I got rid of Facebook. When will you?

It seems like facebook is what you make of it.

If your friends are boring and unimaginative an your interests are trite, you're going to tire of it easily. If your friends are high-powered, interesting and cultured individuals you will likely find facebook is a tapestry of a range of interests and fascinations. It's also a multi-media news source, etcetera. For instance if you like the Smithsonian Institution and Kenyan Running you will probably learn about something of interest and value vs. if you like WAL-MART and Monster trucks.

/thread wrote:

It seems like facebook is what you make of it.

If your friends are boring and unimaginative an your interests are trite, you're going to tire of it easily. If your friends are high-powered, interesting and cultured individuals you will likely find facebook is a tapestry of a range of interests and fascinations. It's also a multi-media news source, etcetera. For instance if you like the Smithsonian Institution and Kenyan Running you will probably learn about something of interest and value vs. if you like WAL-MART and Monster trucks.

Exactly, thank you for being so pithy.

I have not read this whole thread, but I am pro-facebook. Actually I'm getting quite sick of the anti-facebook "movement." I'd get off LetsRun before I get off facebook, and we know that won't happen.

Don't be friends with people you don't know. I use facebook as a way to stay in touch with family, friends and meet new people with similar interests (usually within the running network). If you can't use facebook in a healthy way, don't use it, but don't go telling everybody else that facebook is detrimental to *their* life.

As for the release of information to companies, facebook isn't the only way this happens. Ever used a debit or credit card? Watch TV? E-mail? Google? The list goes on. Even our dear LetsRun.com. Google has more info on you than you'd like to know. If you don't like this, move to a cabin in the woods.

I can't believe so many of you are bashing Facebook? For starters social media, starting with myspace, has truly aided me in "reinventing" myself. Beginning 6 years ago sophomore year in high school I began branching out my friends. Now I am in many different social circles at college and I've been told by many people "you know everyone." To be quite honest I am proud of my large network of friends and am very thankful for the furtherance that social networking provides.

I consider social media almost a vital necessity it todays world. I rarely go more than an hour without checking updates and always make sure to backtrack my reading until I overlap with my last session to ensure I have not missed any posts. Any bit of information someone posts can then be used in conversation and conveys to the person that you care about them, thus making them feel good about themselves and of course you as well.

Social media enables people to keep up with a much larger amount of people in a much more efficient manner than any other. Social media is what enhances our "world economy" where everybody and everything is connected. I truly feel that the site should be governmentally subsidized.

CGBatch and others,

I'm sorry that you don't feel that you have enough self confidence to go out and meet people in a normal high school setting like a sporting event or club. Instead you hide behind a computer screen(much like I am doing now) and reinvent yourself.

BTW I am on Facebook but I limit it to people I know and would normally contact anyway, but when I hear of co-workers and the shenanigans they post on a regular basis it disgusts me. Furthermore I couldn't give two shits less that Susie Q ate a PB&Jelly and watched Oprah and that she likes Jiff brand, so why do 90% of Facebookers insist on posting meaningless stuff like that. I guess in the end good for them w/e makes them warm and fuzzy inside and takes them away from the real interactions they could be having with their family sitting in the room being ignored.

I used Facebook for about a week. What a huge waste of time that website is. It's full of people who are so busy posting what amazingly interesting lives they have (OFF TO BED!!!!!!!!!!! JUST GETTING MORNING COFFEE!!!!!!!!! etc etc) that they don't have any time to ACTUALLY have a life.

I'm a sexual predator and I use facebook to hook up with potential slam pieces. So far it has worked out well for me. I'm a good looking guy. I'm a runner so I do have the washboard abs along with some lean upper body muscle. I use it to hook up with the ladies in the office. I display running photos and various shirtless pics and the ladies are defenseless. The guys at the job are your average everyday overweight overfed slobs so it is easy pickings.

So give up my facebook account? I think not.

a sub human form of communication

I clearly indicated that social media is a "furtherance" to meeting people. It's what allows sustained relationships with those than in the past would have been fringe. I am very involved with many of the teams at my school quite possibly to the point of overextension, but I owe it to facebook for helping me to manage all of my friendships.

I guess that's the difference between me and Facebook users: I don't want to know everyone. Besides the people I see socially and at work, I have a group of friends from college I keep in touch with, a smaller group of friends from high school. I never felt like maintaining those friendships required any work or reinventing.

That honestly sounds like an awful way to live. If you like it, more power to you I guess. It just seems like a lot of work for something that should happen naturally, without much effort.

Suckerman is a little prick and would sell all of us out to the highest bidder.

Suckerman sucks wrote:

Suckerman is a little prick and would sell all of us out to the highest bidder.

If anyone puts themselves in a position to be sold out to the highest bidder then...well they have only themselves to blame.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

Don't be friends with people you don't know. I use facebook as a way to stay in touch with family, friends and meet new people with similar interests (usually within the running network). If you can't use facebook in a healthy way, don't use it, but don't go telling everybody else that facebook is detrimental to *their* life.

Don't you have like 2000 friends?

...Boy oh, sure do miss Facebook, not!

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/269239/user-vs-profile

With all due respect, you are telling people to use fb but only if they use it "YOUR" way or else don't use it. How fair is that?

Also, if you have 2000 friends or even 1000, that is pretty darn hypocritical, don't ya think?

Fb is a time sucker, even if used properly. That means sure you would be keeping in touch with family and friends with or without it, but with fb it's more than needed and semi-overload.

I'm fine without it and don't have to run to the computer to see who commented on my meatloaf and stickybuns:)

yes. life is what you make of it, so facebook, as well as other social media and web products can be used how ever you want (or don't want) to use them.

i think it amplifies certain parts of peoples' personalities that may otherwise have been subdued if not completely dormant.

but it's a thing, and there is always something bombarding us. in the end we all have choices.

for cgbatch, i can see what you are saying on keeping up with people, but i simply prefer to interact in person. if you already know everything they are up to (down to their meals and the sizes of their dumps) then what really are you talking about in face-to-face conversation?

i agree with some of the earlier sentiment that all of these things lead to more cowardly individuals. how are we so bold online (i am anonymous here for instance) and yet so boring in real life? but really, i mean it, to each their own. i just would prefer human interaction to a glowing screen.

CNBC ran a story on FB, "The FB Obsesson." Excellent story, anchored by Lester Holt

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39618344/

Story included one female who decided to quit FB - it took her around 2.5 hours to delete each photo: you have to delete photos and posts individually to have it permanently deleted.

As their is no charge to be member, FB has no subscriber revenue. A question today was asked to the Microsoft CEO today: "Is Facebook really worth $50 billion — about one-fifth of Microsoft's market value?" Put that in perspective and think about the statement for a minute (about one lap on the track)..... How does a company with no generated revenue be 1/5 of Microsoft?

Lester also gave a great example of the data that is beng sold: Assume you want to advertise a new book. You use the FB filters to dig down: USA, Men, 15-34, New York City, who like to read. The data had 3500 or so men - a key way to target your audience. You say that 'How do they know I like to read?' FB filters if you click on thumbs up on a book, OR, if those you associate with click a thumb's up.

js

This!

I talk running at FB now, not letsrun.

i have decided that i am going to start getting rid of facebook friends. i wont get rid of it altogether, but there are some people who have friended me from high school and college days that i just cant stand. i also cant stand all the god damn religious bull shit that flows over my facebook page every day.

so how will dick get rid of fake fb friends?

i am going to insult people until they unfriend me.

hahahahahahahaha

i really am a dick. i could easily just unfriend them and be done with it, but i think it will be so much more fun to just piss people off so bad that they say 'fvck you, dick!' and unfriend me.

current count: 384. let me see what kind of havoc i can wreak over the next couple of weeks.