What do you love or hate about Facebook?

[matty-hodgson]

As the title really, what do you love or hate about Facebook? And why?

This is because I need some help with my Communications homework becuase I've been set the task of doing a "good taste, bad taste" topic on Facebook but I can't really think of anything

[kalniel]

Well as long as you reference all the help you get from Hexus I'm sure that's fine

I love the ease of communication networks - self organising groups of relevant interests mean you can push a piece of information only once yet it's read by possibly large numbers of people instantly, and they're people who have an interest in reading it.

I hate the contribution it makes towards peer-pressure in the younger age groups, where it acts as a fertile ground for bullying, self-esteem issues and grooming.

[abaxas]

Facebook is great. Best thing is......my hamsters have a facebook account

...They keep getting offers of a shag from other hamsters.

[jim]

I hate the fact that:

I'm expected to update it regularly with photographs and comments to show people how my life is progressing... which is a lot of hassle

And consequently it's assumed that if you don't put anything on there, nothing interesting is happening in your life at present

People think that having the largest friend count is the most important thing in life, and to that end routinely message people they don't care about to say something like "Haven't spoken in years, how's life going?" just to prove that the "friendship" is genuine.

People constantly use the "Send all" button, and invite people they don't like to events, to groups they would never agree with in a million years, and to add applications of absolutely no interest. It can be targeted for a reason...

People use it as a self-promotion service. That includes things like putting a photo of yourself and your partner semi-naked as a profile picture, uploading a photo of yourself in your room (i.e. not from a day out), potentially then adding a comment describing yourself as ugly or hot, and waiting for the comments from other people to descend, and inane postings on your page about where you've just been - not because anything interesting happened, but because you think that your presence there might improve your social standing and thus needs to be advertised.

And I like the fact that:

I don't need an address book... if I was going to Coventry for some unknown reason, I could find out if any of my mates from school are at Warwick University in 10 seconds, and message them in another 10 seconds. If it weren't for Facebook, that kind of thing would be near-impossible to do.

Nothing else strikes me as being a reason I like Facebook... I have my account, and will keep it, but I won't maintain it. Too much effort for very little reward tbh. I'm still a great believer in the idea that if someone is truly interested in how you're getting on, they'll talk to you directly. If all they want to do is see a couple of photos of you at a party, they evidently don't care about you enough to warrant having a chat. And if that's their attitude, why bother trying to please them with regular updates? Better off using your time talking to *genuine* mates.

[Flibb]

Facebook is great. Best thing is......my hamsters have a facebook account

...They keep getting offers of a shag from other hamsters.

Well they say they are hamsters, probably 15 year old cats pretending to be hamsters.

[Salazaar]

+1 for ease of communication, as above it's great for organising people and keeping in touch with friends you don't see very often.

-1 for ease of communication, it's quite difficult to keep anything remotely private on FB, even with (or possibly especially with) a huge bank of privacy controls it's very hard to keep tabs on who sees what. You have to assume that anything you post can be seen by anyone.

[eshrules]

I love facebook for keeping in touch with friends I would otherwise have lost contact with.

I hate facebook for keeping in touch with friends I would otherwise have lost contact with.

but seriously, anything or anyone I dislike, I block or remove. I've got customised friends lists set up, so only close friends and family see my wall/photo updates, the rest are there to keep in touch with.

I do still find it odd that it's apparently superceded myspace though.

[Saracen]

I don't love it or hate it. It just doesn't appeal to me at all. Not in the slightest.

First, I don't want to be bombarded with constant updates and messages about friends activities, just because I'm on their list. If I need to know, ring me and tell me, or we'll get together for a coffee. If it's not that important, then don't bother telling me if you if you can't be bothered to ring me. In other words, I regard it as anti-social, reducing or killing off actual communication.

Secondly, personally, I am not putting details of my personal life into the control of, and for all I know, into the database of, some corporation, just for the sake of letting my friends know what I'm up to, and when I have perfectly acceptable alternatives. This most emphatically applies to profile details including contact data, even if it's limited access, but also to day-to-day activities.

As far as I'm concerned, Facebook (and even more so, Twitter) merely serve to lower the signal to noise ratio of personal communications by adding a large level of white noise to the background. That other people seem to enjoy them, at least for a while, well fair enough. If it rocks your boat (whoever you are), have fun. So I don't love it or hate it, but it leaves me cold and hell will freeze over and become a skating rink for vacationing angels before they get any of my personal information from me.

[Barrichello]

i don't love it or hate it. It just doesn't appeal to me at all. Not in the slightest.

First, i don't want to be bombarded with constant updates and messages about friends activities, just because i'm on their list. If i need to know, ring me and tell me, or we'll get together for a coffee. If it's not that important, then don't bother telling me if you if you can't be bothered to ring me. In other words, i regard it as anti-social, reducing or killing off actual communication.

Secondly, personally, i am not putting details of my personal life into the control of, and for all i know, into the database of, some corporation, just for the sake of letting my friends know what i'm up to, and when i have perfectly acceptable alternatives. This most emphatically applies to profile details including contact data, even if it's limited access, but also to day-to-day activities.

As far as i'm concerned, facebook (and even more so, twitter) merely serve to lower the signal to noise ratio of personal communications by adding a large level of white noise to the background. That other people seem to enjoy them, at least for a while, well fair enough. If it rocks your boat (whoever you are), have fun. So i don't love it or hate it, but it leaves me cold and hell will freeze over and become a skating rink for vacationing angels before they get any of my personal information from me.

+1

[Funkstar]

I hate all the Facebook "apps" that are just things like "nobby answered a question about you" or "nobbers threw you a rotting sheep", but then you just block them the first time you see them and you don't have to deal with them again.

My profile is locked down so only people on my friends list can see things. I need to filter it down further to block some people seeing some things, but I might just create a second account and do all my work stuff through that one.

I generally don't get invites for loads of things, because my friends know better.

I'm expected to update it regularly with photographs and comments to show people how my life is progressing... which is a lot of hassle

And consequently it's assumed that if you don't put anything on there, nothing interesting is happening in your life at present

If I don't feel like updating it I don't, if I don't then it generally means I'm busy and have loads going on, if I update a lot then nothing much else is going on at the time.

[matty-hodgson]

Some good help so far actually . I like the "younger age group thing" which helped me expand on my self-esteem issues thing associated with Facebook where people feel they should be similar to all their friends so they set their ideal self too far away from their self image. I've also used the ease of communication thing, with the world being a lot smaller and Facebook helping the term "Global Village" to be a reality.

My profile is locked down so only people on my friends list can see things. I need to filter it down further to block some people seeing some things, but I might just create a second account and do all my work stuff through that one.

Second identity?

[Funkstar]

Second identity?

Why not?

I have a bunch of people added that I've met through work that I don't want to speak to generally, I don't want them knowing what i'm up to and really I only added them to be nice.

If there was an easy way I could split them into a sub set of my account and restrict what they see then I would be happy. Otherwise another account on my work email address could solve the issue.

[DeludedGuy]

I initially signed up so that I could track down some of my old school friends, which I did and it’s possibly the only reason I like facebook and still have an account, just today an old friend found me via facebook.

However it’s evident by skimming through some of my friends updates that it's become almost a competition about who seems to be the most ‘active’ - I don’t need to know you just went food shopping, nor do I need to know that you cleaned your house - these are everyday activities the majority of people do. When people start writing every little detail about their ‘life’ I start ignoring as it becomes annoying.

[Funkstar]

However it’s evident by skimming through some of my friends updates that it's become almost a competition about who seems to be the most ‘active’ - I don’t need to know you just went food shopping, nor do I need to know that you cleaned your house - these are everyday activities the majority of people do. When people start writing every little detail about their ‘life’ I start ignoring as it becomes annoying.

Those people get hidden from my news feed. It's worse if they have linked their Facebook updates to Twitter.

[kalniel]

Why not?

I have a bunch of people added that I've met through work that I don't want to speak to generally, I don't want them knowing what i'm up to and really I only added them to be nice.

If there was an easy way I could split them into a sub set of my account and restrict what they see then I would be happy. Otherwise another account on my work email address could solve the issue.

I thought most people already did this - have a work account and a friends and family account. I think I used to, but now I use linkedIn for work.

[Funkstar]

It's not proper work stuff, just that I meet a lot of people offshore that want to add everyone, and I don't want to offend by refusing them.