Harumph! :mad:
Yeah, announcing anything like that tends to imply that’s your reason. Or it does when no one asked you.
I have one I barely use. It basically serves as a contact list now.
You and I both know that most of them are closeted Facebook users, who actually log in to Facebook secretly when no one is looking.
Then they feel compelled to come to an anonymous message board like this to decry Facebook, and uphold their public imagine.
It’s fine to not be on FB just as long as you’re not one of those “Oh, I have real friends” smug SOBs.
Because FB is great for keeping and even starting real-life actual relationships where you physically meet up with people. It’s not all about pointless status updates.
For me the events are the best thing. People don’t feel they can spam everyone’s email with invites for casual things, or even -yuck- phone round a bunch of people. Using a social site; it’s no problem. So a lot of meet-ups happen that wouldn’t otherwise.
Due to not having privacy settings set up properly, my brother ran into some problems and decided to ditch FB alltogether. He doesn’t act all high and mighty about it, just not wanting to be on. I showed him how I use it and he said he wished he knew that before, but oh well.
To each his own. Except the weirdos, of course.
A little over two weeks ago, I had very bad abdominal pains in the middle of the night and had to go to the ER (it turned out to be acute appendicitis, readily managed with a bit of quick surgery). We left my house at around 11:00PM and by midnight, I was admitted and on intravenous pain and nausea medication, which left me entirely useless. My wife, who had by necessity brought our 8-year-old daughter to the ER with us, was thus left to manage the situation herself.
Just before we left the house, she posted on Facebook that we were going to the hospital; she subsequently updated again with additional relevant details. By 12:15, a couple who lives locally and who happened to be awake had texted her an offer to come pick up our daughter from the hospital and stay at our house with her. My brother, also awake in New York City, saw the post and called my mother. My father-in-law, also awake, saw the message and told his side of the family by e-mail. The stage manager of the show I was directing at the time saw the message the next morning and cancelled rehearsal for that night without either me or my wife having to contact her. Friends and family were able to contact my wife to offer help as they were able. And she had to spend a grand total of less than a minute to make this happen.
I direct for amateur community theatre. We opened a show in late April, and less than two weeks before opening night one of our actors dropped out. His role had extremely specific requirements, and no one on our usual list of actors was both appropriate and available. I posted a notice on Facebook; within a few hours, the dozens of actors and other theatre people with whom I am Facebook friends had reposted the same notice on their walls, and so on. By the following day, we had four interested and qualified candidates ready to come in and audition. I know of no other way to duplicate this particular process with the same efficiency and simplicity.
Last winter the New York Giants went to the Super Bowl. I watched the game live in my living room with a dozen people - and, via constantly updating Facebook statuses, with another fifty football fans across the country and world.
So here’s the thing. It doesn’t bother me if you don’t want to use Facebook (or any technology). What bothers me is when people based their refusal on a factually incorrect assessment of the plusses and minuses. If you understand what it is and how to use it and it still is not of interest to you, that’s fine. But the folks who talk about they don’t use Facebook because it’s nothing but stupid games and personal minutiae and invasion of privacy blah blah blah… with them I get annoyed.
Disliking something is fine; being ignorant about something and proud of it is less fine.
Less than half of the American population has a Facebook account. Technically the people who think they are in some kind of rare minority for not using Facebook are in the majority.