The Debate Continues
Thank you muchly to those who weighed in on the earlier post - it was much appreciated and I read all of the responses. The Debate, however, continues:
So Bill posted on his FB how I was dithering about creating an FB account of my own. You will all be happy to know that as a group, the LJ denizens against FB are far more articulate.
Also, because I have oodles of spare time (insert hysterical laughter here), I went hunting online for other opinions on whether or not to join FB. Perhaps one of the more interesting things I found was a journalist's blog entry about the exact same debate I'm having. He put forth to his readers to convince him to join.
The amusing part? About a quarter of the people responding fully admitted that they knew him in elementary/middle/high school, but hadn't talked to him in years, and wanted to connect with him on FB.
(Personally, I'd take that as reason not to join, but that's just me.)
1. "We're all here/Resistance is Futile." Mm-hmm. And if you all jumped off a cliff, I suppose I should do that too?
(Actually, my stock answer to that parental saying was that I would jump, provided enough people had already jumped, because then I'd land on their broken and mutilated bodies, thus cushioning my fall, which would enable me to survive. This response never actually held weight with my mother. Can't imagine why not.)
That said: yeah, a lot of people I know in RL are on FB. They talk to each other, they comment on each other's lives, they share things with each other. As I said previously, in the last week, there's been three things (two major) I've missed because I'm not in the room, so to speak. I'm not entirely certain that I like the idea of being left out. Actually - rephrase. I don't like the idea that I have no idea what's going on, unless Bill tells me. What am I, the little woman kept in the kitchen, dependent on her husband for information and rest breaks? More on this in a moment.
2. It's an excellent way of inviting people to parties. Maybe. But I've already got an account at Evite, which is also a great way of inviting people to parties. It works fine for me, even sending notes to people who are on *gasp* Facebook.
3. I can control who sees my account/entries. In some ways, I wonder if FB isn't even more private than what I've got on LJ right now. Let's face it: I don't lock a majority of my entries here, I'm pretty upfront about first names for myself and my immediate family, and if anyone wants to Friend me, I'm not going to stop them. Yes, I do lock some entries - I've even got some custom groups that are pretty heavily used at times - but mostly if I'm locking an entry, it's not because I don't want the world to see: it's that there are one or two specific people who shouldn't be reading the entry for whatever reason. (No, Dad, I'm not talking about you at all.)
That said: theoretically, I don't have to post a damn thing on FB if I don't want to. I can exist, and nothing more, and no one can say boo about it - nor would they see much of interest if they went looking and actually found me. Better yet: unlike LJ, my understanding is that I have to approve friends before they're able to see my entries (should there be any) on their wall. (And again: I do not mind people sticking me on their flist, so please don't assume that I don't want you here. I do. You are a huge boost to my fragile, writerly ego. But there's a difference between friending some random person on a whim, and me by my first-and-last name, and I hope you can understand that and are not insulted.)
4. Bill should not be my social secretary. Word. Also, I love him, but he's not terribly good at it. While he did tell me that Friend A was pregnant, he sort of forgot to mention Friend B's engagement, so that I was wondering why the heck everyone was congratulating her. More than that - Bill and I have different friends. He doesn't have the mommies from my group on his FB, nor the theatre folks I talk to, nor anyone I knew growing up. (Granted, I wouldn't be friending many of them, but there are one or two...) It's impossible for Bill to tell me stuff about those people - especially since he only allows those he's met to friend him. Which leads into:
5. It will help me keep in touch with my RL peeps. This is the big one, frankly. So that cookie exchange last Saturday, the one I made the chocolate malt sandwich cookies for? (Excellent cookies, btw, highly recommended; the icing centers were malty and delicious and totally worth the hassle of finding the malted milk powder.) Bill said that a great deal of his conversations with folks at that party started off with: "I saw on your FB account..." It didn't stop conversation; it merely helped it flow. Sort of.
And this is what I'm starting to wonder. A hundred years ago, there were probably people who bemoaned the introduction of the telephone into our daily lives. Who complained that it would break down face-to-face communication, that they would never allow such a thing in their house. Thirty years ago, the same was probably said about cell phones. Good lord, why would we want to be instantly connectible to anyone? And don't get started on email! What would the post office do, if we could send an email quickly and cheaply? What would happen to the written word?
Here's the thing: I like writing thank-you-notes. Especially as I've gotten older, I've understood their importance and I tried to write them for every item Andrew's received in the last year. We send out Christmas cards - and this year, our first Christmas newsletter - in the dozens every year. I had to have mailed about a hundred announcements for Andrew's arrival; I don't regret having done that. It's what you do.
But apart from wedding invitations, I don't see the point in sending snail mail invites to a party. And before I sent those snail-mail announcements about Andrew, I posted here and sent an email to everyone I knew, because it was faster, and calling wasn't much of an option, considering it was just me and a really pissed-off Andrew at the time.
Is Facebook just the next logical step in the communicative process?
Am I turning into the old curmudgeon in the corner who rails about walking uphill to school both ways in the snow?
Maybe the written word has turned into Facebook?
1. Privacy is an issue. Now, I understand that I can set privacy levels, as well as locking myself up so that it makes it near impossible for anyone to find me.
2. LJ is superior to FB. Agreed. From what I've seen, it's hard to hold a conversation on FB - a comment on an entry is mixed in with dozens of others, and comments to that comment are mixed in with first-level comments, so that it's hard to go back and follow a single conversation train without simultaneously getting ten others. Whereas with LJ, we have those lovely cascading conversations. (This is also why I prefer reviewing fic on LJ instead of Teaspoon - plus, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't get notified about authors responding to reviews I leave on Teaspoon, and I do get those notices for LJ. It's a nice way to get a conversation going with an author, if you feel so inclined.)
And honestly, FB isn't really set up for lengthy, wordy posts about things. Granted, it's not Twitter, but I've never had the impression that anyone used their FB accounts for anything more than brief updates about their life. That's not exactly my thing. I trust that you guys don't give a fig about what I ate for lunch today. (Leftover butternut squash risotto.)
3. Cafe World is fun and you would love it. I realize that is meant to be a pro-FB statement. Trust me. It's an anti-FB statement. I would love it so much that I would NEVER WRITE AGAIN. There are reasons Sims2 is not on the computer anymore, people.
4. Employers look at Facebook when making hiring decisions. As well they should: one of the things Bill and I did when choosing Andrew's name was to Google what his first and last name would be. One of our top choices turned out to be on the child molester list. Andrew LastName? A dentist. Much safer. Theoretically.
But yeah, this is a big reason to not join FB - not because I'm worried about what employers would see, so much - because again, we go back to sense in what I'm actually posting, if anything at all. If I'm on FB as Sharon LastName, then I'm there. I'm findable, in a way my LJ isn't. The only way anyone connects me with this LJ, frankly, is if you have my private email, which uses my handle here. And if I give you that, then either I know you from here already, or I don't care if you find this place. (Hello, World. Yes, Sharon writes Doctor Who Fanfiction. Shock, horror, egad.)
But I do have another email address that I used when I was looking for a literary agent, one that doesn't have an azriona connection - precisely because I didn't want them to find this LJ. (Whether that was a wise or unwise choice is another thing entirely.) And since I don't use my last name here, there's not much chance they're going to find me. (And if they do - well, kudos to you and your obviously rockin' GoogleFu.)
It is for that reason I wouldn't use Sharon Azriona as a name on FB - if I'm going to do it, I might as well stick with my own LastName, since it is such a common one. (If I could skip the whole last name entirely, that would be better. Or go by Sharon LastNameInitial.)
5. It's boring. If people are using it to tell me what they had for lunch, then yes, I agree. And I've seen how many people on Bill's FB account play Farmville, which apparently must update your wall every ten minutes every time a chicken is born or the corn is ready for harvest. Seriously? I Do. Not. Care.
Maybe the solution is to join....and just never pay attention? But if I do that - what's the point of joining at all?
I have a friend in RL who is not on LJ, is not on Twitter, is not on FB. You know how we communicate? We call each other. When Bill was gone, about once a week. Another one of the mommies from group would call every day when Bill was gone, just to talk and catch up.
You know what? I liked that. We all kept up with each other just fine.
Now, obviously, this is two people. And FB allows you to do the same in mass quantities. But friends - and I'm not talking Flist friends, which is entirely different thing, I'm talking good, close, I-will-totally-hold-your-bridal-skirt-while-you-pee friends - aren't meant to be about quantity. They're about quality. FB might facilitate communication with those skirt-holding buds, but it's not the end-all be-all. Me joining FB wouldn't do anything but add numbers.
I'd like to think that I'm the type of person who doesn't care about numbers. I'd like to think that. Sometimes it's harder than it looks.
Continued thoughts, anyone?
So Bill posted on his FB how I was dithering about creating an FB account of my own. You will all be happy to know that as a group, the LJ denizens against FB are far more articulate.
Also, because I have oodles of spare time (insert hysterical laughter here), I went hunting online for other opinions on whether or not to join FB. Perhaps one of the more interesting things I found was a journalist's blog entry about the exact same debate I'm having. He put forth to his readers to convince him to join.
The amusing part? About a quarter of the people responding fully admitted that they knew him in elementary/middle/high school, but hadn't talked to him in years, and wanted to connect with him on FB.
(Personally, I'd take that as reason not to join, but that's just me.)
1. "We're all here/Resistance is Futile." Mm-hmm. And if you all jumped off a cliff, I suppose I should do that too?
(Actually, my stock answer to that parental saying was that I would jump, provided enough people had already jumped, because then I'd land on their broken and mutilated bodies, thus cushioning my fall, which would enable me to survive. This response never actually held weight with my mother. Can't imagine why not.)
That said: yeah, a lot of people I know in RL are on FB. They talk to each other, they comment on each other's lives, they share things with each other. As I said previously, in the last week, there's been three things (two major) I've missed because I'm not in the room, so to speak. I'm not entirely certain that I like the idea of being left out. Actually - rephrase. I don't like the idea that I have no idea what's going on, unless Bill tells me. What am I, the little woman kept in the kitchen, dependent on her husband for information and rest breaks? More on this in a moment.
2. It's an excellent way of inviting people to parties. Maybe. But I've already got an account at Evite, which is also a great way of inviting people to parties. It works fine for me, even sending notes to people who are on *gasp* Facebook.
3. I can control who sees my account/entries. In some ways, I wonder if FB isn't even more private than what I've got on LJ right now. Let's face it: I don't lock a majority of my entries here, I'm pretty upfront about first names for myself and my immediate family, and if anyone wants to Friend me, I'm not going to stop them. Yes, I do lock some entries - I've even got some custom groups that are pretty heavily used at times - but mostly if I'm locking an entry, it's not because I don't want the world to see: it's that there are one or two specific people who shouldn't be reading the entry for whatever reason. (No, Dad, I'm not talking about you at all.)
That said: theoretically, I don't have to post a damn thing on FB if I don't want to. I can exist, and nothing more, and no one can say boo about it - nor would they see much of interest if they went looking and actually found me. Better yet: unlike LJ, my understanding is that I have to approve friends before they're able to see my entries (should there be any) on their wall. (And again: I do not mind people sticking me on their flist, so please don't assume that I don't want you here. I do. You are a huge boost to my fragile, writerly ego. But there's a difference between friending some random person on a whim, and me by my first-and-last name, and I hope you can understand that and are not insulted.)
4. Bill should not be my social secretary. Word. Also, I love him, but he's not terribly good at it. While he did tell me that Friend A was pregnant, he sort of forgot to mention Friend B's engagement, so that I was wondering why the heck everyone was congratulating her. More than that - Bill and I have different friends. He doesn't have the mommies from my group on his FB, nor the theatre folks I talk to, nor anyone I knew growing up. (Granted, I wouldn't be friending many of them, but there are one or two...) It's impossible for Bill to tell me stuff about those people - especially since he only allows those he's met to friend him. Which leads into:
5. It will help me keep in touch with my RL peeps. This is the big one, frankly. So that cookie exchange last Saturday, the one I made the chocolate malt sandwich cookies for? (Excellent cookies, btw, highly recommended; the icing centers were malty and delicious and totally worth the hassle of finding the malted milk powder.) Bill said that a great deal of his conversations with folks at that party started off with: "I saw on your FB account..." It didn't stop conversation; it merely helped it flow. Sort of.
And this is what I'm starting to wonder. A hundred years ago, there were probably people who bemoaned the introduction of the telephone into our daily lives. Who complained that it would break down face-to-face communication, that they would never allow such a thing in their house. Thirty years ago, the same was probably said about cell phones. Good lord, why would we want to be instantly connectible to anyone? And don't get started on email! What would the post office do, if we could send an email quickly and cheaply? What would happen to the written word?
Here's the thing: I like writing thank-you-notes. Especially as I've gotten older, I've understood their importance and I tried to write them for every item Andrew's received in the last year. We send out Christmas cards - and this year, our first Christmas newsletter - in the dozens every year. I had to have mailed about a hundred announcements for Andrew's arrival; I don't regret having done that. It's what you do.
But apart from wedding invitations, I don't see the point in sending snail mail invites to a party. And before I sent those snail-mail announcements about Andrew, I posted here and sent an email to everyone I knew, because it was faster, and calling wasn't much of an option, considering it was just me and a really pissed-off Andrew at the time.
Is Facebook just the next logical step in the communicative process?
Am I turning into the old curmudgeon in the corner who rails about walking uphill to school both ways in the snow?
Maybe the written word has turned into Facebook?
1. Privacy is an issue. Now, I understand that I can set privacy levels, as well as locking myself up so that it makes it near impossible for anyone to find me.
2. LJ is superior to FB. Agreed. From what I've seen, it's hard to hold a conversation on FB - a comment on an entry is mixed in with dozens of others, and comments to that comment are mixed in with first-level comments, so that it's hard to go back and follow a single conversation train without simultaneously getting ten others. Whereas with LJ, we have those lovely cascading conversations. (This is also why I prefer reviewing fic on LJ instead of Teaspoon - plus, I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't get notified about authors responding to reviews I leave on Teaspoon, and I do get those notices for LJ. It's a nice way to get a conversation going with an author, if you feel so inclined.)
And honestly, FB isn't really set up for lengthy, wordy posts about things. Granted, it's not Twitter, but I've never had the impression that anyone used their FB accounts for anything more than brief updates about their life. That's not exactly my thing. I trust that you guys don't give a fig about what I ate for lunch today. (Leftover butternut squash risotto.)
3. Cafe World is fun and you would love it. I realize that is meant to be a pro-FB statement. Trust me. It's an anti-FB statement. I would love it so much that I would NEVER WRITE AGAIN. There are reasons Sims2 is not on the computer anymore, people.
4. Employers look at Facebook when making hiring decisions. As well they should: one of the things Bill and I did when choosing Andrew's name was to Google what his first and last name would be. One of our top choices turned out to be on the child molester list. Andrew LastName? A dentist. Much safer. Theoretically.
But yeah, this is a big reason to not join FB - not because I'm worried about what employers would see, so much - because again, we go back to sense in what I'm actually posting, if anything at all. If I'm on FB as Sharon LastName, then I'm there. I'm findable, in a way my LJ isn't. The only way anyone connects me with this LJ, frankly, is if you have my private email, which uses my handle here. And if I give you that, then either I know you from here already, or I don't care if you find this place. (Hello, World. Yes, Sharon writes Doctor Who Fanfiction. Shock, horror, egad.)
But I do have another email address that I used when I was looking for a literary agent, one that doesn't have an azriona connection - precisely because I didn't want them to find this LJ. (Whether that was a wise or unwise choice is another thing entirely.) And since I don't use my last name here, there's not much chance they're going to find me. (And if they do - well, kudos to you and your obviously rockin' GoogleFu.)
It is for that reason I wouldn't use Sharon Azriona as a name on FB - if I'm going to do it, I might as well stick with my own LastName, since it is such a common one. (If I could skip the whole last name entirely, that would be better. Or go by Sharon LastNameInitial.)
5. It's boring. If people are using it to tell me what they had for lunch, then yes, I agree. And I've seen how many people on Bill's FB account play Farmville, which apparently must update your wall every ten minutes every time a chicken is born or the corn is ready for harvest. Seriously? I Do. Not. Care.
Maybe the solution is to join....and just never pay attention? But if I do that - what's the point of joining at all?
I have a friend in RL who is not on LJ, is not on Twitter, is not on FB. You know how we communicate? We call each other. When Bill was gone, about once a week. Another one of the mommies from group would call every day when Bill was gone, just to talk and catch up.
You know what? I liked that. We all kept up with each other just fine.
Now, obviously, this is two people. And FB allows you to do the same in mass quantities. But friends - and I'm not talking Flist friends, which is entirely different thing, I'm talking good, close, I-will-totally-hold-your-bridal-skirt-while-you-pee friends - aren't meant to be about quantity. They're about quality. FB might facilitate communication with those skirt-holding buds, but it's not the end-all be-all. Me joining FB wouldn't do anything but add numbers.
I'd like to think that I'm the type of person who doesn't care about numbers. I'd like to think that. Sometimes it's harder than it looks.
Continued thoughts, anyone?