I’m not absolutely certain, but I think it’s the only way you’re allowed to play Words With Friends.
Keeping in touch with people.
Most of my friends feed there is comprised of people who used to be on Live Journal, sprinkled with a few people who were Dopers for a very long time.
I also have some family with whom I don’t speak every day, assorted ex coworkers, and a couple of news feeds.
I play the game and I don’t have a Facebook account. You do have to set up a Zynga account, but that’s no big deal.
I don’t see ads on Facebook, or anywhere really.
I’ve had a Facebook account for years, but I use it when I feel like it and ignore it for weeks at a time if it suits me.
The “memories” on each date thing is kind of cool, yet kind of depressing. Apparently my life sort of peaked in 2011.
I don’t know any details (I do use my real name on FB but don’t care whether other people use their real names), but it’s my understanding that it’s mostly done by people “reporting” other people that they know have fake names.
I use FB Purity to get my page down to just the newsfeed and a few link on the side. No ads, no pokes, no suggestions, just a nice old fashioned clean page.
I’ve moved so much and have friends and family all over the place that I’ve found FB a great way to just keep tabs on who’s doing what. I’m a lousy communicator and mostly I like just being on my own, so this is has been the perfect way for me to not become a total hermit.
Serious discussions do get an email or a call, but for the general ‘hey, what’s up?’ kinda stuff I find FB the perfect medium.
That, and if you change your name it apparently rings an alarm bell up on the mothership.
I have an i in my name and a few months ago changed it to another character that still looked like a lower-case i but instead of a dot, had a tiny circle (like a degree symbol) over the i. I think it came from one of those symbol font collections in the Windows character map.
Within about a week I was auto-signed out of every device I use FB on and I got a pop-up asking me some questions about the name change. I had two options: either jump through a bunch of hoops to prove this was my real name, or change it back to how it was before. I wasn’t looking for a fight so I just clicked on ‘change it back’ and I was immediately logged back in with the old, ordinary-looking i in my name.
Apparently it’s really important that your name be spelled Mike and not Mĭke, Mїke, Mỉke or Mɨke.
I’m going back to Myspace.
I use FB, fun way to keep in touch with different circles of mine (extended family, hometown, college, military, a few companies, and current home).
Two bits made it worthwhile - blocking game invites, and for those people who spend 90% of their time sharing crap from other places - you can hit a dropdown and choose “don’t show me anymore from extremepoliticalbullshit site”
That worked really well.
Thank you for that link. I think it’s going to help with some of the annoying crap, but I still wish I could be rid of that friend bar. My mouse somehow always gravitates toward the search bar or worse, it causes me to start typing in the little chat bar in the middle of typing a comment.
Yes this happened to me twice when I used Second Life avatar names. They weren’t obvious fake names but I got involved with some news groups and some asshole reported me, then I think likely reported me a few weeks later when I started a new account. When you’re reported they won’t unlock the account unless you send them a copy of a photo ID with a matching name. It’s not a big deal to make new ones but you have to make a new email account for it, and that can have it’s own problems if you don’t want to share your phone number. Different email services vary I’m sure.
My 25 year old daughter has two Facebook pages. One is Firstname Lastname and is the one she gives when applying for a job. It’s boring as hell. The second is Firstname Middlename and its her “real” page.
I feel bad for today’s youth.
This is exactly why I closed my account. I don’t want to keep up with my family and I don’t want them into my shot, and I don’t want total strangers trying to be my Friend.
I was looking for ideas to create an antsocial network here.
You beat me to it. My MPSIM here is that I never got ensnared by it in the first place, yet somehow still manage to have a reasonably fulfilled life. Not to mention the privacy issues. In some jurisdictions Zuckerberg has been legally under the gun for privacy violations and forced to clean up his act to at least comply with the law. From what I have read, though, he views his entire customer base with condescending disdain as a willing resource for exploitation.
OK. So, if you have AdBlock enabled, and if you don’t play games, and if you know how to block certain games, and if you are selective in your friends, I can’t imagine what the issue is.
I log on and poke around to see what’s new. Mostly it’s crap, but sometimes I see pictures from people in my life. I have family in Scotland and it’s nice to see pictures.
If you use Facebook as just a simple communication tool then it works marvelously.
I agree with Leaffan. I have apps blocked (look under Apps which is under Settings in Facebook), my default permission is Friends, and I don’t post anything that would cause me major grief if the world found out (embarrassment yes, major grief no). I use Facebook to keep in touch with real-life friends and it works quite well for me.
I think my whole thing with it is that anyone I need to be in touch with, I already have multiple ways of getting in touch with them. I’m not interested in “catching up” with anyone from my past.
For those who are interested I followed this path to clear out and as bobot mentioned you still have two weeks to come back into the fold if you have second thoughts. Thus far, no regrets.
That was my attitude going into social media originally, but it’s long since changed. I’m happy with all the friends I’ve reconnected with, and it makes it much easier to plan events and stuff like that. I’ve found it useful while traveling for finding contacts at places I wouldn’t even know I had contacts at (for example, a couple years ago we were traveling through India, and I remembered I had a Facebook acquaintance who had a former roommate who lived in one of the towns we were visiting, Udaipur. It was great to meet up with this person and get a little “on the ground” insight into the locale.) Also, my business (wedding photography) is based a lot around social contacts. I don’t do a lot of active marketing (much to my wife’s chagrin), but just having an account has led me to tens of thousands of dollars of business I wouldn’t have. Plus connections via various professional Facebook groups. I’ve been able to find photographers last-minute and jobs last minute when I needed them. For me, it’s a wonderful resource.
I personally don’t seem to get many of the annoying posts people complain about. Maybe I just have friends who don’t do that shit, or perhaps it doesn’t show up on my feed because I’m not closely enough connected to them.