A lot of things can be used as an aid in life, but0 some can turn into harmful addictions.

You know why you can't make anything 'fool-proof'?  Because fools are so damn cleaver.  Really, anyone who destroyed their life via FB, (which I'm even having a hard time imagining anyway) can't blame FB for that.  If it wasn't FB, it would have been something else - Farmville perhaps?  An addictive personality is always shopping for an addiction, and it's not the thing/activity/substance/behavior that is to blame, it's the addictive personality.

Ah the age old feeling of missing out on something.  FB promises to anyone who feels like that, that they can be part of everything fun, that is happening.  How to be everywhere at one time?  FB is the answer.  How to have universal global connectivity?  FB again.  You can be be part of everything.  But that thinking leads to over extension and your identity requires FB.   You have to be part of everything, with the  worry that you're missing out on something, FB then shows what it truly is, no longer a wondertool but a ball and chain, the euphoric highs are chased while the need to be part of eveyrthing whips you along.   FB has become your world.  How can you leave the place which will tell you where everything is going to happen?  FB becomes the place where everything happens, why leave?

I can see how people, especially people like High schoolers have their lives destroyed.

i don't use it but only because i mainly have girl friends and i get so sad seeing them all so happy in make up and dresses and me sad and in a black baggy outfit

Quote from: Adrienne on October 13, 2011, 12:25:29 PM


I can see how people, especially people like High schoolers have their lives destroyed.

I am only on fb because my married boyfriend wants me to stay home and talk to him what seems like all f-ing day on AIM. I long to actually have a life again...I love meeting people and socializing. Way better than anyone "liking" my photos.

Quote from: Adrienne on October 13, 2011, 12:25:29 PM
Ah the age old feeling of missing out on something.  FB promises to anyone who feels like that, that they can be part of everything fun, that is happening.  How to be everywhere at one time?  FB is the answer.  How to have universal global connectivity?  FB again.  You can be be part of everything.  But that thinking leads to over extension and your identity requires FB.   You have to be part of everything, with the  worry that you're missing out on something, FB then shows what it truly is, no longer a wondertool but a ball and chain, the euphoric highs are chased while the need to be part of eveyrthing whips you along.   FB has become your world.  How can you leave the place which will tell you where everything is going to happen?  FB becomes the place where everything happens, why leave?

I can see how people, especially people like High schoolers have their lives destroyed.

Facebook is just like every other thing out there that can be used to its highest potential with fear of falling into a type of dependency if one does not practice self control.

Every generation went through this. Facebook is not bad in itself. It is how the person who operates Facebook that defines whether or not it is unhealthy or healthy for them.

For example, I had a woman in her 90s told me a story of how her mom used to get on her for always writing letters to her boyfriend while he was overseas fighting in WW1.  She had gotten to the point where her entire life evolved around writing letters. For many people, writing letters doesn't pose a problem but for her it did.

The same went with my grandfather with the radio. As a child he always listened to the radio and did not get his studies done. He used to tell me stories of how he was grounded when his parents took away the radio for two weeks.

The same applied to me with the television and the telephone. Perfectly natural pieces of technology that can be used for good but a teenager could get self absorbed and wrapped into using their phone all the time.

Facebook is no different. Nor is it no better or no worse than anything else that came out.

Facebook, when used properly can be a catalyst of finding lost friends and family. It can be a central point where events can be planned, people invited, and executed without sending emails or regular letters. Usually answers are instantaneous and multiple people can hold a dialogue about certain events.

For example, ten years ago, it took me four months to plan our 10 year high school reunion. To see who was going, to get an agreement of where we will hold it and an agreement on the price, etc.

This year, it took me three weeks. Through facebook, we found every single classmate but two (and those two was reached by another who had fb). We solified where we are having the reunion, how much it should costs, whether or not we should have drinks, food, etc. All of this was faster because we had real time dialogue with our entire class versus sending out mass emails and waiting for each one to reply.

Facebook when used badly can cause people to fall into a deep seeded fantasy life where their fantasy takes over and their real life gets pushed aside. However, this is not a facebook issue. This is a personal issue. If someone does this type of action through facebook then they more than likely do the same thing with other applications.

I would not be so quick to blame the quarries of facebook on the demise of social interaction. It varies from person to person and it has been an issue for hundreds of years; it is just the method of application has been changed.

I am a living example of how facebook is beneficial. I have gotten jobs through networking on facebook, I have gotten transgender scholarships for my school through facebook networking and I have met some pretty influential law makers concerning lgbt issues through net working on facebook. So facebook is not bad. If you want to blame someone, blame the people who put themselves in a slump because they put too much of their lives into facebook. These people could do the same thing with video games, cell phones, emailing, internet browsing, tv, etc etc. Facebook is a neutral ground. It is the individual person who makes facebook how it is to them.

To say how someone can see facebook destroying the lives of high schoolers is a little unfair. High Schoolers has a choice to make whether or not to make something out of their lives or not. You have had kids in highschool dropping out and getting in trouble far before the advent of the internet.

Annah I'm not doubting in any way all the good that does come from FB, very good things which couldn't happen any other way as you eloquently show  

But is FB just neutral?  No, not in my opinion.  It's good and bad and neutral.  People are changed by the thing they use, take the MMO Guildwars for example, in the first year some people began playing non stop, we can blame the person for choosing to do so, however did they simply choose? It's never a simple choice, they were enjoying something so much, were they in a position to think clearly?  Then the word "Farming" and "grinding" for gold doing repetitive actions over and over, the fun became a chore, these hardcore people if they were made aware of how many hours they'd be doing repetitive actions to get gold for at the start, would they have done it?  But they were hook they enjoyed Guildwars so much,  it had become a huge part of their life.
 
Nothing is simply neutral and personal choice all, we are changed by the things we use, and situations change.  Take love, over timewe might still love someone but they no longer truly love us (truly care about us becomes very applicable), are either of the people to blame for not seeing how the situation has changed?  FB promises people to be part of everything, it can become a proxy for the things they really want.  Someone might use FB to go to events, organise their life etc, but it can easily become a crutch, situations change, also FB can become the event itself.  That last thought is something that really interests me.

Too clarify I think can have a negative effect on people, with dropping grades.  Personal choice is too simple, it's must be informed personal choice, some people will simply enter something rational, and at some point what were rational decisions become irrational, they're enjoying something, then they still do something even though it's a chore, can we expect people to realise that things have changed?

This is to assume that people do things through personal choice, and not through imitation of what others are doing:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

QuoteI am very intrigued by a man called Peter Thiel. He is a financier in Silicon Valley who has been behind many startups - above all he was one of the earliest and biggest investors in Facebook.

Thiel is a right-wing Silicon Valley libertarian. But he is also a radical thinker and has become a follower of the philosopher Rene Girard. Girard teaches at Stanford university and he has put forward a theory of what he calls "mimetic desire". This says that the impetus for the behaviour of most individuals in society does not primarily come in an isolated form from within - but through copying the behaviour of others.

At its heart mimetic desire is a fundamental challenge to the age of expressive individualism because it says is that your actions as an individual are copied from others, and that they don't originate simply from within you - they are shaped and given form by what you see other people are doing.

And peoples' desire to imitate each other is potentially a powerful force - especially when things like Facebook can intensify and amplify that desire.

This really interesting territory - it can create movements that can change the world for the better, but it can also be dangerous, because this was the motor for the great mass political and social movements of the first half of the twentieth century - nationalism, communism, fascism and totalitarianism. And they are frightening.

And it raises a question. Maybe the rise of modern individualism in the west after the second world war was not just about personal self-expression and freedom, but also a very good way of burying a frightening other truth about human beings. They are driven by the desire to imitate each other and are therefore vulnerable to political manipulation.

If we can be taught to hug we can just as easily learn to march and chant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

I have a Facebook page and sometimes I like it, but mostly it's just a bit of a bother to deal with.
I think I might like it better if my SO wasn't being so touchy about this and doesn't want her family to know, because then I can write up a huge note coming out to everyone on there that I haven't told yet.

I might at some point just make a completely new profile though. We'll see. I'm not too comfortable with having my male name out there so if you'd like to add me, send me a PM or something and I'll give you a link.

i still hold firm to the belief that facebook is like any other technology out there. It is up to the person on how it turns out. It can be used for good or it can be used for bad. The product is neutral, but it is the individual that makes the decision on which direction he or she wishes to take it.

No other group of people has the potential, and the actual practice, of using things wrongly, or poorly, or destructively as high school students (teenagers).  To use that as any sort of base from which to measure anything isn't just setting bar pretty low - it's digging a trench and tossing the bar in.  They are (and there are many reasons for this, though primarily its the combined function of really horrible parenting and utterly worthless educational systems) many reasons why teenagers are the lowest common denominator, but there are far more reasons why you should not let decisions be based on what that lowest common denominator can handle.

Granted letting people who've spent most of their life in what amounts to an electronic isolation chamber attempt social interaction without guidance, preparation, or common sense is problematic, but whatever messed with them on FB is nothing compared to what the real world is going to do them when they encounter that.  Really.  Say it, forget it: Write it, regret it ain't exactly rocket science.

And - at least for me - FB is not the place where everything happens, it's like a bulletin board where people can leave electronic post-it notes.  Nothing happens on FB, but you can find out where its happening, and/or what you missed.  It's great that anyone in our circle can post tips and tidbits.  Most of the people I know are working in different places all the time, so it's hard to invite or inform everyone about some event.  For those I know who are on the road all, or at least most, of the time, its a way to keep in touch.  Lots of pictures get posted, but since all my FB people are adults there is nothing bad.  Lots of videos get posted, as we love to share music - I few of us do a regular deal on Sunday morning posting some tasty jazz for brunch stuff.  I never have to buy or download, or burn or whatever anymore live Dead concerts because the Dead themselves (or someone in their office really) posts a new set every day.  And there is a lot of sharing of news bits, and lots and lots of biting commentary on the news.

But it's hardly my life, just a tool in it.  I might spend 15 minutes a day (total) on it, but no more than that.

I can haz frends? Cadence Jean.

yup yup.........many friends and allows me to stay in contact with my surgeon in Bangkok and everyone in his clinic!

It has some amazing potentials and realities.  Last week one of my friends who is battling cancer went out to go to the weekly chemo session.  It's about a 30-40 minute drive from where he lives (everyplace in Cali is at least a 30 minute drive, even if it's the next block).  But his car wouldn't start.  So he posts that he needs a ride and within five minutes he had 3 of them.  Pretty cool.

But even cooler is this, I think.  For years most of us worked with a super-fan kid named Harold who was an usher and occasional security person.  Harold was great, a walking encyclopedia of Bay Area punk music, funny, a hard worker and a real nice kid.  He started a band that got a tiny local cult following (50-60 people a show) and we all started calling him 'Rock Star'.  Well about a year+ ago his band got a slot on a punk tour, and we all thought it was great.  Well that couple month tour led to other offers, which got more gigs, more tours, little festival slots, big festival slots and all that.  Matter of fact in the last 12 months they have not been home for more than a few days and have played all over the US, all over Europe (including some of the biggest musical festivals in the world), Mexico, South America - really everywhere BUT here.  And because of FB we've all been along with Harold as he has really become a rock star.  We read and comment on his posts, we see the pix of him playing some of the most famous venues in the world, posing with huge rock stars backstage, and we're all loving it.  We get to really share this with him, and he gets to share it with us, and he gets constant reminders that we, who first called him Rock Star are still his biggest fans.  It's really a great thing, and it's really a FB thing because other than starting and running his own web site, there would be no other way for him to share that with all of us, and no way for all of us to share it with him.  That's a good thing.

Quote from: Cadence Jean on October 13, 2011, 10:12:44 PM
I can haz frends? Cadence Jean.

Friends, lovers, photo stalkeratzis!

Yeah Im on FB.

There are alot of people on there who would not be understanding of my "issue"

So my female side has her own FB just few friends. Would love to find a TG social group on there but I don't know how to look things like that up.

Quote from: AbracaDebra on October 14, 2011, 03:32:51 AM
HAHA. Yes, I have heard that lovers make love over FB.  Whatever takes your fancy I say. 

Just admiration

I've had a facebook for THE longest.
I got alot of attention for it, but it died.

The 'boy who makes a hot chick' gets old after a while.

Then trying to explain that being trans is a passionate and hard journey sounds all like BS to them.
I got more and more annoyed after months of being on that thing, and then I left.


I don't like people lol.
But i'm going to contradict myself most likely and get back on FB.
once i give myself more time on hormones.

I'm openly trans on my FB. I don't care, I only have a few family who know me, the rest are complete strangers I play FB games with. None of those people have ever bothered me on my facebook. I guess as a FB gamer you get used to seeing posts and stories you know nothing about, along with chain posts that get spammed endlessly (guilty :3).

If you want, PM me and I'll add you.

I have a fb in my male name.  I want to start one as my female personna is growing.  I do not want either to cross though.  Can I close my fb and if so how?  I can not find a delete button for closing my fb.

Quote from: Donna Elaine on October 16, 2011, 08:38:45 AM
I have a fb in my male name.  I want to start one as my female personna is growing.  I do not want either to cross though.  Can I close my fb and if so how?  I can not find a delete button for closing my fb.

At the top right on Facebook, click the arrow (next to "Home"), then click "Account Settings" in the dropdown. From there on the left side select "Security Settings" and there should be a link at the bottom that says "Deactivate your account". That won't actually delete your account though, just makes it so that nobody can access it any longer (I guess in case you change your mind and want to bring it back).

I'm not sure if you can permanently delete it though.

thanks Lynn,  However, I got into the acct settings and there was no security setting and no delete button.