Ok so I was recently inspired to write about this because I want to know what people REALLY think about sites like The Facebook and MySpace. Everyone I know has a page on at least one of the sites. But the people who act like these sites just are not big deals are the same ones who are addicted. My friend/roommate is majorly addicted but she will be the first one to say that it is stupid. She got off Facebook last semester but that lasted like 2 days. I do not have a page on either MySpace or Facebook so I would like to know what people think, members and non-members.
Most of the people I know are on Facebook so I will mainly address it. When it first got popular I was in the fall semester of my freshman year, about 2 years ago. Everyone was just starting to get on it and said how it was so great. Its a good way to keep in touch with people from high school, they said. But all the people I want to talk to from high school I call on the phone, I said. Its a great way to meet new people, they said. But you are not really meeting anyone, you are talking to someone based on a few pictures and a profile, I said.
Now I admit I sort of have a vendetta against Facebook because it is so private and you never know what is really going on. Two years ago I happened to see my boyfriend's (who I still am with now) messages and was not at all happy with what I saw. I saw girls asking when he was going to call them and go to their apartments. I saw I miss you's. I saw him commenting on girls' pictures and sending them messages saying how good they look and asking for numbers. Needless to say, it hurt and has had me paranoid about it ever since then. Of course it is a public forum because you can look at pictures and comment on people's walls and what not. But you don't and can't know what is being said in private messages. How does anyone know what is going on in their boy/girlfriend's Facebook or MySpace page? How does anyone know what is going on in their 12 and 13 year old child's page? Personally, the most positive thing I know to come from it is a girl losing her engagement ring and someone sent her a Facebook message telling her they had it. Besides that I have heard of stories of deception; friends talking about other friends in a broadcast message; and slutty ex-girlfriends making inappropriate comments on guys' pictures, causing trouble with the new girlfriend.
Why do we praise a website that allows 50 year old perverts to talk to 13 year olds they would otherwise never come in contact with? But how can we attack a website that someone has found love on? There are so many sides to it, and I know I have just given one of them. What does everyone think?
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Wow, so Facebook is exactly like real life. All the drama and all the bullshit, but now you can go back and read it over and over again. I really don't see how this is different from the regular world except that it carries a slightly different flavor. Rumors get spread, people have fights and act petty and everybody hears about it through word of mouth.
Just like in the regular world you don't know anything except what people show you and some people exploit and prey on other people. I think it is just a forum. It expands our generations interconnectivity, but doesn't create any new behaviors. We just leave a sexy message on our ex's pictures now instead of spreading rumors at school that we totally hooked up with him/her at a party last weekend around school.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
Well put. It is just like real life, but just another way to keep things from people. That was really what I was stressing. I mean if we can do all those things in the real world, why add in another means to create stress in peoples' lives.
do people really find love on facebook? in my opinion that's a little improbable. for true love anyway. how can a relationship be based on nothing other than a profile picture?
http://progressiveu.org/160921-self-nostalgia
I don't quite have an active vendetta against Facebook, LJ, Myspace, Etc., But rather a personal aversion. In fact, though I'm loath to admit it, I'm a member of one such site: Deviantart.com, an art communtity, of which i'll sing paises. You really should look it up if you like art.
However, I see mostly your point in that these sites cause so much domestic drama and invite crimes of various kinds. I believe that there should be a warning when a person signs up, and occasionally an admin should post a reminder of net ettique and safety in the forums and PMs. If people see the warning enough and if they describe realistic situations and how to get out of them, then people will be more able to avoid danger and scams.
sig: haHA!