You know you can block people without defriending them, right? I’ve only blocked two people - my cousin, who updates constantly with RIDICULOUS status UPDATES written LIKE THIS LOLOLOLOL!!! ALSO she’s IN her FORTIES seriously LOLOLOL!!!, and a Republican friend whom I like very much when I see him in person but with whom I cannot. stop. arguing. on Facebook. This is my own personal failing, so I’ve removed the temptation. I also block every game I spot, and I refuse friend invitations all the time. If we exchanged ten words in high school and I haven’t thought of you since, I’m not going to accept your friend invitation and I have to wonder why you sent in the first place.
The other ~150 people on my feed are former classmates and friends and I’m glad it’s so easy for me to see what they’re up to. It’s definitely worth the occasional annoyance. I guess I’m lucky that most people I know aren’t racist theocrats.
Yeah, same here. I’ve never quite understood all the Facebook bitching, as I don’t seem to get any of that shit. Plus, it’s given me thousands of dollars of business, so I’m really not in a position to complain about it, either.
I find Facebook invaluable for arranging stuff with friends, finding out about events and keeping in touch with people from uni that otherwise I’d completely lose contact with.
I’m quite quick to 1) hide people from my news feed and 2) in egregious cases, defriend people who post stupid shit.
Oh, and messages from games like Farmville are banned from my feeds.
I put my hometown in my rearview mirror as soon as I could, and if you haven’t heard from me in 20 years it is because I didn’t want to talk to you. Now, through the magic of facebook these people can give me daily updates on what their cats have been doing, their shocking right-wing views on Obama, and how the lord is in their lives. I did get in touch with one friend that I was glad to hear from, though.
I ditched Facebook a while ago (one or two years ago) and I haven’t missed it once since. Other people might think I should be on it for THEIR ease of contact, but that doesn’t concern me.
I’d have to echo what **bluecanary **said. I like Facebook, and it helps me easily keep in touch with family and friends who live far away.
I keep all the game apps hidden, anyone who only posts Bible verses is hidden, and there are even a couple people who updated their status every five minutes all day long. They’re hidden as well.
I did a purge a few weeks ago, and there were a few people who hadn’t posted anything in a long time. I went to their profile page, and if it was all game stuff (which is hidden on my news feed), I just removed them from my friends list.
I often hear people complaining about the Chat feature, and that certain people always bother them on Chat. I keep Chat turned off nearly all the time. If I’m feeling chatty, I’ll turn it on, but even then, I’ve made chat lists, because I don’t want to chat with everyone. My main chat list has about a dozen people on it, and there’s even a “NoChat” list of people I have no interest in chatting with.
I have close to 400 friends on FB now, but I have lots of them blocked and thanks to Firefox and Greasemonkey my FB feed is clean as a whistle. I mostly use it to post things I think are funny, I tend to treat it like a captive audiance and then really only communicate with 25% of the people whom I actually like.
Brutal honesty has worked for me. If someone posts anything vaguely hinting at religion, I unleash the big guns. Seriously, if you are my “friend”, you know that I am an atheist.
Used to have 300 friends, and way too much irrelevant chatter. Cut it down to 50-some, and that seemed to do the trick.
All stupidity of updates aside, it -is- nice to reconnect with people whom you’ve heard nothing about since 10 years ago, and genuinely thought to be dead.
I recently came up with a “should this person stay on my friends list” test: if I log into Facebook in the morning and see that it’s their birthday, but I don’t feel moved/can’t be bothered to post a birthday greeting on their wall, I should probably unfriend them.
These. Facebook is only as good/useful as your friends list.
I’m an atheist/agnostic but I have religious friends, and I’d never expect them to censor their status messages. They can ask to be prayed for, they can wish FB a blessed day, they can thank their god(s), whatever. Unless I’m the only person they’re FB friends with, the religious sentiment isn’t aimed at me.
As a matter of principal, I ignore all birthday notifications on Facebook. I offer birthday greetings only to people I’m actually in a real life conversation with.
On most days I neither see nor speak with any of my friends, but I see no reason why that means I can’t offer them a birthday greeting on Facebook. But then, I also send birthday emails and birthday cards to people who I won’t be seeing or talking to; obviously, your mileage varies.
Another user here who finds Facebook a great way to keep in touch. Yeah there are those who post annoying stuff but that’s why we have the hide feature. If relations are amicable, I don’t unfriend people. I keep all the game apps blocked except for one and as soon as I see “so-and-so started using Farm Wars” I summarily block the app on the spot.
My facebook is only for close family members and a few friends, as someone else mentioned, I “hide” all posts from friends who go overboard with political stuff etc, but it’s a fun way to keep in touch. The best thing is, I just don’t go there that much. I don’t hide any of the game or “join this or that” stuff, I simply ignore it.
And I have Sims3, so who needs farmville or whatever?
