I have never been a member of Facebook and I have no desire to be a member of Facebook. But…
Other people I know have Facebook pages. And Facebook makes it as difficult as possible to see anyone’s Facebook page unless you join up. So I am considering it.
So educate a Facebook virgin. Especially on the downsides.
First, I have zero interest in having a page of my own. If I can, I won’t. Is this possible? If I have to have a page, it will contain as little content and receive as little work as possible. If necessary, can I just have a blank page?
Second, I’ve heard I will end up getting more spam. Is this true? Will I be getting other junk I don’t want?
Third, are there security risks? How much information do I have to provide?
You have to have a page, but you don’t need to put anything on it. It doesn’t require you to give any info other than an email address and some sort of username and I’ve never had a problem with spam via Facebook.
You’ll still need to “friend” people to see most peoples pages, which basically entails sending them a message and their accepting it.
Yes, you can put as much or as little as you like in your profile. My facebook account has been open for about 8 years now and I haven’t posted a damn thing on it in that time. Not a single status update, photo, nothing. All facebook knows about me is my name and age. It will nag you for other info (your phone number, where you went to school etc), but you can safely ignore it all - I do.
As for spam emails, you will get fairly frequent emails from them but you can turn them all off. It’s been years since I’ve had a facebook email that wasn’t related to some important privacy update or other. I’m not aware of any 3rd party spam emails as a result of my facebook account.
The only real downside is the tracking - Facebook is well known for tracking your every online move, which is a little creepy and unwelcome, but the only real world upshot is you get served more targeted ads. If that is a worry for you, create a separate email address just for facebook and log in with that. When you want to log in, do so using incognito mode/private browsing - once you close that session, all cookies will be deleted and FB won’t be able to track you.
I think of Facebook as basically one gigantic ongoing cocktail party. You can mingle and chat with people as much as you want. Or you can sit on a couch and just watch.
I just signed up for Facebook last week. I did it mainly for a promotion at work, so I put in more information than just the basic. Other than a slurry of welcomes and “finally!” I haven’t been bothered at all. I set my profile to never email me and I check it when I want.
As for tracking. Between my tablet, cellphone, and everything else, I figure I am being tracked all the time anyway. It’s the new paradigm, right? But yes, you can create a new email. I wanted to link mine together - social networking is part of my job.
You are supposed to sign up using your real name, but there’s no real way for them to establish that the name you are using is real. So if you’re concerned, sign up with a fake name and an old e-mail account you don’t use anymore. Be warned that it can be awfully tricky to change your name after the fact, if you decide to do so.
I’ve logged on to my Facebook page 3 times in the last 18 months. If you want to see your friends postings, get ready for all the useless, banal stuff.
campp likened it to a cocktail party – that’s not a bad analogy. I always thought of it as people walking in public holding signs. You can’t avoid seeing what they post unless you block them or unfriend them or something.
My Facebook friends have posted some timeless comments: “I went to the dentist today and had my teeth cleaned.” “I made a pitcher of tea and it was yummy!!!” “I just got home from work, kicked off my high heels!!! Where’s my vodka!!!”
If that’s the sort of thing you like, then you’ll like that sort of thing. I’m not criticizing anyone who does like it, different strokes and all that, but if I never log onto Facebook again, I’ll be okay.
If your goal is to look at friend’s pages, a fake name is going to be a problem because when you send friend requests to people, they won’t know who you are and will mostly ignore the requests.
I was reluctant to join FB too, but I’ve found it to be quite valuable for easily keeping in touch with people. It’s to the point where it’s kind of an annoyance when friends and family don’t use it, because then they want me to email them photos and whatnot that are already on FB.
Also, to address the banality point Leo made, people who post a bunch of boring stuff I have no interest in just get blocked from my feed. It takes 2 clicks, and they don’t know about it, and thus aren’t offended. What’s left are people I care about that post interesting stuff from their lives. Many of them live abroad, and I would likely have completely lost touch with them were it not for FB.
I reactivated my account after some years away because my daughter moved out of state and it’s an easy way to stay in touch with her. I’ve had fun interacting with my on-line friends since I learned how to block things I don’t want to see.
For example, a cousin’s wife shares lots of local stuff (local to her, not to me) and waaaaaaay too much about her son. Now, if I want to see what’s going on with her, I can do it on my own terms without constant bombardment of her posts.
I also dumped a bunch of people I used to work with - they tend to be excessively political and mostly ignorant. Being retired, there were no consequences to unfriending them.
The best thing I did was download FBPurity - it lets me do things that Facebook doesn’t make optional, so I’m spared all sorts of crap and “suggestions” from FB. It’s been great.
Sign up for Facebook on a computer or browser you rarely use. Facebook has “bugs” on sites all over the Internet and if you use the same browser for Facebook and your normal browsing then Facebook will know a lot about you.
Just give Facebook your name, a fake birthdate (it can be close to your real one, but why give it your real one?), and email address. No location, no high schools, work places, place of birth, etc.
I don’t get any spam I attribute to Facebook, so don’t worry about that. During the signup Facebook tries to get your Yahoo/Gmail/whatever password so it can go through your address book and mass-invite all your friends. Don’t do it! Don’t give Facebook any passwords for any other sites or accounts. Read the sign-up pages carefully because they are tricky about it.
And don’t give your Facebook login to other sites/apps that ask for it. Create a separate account for those sites unless you want Facebook to know everywhere you browse.
Just remember that generally Facebook doesn’t have any information that you don’t give it. By not giving Facebook any information and not browsing Facebook and other sites on the same browser you’ve solved 99% of the privacy issues.
I think it’s a bit of a misnomer to talk about having a Facebook “page”. You have an account, and define a profile picture and cover picture, but it’s not really the same as setting and maintaining a web page. Calling it a “Facebook page” is about like calling your public profile here an “SDMB page”.
I recently finally got one last April because I wanted a way to distribute all of my old photo scans to old friends that are in them that I haven’t been in contact with for years. The things that I didn’t want to happen because of a facebook page are now happening. People that I don’t want to be friends with are trying to friend me because they saw me on a mutual friends list. Friends of friends political crap is showing up on my timeline because one of my actual friends “liked” it. I’m seriously considering never going back unless someone actually messages me personally and I get an email. There may be settings to prevent all these things but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend hours trying to find out how.
This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s not like Facebook is life threatening. It’s just annoying. And if you participate in it, you either have to accept all the annoyances or put some effort into reducing and/or avoiding them. So far, I’ve avoided all the annoyances with no effort by not joining.
On the other hand, there are an increasing number of businesses or organizations or individuals that simply refer me to their Facebook page for information I want. It’s annoying that I often can’t access these pages.
So I have to decide if the inconvenience of not being in Facebook is greater or lesser than the inconvenience of being in Facebook.
I live 800 miles away from my home of 40 years: SE Michigan.
The benifits of Facebook, at this point in my life, are substatial as it’s not only a great way to keep in touch, daily, of family and friends but also stay abreast of what’s going on in the long term of what I still consider home.
On the flip side, our neighborhood in this—at first especially, but even now almost 2 years later—new location in the Memphis, TN area has been invaluable for connecting with advice and help for various local things; from borrowing or acquiring things we need, but did not bring in the move, to finding a local service to cut our lawn, etc.
Facebook has reached a critical mass of adoption now, that its uses can go far beyond what was originally intended at the outstart.
Facebook is, at this point, whatever you make of it. For bad or good.
No, when you go to sign up, they send you an email with a link & a code that you then need to confirm with a text message. This means that you need to give them a cell #. The only way around this is to send them a gov’t id, or a slew of other stuff, utility bill + library card, etc.
Do you know of anyway around this? It’s getting to the point I want to sign up only because some groups only use FB. I don’t want a ‘real’ account; will never post anything there, nor friend any person.
I think you could get a Google Voice phone # that is basically “throwaway” - you can tie it to your cell phone for the Facebook text, but then disconnect it after. Of course then you’d have to give Google your cell phone #. Depends on who you distrust less
