people". It's more a waste of time for me to snail mail pictures/notes/announcements/hellos to my gigantic family spread all over the globe or even email each of them - when I can just post it on facebook or photobucket or whatever other internet media there is available. That's the beauty of the internet. Instant communication. Even the church uses it extensively.

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Yep, to each their own.

I'm an IT professional too. And I bank online. That's more personal info online than Facebook - you just need to know how to use it properly. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in my opinion), my family is already a "large group of people". It's more a waste of time for me to snail mail pictures/notes/announcements/hellos to my gigantic family spread all over the globe or even email each of them - when I can just post it on facebook or photobucket or whatever other internet media there is available. That's the beauty of the internet. Instant communication. Even the church uses it extensively.

Exactly! There's also a huge expense involved in doing it the old ways that many of us couldn't participate in back then. Photos alone: for the cost of a couple rolls of film + developing and a batch of double prints that let me send one pic to one person, I can send the whole batch to all of my family and friends and see theirs back!

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Exactly! There's also a huge expense involved in doing it the old ways that many of us couldn't participate in back then. Photos alone: for the cost of a couple rolls of film + developing and a batch of double prints that let me send one pic to one person, I can send the whole batch to all of my family and friends and see theirs back!

Right on pyx! And that's not even counting the video cassettes that we used to send out via international mail for piano recitals, band concerts, stage performances, weddings, etc. etc.

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Personally i use these sites (with privacy filters only sharing so much info with real friends) but as my favorite saying is "opposition in all things" and everyone seems to be "bashing" the article lets see what leaders have said

"Don't try to create associations through the Internet and chat rooms," said President Gordon B. Hinckley at a youth fireside on Nov. 12, 2000. "They can lead you down into the very abyss of sorrow and bitterness."

"The Internet is a new source of information that offers tremendous opportunities as well as another potential -- becoming addicted," said Elder L. Tom Perry in the November 1999 issue of the Ensign.

"Internet has also facilitated the predatory activities of adults who use its anonymity and accessibility to stalk children for evil purposes," warned Elder Dallin H. Oaks in the May issue of the Ensign. "Parents and youth, beware!"

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I personally think the article tells us more about how JeaNette Goates Smith views friends on her facebook page than gives me any concern. I am genuinely delighted to see the pictures of many people on my facebook page, it has reconnected me with people I wouldn't normally have the time or money to communicate with

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Frankly, I think she's seriously overreacting. She sounds kind of bitter and negative, and a bit self-centered with the thing about how people "honor" her by sending her photos but gets angry when they post them for all to see. Sorry, it's not all about you.

Also, all her complaints about "the bad things you can do on Facebook" like popularity contests, snubbing each other, reconnecting with old flames, flaunting your trips, etc are not exclusive to Facebook.

Edited by annamaureen
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Personally i use these sites (with privacy filters only sharing so much info with real friends) but as my favorite saying is "opposition in all things" and everyone seems to be "bashing" the article lets see what leaders have said

I get your point, and I also realize that you're playing a little bit of Devil's Advocate, but allow me to point out one thing. There's no year in the 3rd quote, but the first two are 10 and 11 years old each. The world wide web world has changed so much since then, admittedly both in good and bad ways.

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"Don't try to create associations through the Internet and chat rooms," said President Gordon B. Hinckley at a youth fireside on Nov. 12, 2000. "They can lead you down into the very abyss of sorrow and bitterness."

oops I seriously failed on that one lol just two years later I married a guy I created an association with online:)

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But it's most certainly true that some people use FB as a means to parade their personal life online. I have friends that love to post photos of their glamorous nights out clubbing, their new car, their sparkling engagement ring, etc etc. Anyone that thinks this isn't a use for FB is naive.

I got rid of MySpace eons ago. I've pretty much abandoned FB with the exception of checking my inbox twice a month. I have seriously considered deleting my account just because I don't use it or update it ever but someone told me that even if I delete my account, that all my photos uploaded onto the site will remain.. I'm not happy about this. Mahone is this true? :D

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I love facebook and yes I am one that has more than 400 people on their friends list. Do I keep in contact with them daily? Nope Weekly? Nope. But they are all people that I know and when I want to get in touch with them they are a facebook page away.

That being said, I did see one valid point. I see it within my own family. They seem to use facebook to communicate and communicate on important family issues rather than make a phone call.

My sister announced on facebook when she delivered a baby. The world knew before I did because I had not been on facebook that day. Interestingly, I was babysitting her other kids and running them to school etc instead of on facebook. So needless to say I was a bit perturbed over that.

I don't play the farmville, aquarium, mafia wars but I do enjoy a good game of UNO and Mah Jongg. It's a way for me to just sit back and relax.

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I mainly use Facebook as a communication tool, and a way to update myself every so often on how my friends and family are doing. One crazy side effect of going to college in a place other than the one you grew up in is that you end up making friends from all over the country and sometimes the world. When you all graduate and move away then you risk losing those friends. Facebook allows a great chance to keep in touch.

Regarding the communication tool. I currently use many services that I see as communication tools. I use Trillian as my instant message tool of choice because it allows me to log into my AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google chat, twitter, and Facebook chat all at once. I would prefer if all my friends chose one chat program to use, but as I can not convince them all to do so I instead make it possible for myself to communicate with them all. Facebook is one of those ways. In fact recently I hooked up with one of my old college roommates and did so solely through Facebook inbox messages.

As others have said, the writer of the article sounded like she did not completely understand Facebook and put far too much importance on what she thought other people used it for.

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Guest mirancs8

Gee wasn't I just talking about this today? Yes in fact I was! When I tried to recall how many friends I had I thought I had above 50... no I was wrong I have 30.

I don't think any of us here can disagree that Facebook is a neat idea. There are many who use Facebook to connect with family and friends who they want to share updates, pictures and videos without to much effort. It's there for their viewing and you can reach the masses without having to contact/email each one seperately. I myself use Facebook for this reason. To share what's new like pictures, videos, and articles with family and friends. To keep up with them without having to call or email.

BUT there are even more who are finding themselves being wooed by some old "friend" that just so happened to search you on Facebook rekindling feelings from long long long ago. Intentional or not it does happen!

I can tell you that a number of my friends have ex's on their facebook. These are people who are happily married and are causing undue stress to their relationship. They dare to imagine that this someone special is going to be that same person which they have locked in their memories only to find in the end that they are not what they once were. It will only cause problems in your marriage.

Yes it happened to me with my ex. It's happen to some of my friends as well. See this is how it happens. Someone from long long ago searches your name. They request to be "friends" with you on Facebook. You think nothing of it at the time as you think it's wild that this person even remembers you and that they took the time to even look you up. It starts out innocent and as you start to communicate more and more you start to rehash memories from many years ago. Feeling those same feeling from back then but unaware of the reality that it is all just a fantasy... there is nothing REAL about it. Next you've got each others cell phone numbers... next you are meeting for coffee to talk about old times.

Yes, this all happened with my ex. His ex-girlfriend tracked him down on Facebook. They would send messages back and forth, then they were IMing on Facebook, then back around in July they started texting each other (average 50+ texts a day!) and since we have separated they have met I'm sure of it as he has been out to Calif. a number of times over the weekends where she lives. Funny thing is that she's also married! On top of that he played poker for HOURS on Facebook.

I can tell you at least 5 more similar stories regarding places like Facebook.

Now like I said NOT everyone using facebook for this reason! I said NOT everyone. But many do and possibly will find themselves in this very situation. When I was with my ex he had access to everything and knew who all my friend were on Facebook (I guess it was a good thing I didn't have 500+ friends good grief how do you all know that many people!!!???). I had all my passwords written out so that there could not be even a slim chance of misunderstanding. Yes the security setting is something I immediately changed with my facebook. I made it as secure as I could. I use to be on it daily and in the past few months have been going maybe once a week or so for 10-15 minutes.

You have to control the time you are on it because it is time consuming and if you are neglecting your relationship with your spouse because you'd rather be "hanging out" with your Facebook friends that's not a good thing.:eek:

I think much of these social network sites (Facebook, blogs etc.) are just replacing having human connection. Sure it's fun and yes it's useful but if you are spending hours a day on it well you need to find a hobby maybe outside the home... go take a walk or go hiking with a friend. Actually do something with your spouse or friend who have that real human connection rather than updating your profile every 20 min. or so.

Spend valuable time with someone and talk. Those are times that you can't replace, or save in your hard drive, or even replay. Instead those are times that will spark wonderful happy memories which will last a lifetime.

:rolleyes:

Edited by mirancs8
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