[Poll] Do you have a Facebook account?

[lpc32]

Something mentioned in another thread made me wonder. Are techies really less likely to use Facebook, as I assume?

A recent discussion:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/facebook-it-can-be-tamed-and-useful/

[tom66]

Only created it to sign up to a university project, and for certain apps. However, I haven't used it in months so I may just end up deleting it.

[NilByMouth]

I wonder how many people are too worried about the stigma to vote Yes

[Blaffetuur]

I have facebook, but I only check it once per day when I'm on a PC. Don't have it installed on my phone

[Mechanical Menace]

I only really have it for Messenger.

[Electric flower]

How am i supposed to waste time and stalk cute geeky girl i like? 
Also when late for class it's easy way to find out where you should be... 

But main reason i use facebook is to stay in contact with friend from another part of country, as well with skype.
More than facebook i prefer to use twitter to stalk Dave and some other people, they post much better stuff than any facebook page, also there is quite few contests on twitter by dangerous prototypes where they give free pcb to random retweet.

[MrSlack]

Hell no.

It's merely providing a stage and local fame for narcissists and petty voyeurs both of which are very bad human traits. It's quite vile in places.

[Cubdriver]

You need a 'Yes, but haven't logged on to it for several years now' category.

-Pat

[lpc32]

I wonder how many people are too worried about the stigma to vote Yes

It's anonymous. Unless people worry about the admins.

You need a 'Yes, but haven't logged on to it for several years now' category.

I guess that counts as a technical "no".

So far, surprising results. It's even lower than I expected.

[miguelvp]

I have one for technical reasons, meaning that at one point in the past I was tasked to integrate a piece of software to post into the user's wall if they chose to do so (default was off and not required to link it to your facebook account).

That was about 6 years ago, never bothered to delete my test account and I still get friends requests even if I never used that account for anything other than development. Funny I did have it set to the highest privacy settings at the time (to avoid development content leaks) so I do find it strange that people I know actually sent me friend requests (which I never accept), I guess FaceBook somewhat lets them know that they might know me somehow, not from activity on the interwebs since my use of that account was strictly used for development and only had third party development accounts from another company.

Scary thing is that FB was able to figure out some of my actual friends and FB sends me links of people I might know (and I do know them)

[AwArD_RzD]

Used Facebook for some time, 2008 till early 2015, closed my account and well i didn't die so  . There so many ppl who think they need FB to breathe and stay connected with "friend" , if they want to talk to me well i already have many phone number, e-mail or they can just show at my doorstep and i will be happy to offer them a drink and talk !!

[steverino]

I don't use facebook for socializing  (in fact, my only personal "friend" is my daughter so I can get photo updates on my granddaughter.  I "unfriended" my other daughter because she was too gabby!).  Facebook is great for keeping up to date on my various interests (robert reich (politics),chess24, guitar making, ... even eevblog). 

[lpc32]

I "unfriended" my other daughter because she was too gabby!

I know kids do that to their parents, but didn't think the other way around was possible.

[Blaffetuur]

I "unfriended" my other daughter because she was too gabby!

You can "unsubscribe" form her feed and still be friends with her (I do that with a lot of people  )

[German_EE]

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no MySpace, no Google+ yet I still manage to have friends and I get out of the apartment two or three nights a week. Most of the networking sites are a waste of time and one or two are privacy nightmares.

[rrinker]

stigma? O freely admit to having a Facebook account. The last thing I posted on it? I birthday wish for my second son. The last update before that? A birthday wish for my first son. Yes, I have an account. Yes, I check it daily. But I do not feel inclined to share every aspect of my daily life "Just woke up, what a great day!"  "Just got out of the shower, so clean!" "Finally at work - wow, that moron in the blue SUV.."

 All that mundane stuff of everyday life isn't interesting to ME, why the hell should it be interesting to anyone else? And why would anyone think other people would be interested in the mundane aspects of their lives? Yes, I log on to my FB account every day. I also scroll right through 99% of what is posted. The order of operations math problems particularly infuriate me, as it only reinforces how dumb the bulk of the population is, especially when you actually try to explain it and they argue with you about it. So I don't even bother. Sometimes the quizzes, particularly ones about SF or history, look interesting, but usually they are so ridiculously simple that it's obviously been written for the typical reader of Twilight books, not real SF and fantasy. Either way, they always give you the option to post your results to your wall - I ALWAYS say no.

The one thing I do use FB for is to organize get togethers with friends and family. Either through group chat or the event option, makes it easy to let people know and get an idea of how many will show.

[rx8pilot]

I have an account and use it regularly.

90% for work related contacts and issues.
10% for pure social - birthdays, marriages, getting a hold of someone that moved, etc.

I simply think about what I share and only post what I would otherwise be willing to say to complete strangers in public. I don't talk about my medical details, my social security number, my whereabouts, or anything that could be spread onto a wall and piece together my world. The public may or may not find out that I was on vacation a week or two after the fact for example.

Facebook is a tool to be used with the same caution as a hammer. Pound it the right way in the right place at the right time and all is well - and the tool is useful. I am not sure why anyone is scared of it (I know many), you simply need to have your own personal boundaries and stick with them. Facebook cannot share anything that you did not put there in the first place. If any critical detail of your life is leaked - it is your fault.

[Bud]

So far, surprising results. It's even lower than I expected.

Was it Yes or No that surprised you?

[med6753]

Have an account. Never use it. Log in maybe once every few months to make sure it still works.

I "unfriended" my other daughter because she was too gabby!

You can "unsubscribe" form her feed and still be friends with her (I do that with a lot of people  )

This.

[bitseeker]

Have an account. Never use it. Log in maybe once every few months to make sure it still works.

Likewise. I'd rather hear about what my friends are doing when I meet up with them. The longer it's been, the more we have to talk about. 

[suicidaleggroll]

I signed up back when it was new and was limited to university students.  They added my university when I was a junior in 2005 and I signed up then.  I was on it pretty regularly through ~2008 when I met my future wife, and pretty much dropped down to 1-2 logins a year after that.  I'm pretty proud of the notification emails I get now, in which the number of "updates" is saturated at 99.  I get grumpy when somebody adds me as a friend and makes me log in to approve them because it resets the "updates" counter back to 0...

[nctnico]

I tried to decypher my wifes Facebook page once but to me it just looks like this:

[XOIIO]

There are a couple groups for people that own my type of car, so it's a good outlet for info, and occasional contact with someone people I know, but I barely use it.

[Stonent]

Yes.  But unlike most people. I don't have many friends on it. The majority are relatives and former co-workers. I try not to have current co-workers as friends on Facebook just in case someone decides they want to be a bastard and try to screen shot something I said at one point. All but 2 are people I know in real life. In fact I have more unaccepted friend requests than friends. (Many are people that I know but haven't felt the need reconnect with)

[Halcyon]

Something mentioned in another thread made me wonder. Are techies really less likely to use Facebook, as I assume?

I think the majority of the type of people you get in here would be more resistant to Facebook and social media or if they use it, it's not to "Like" a particular product for the sake of it or post picture of their lunch, but rather for a specific purpose.

Engineers, experts, nerds whatever... would generally have a more critical and analytical view of the world, including social media. Rather than just blindly following along because it's popular, but asking themselves "why". I personally view Facebook as a money generator for everyone but the users themselves. It's full of advertising (whether you notice or not) and basically anything you post is theirs to use however they want, even your name. Take this little number from their terms of service:

You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/terms

Is it only me that's a little disturbed by stuff like this?

[FrankE]

Something mentioned in another thread made me wonder. Are techies really less likely to use Facebook, as I assume?

A recent discussion:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/facebook-it-can-be-tamed-and-useful/

I use it mostly for connecting with tech and STEMM companies, not people.

[CatalinaWOW]

Facebook is good for staying in touch with distant friends and relatives.  The ex-coworkers you want to stay in loose touch with.  The people you went to school with and didn't stay really close too.  The relatives that are close enough to care about, but not close enough to phone and write all the time.

No need to compete on quantity of friends, or share every moment of life, or respond to all of the silly polls, click bait, and drama that seems to show up there all the time.  Fortunately technical people have a well developed ignore function in their core operating system.   It doesn't require any effort to operate.

[Halcyon]

Fortunately technical people have a well developed ignore function in their core operating system.   It doesn't require any effort to operate.

I have never heard this expressed in more truer form! I like it.

[Tinkerer]

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no MySpace, no Google+ yet I still manage to have friends and I get out of the apartment two or three nights a week. Most of the networking sites are a waste of time and one or two are privacy nightmares.

Actually linkedin is a professional networking website, its not a standard social site. I am guessing you have never looked at what linkedin is?

[MarvinTheMartian]

Scary thing is that FB was able to figure out some of my actual friends and FB sends me links of people I might know (and I do know them)

Exactly the reason I don't use any social media. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/terms

Is it only me that's a little disturbed by stuff like this?

It's not just you! 

Fortunately technical people have a well developed ignore function in their core operating system.   It doesn't require any effort to operate.

I have never heard this expressed in more truer form! I like it.

Ditto! 

[miguelvp]

Scary thing is that FB was able to figure out some of my actual friends and FB sends me links of people I might know (and I do know them)

Exactly the reason I don't use any social media. 

Neither do I, that's why it's scary they could figure it out.

They must buy contact information from other entities.

[warp_foo]

I created an account to follow a film maker's project. I may have logged into it 3 or 4 times.

[steve30]

I don't.

IRC and forums pretty much make it redundant.

[FrankE]

Fortunately technical people have a well developed ignore function in their core operating system.   It doesn't require any effort to operate.

I could procrastinate and waste time for England.

[MarvinTheMartian]

I could procrastinate and waste time for England.

Congratulations, a true athlete! 

Hope you do some limbering up exercises first  to avoid injury (viewing one of Dave's videos, perhaps?).

[sleemanj]

I have an account because I had to develop a couple of website facebook API integration things in the past, thankfully I haven't had to do that in a couple years now, such a pita.

I think it has 2 friend requests on it.  Neither of which are ever going to be accepted.

My siblings and parents do the facebook apparently, I never got the hang of the whole social interaction thing.

[Halcyon]

I never got the hang of the whole social interaction thing.

On the contrary, you probably have better social skills than these people who are glued to their Facebook feeds. My friends (like, actual, living people that I see regularly) have tried to get me to join but I've refused. Nevertheless, I still get regular phone calls asking what I'm doing, if I'm free for dinner. I even got a wedding invite in the post the other day :-)

Life without Facebook makes you realise who your friends actually are.

[HighVoltage]

To me it seems one needs a different mindset to use FB.
Somehow it does not fit to the mind of an engineer.
Or I am just too stupid.

I have not found the need at all to be on FB and I probably never will.
And I have plenty of good contacts around the world, without FB.

[BillyD]

I'm involved in a couple of clubs and community groups, we use Facebook as the main means of communication and I have to say it's excellent for this purpose, even allowing for the inevitable element of 'noise' posts.
I also use it as a way to keep in touch with friends and family and I follow a number of newspapers which gives me quite a useful newsfeed.
It's like anything, you can use it stupidly or wisely.
(And 'wisely' means - among other things - being aware that it's public, visible, permanent, and is doing its best to gather as much data about you as it can.)

[TinkerFan]

I don't have it either (worried about the data and all that sort of stuff), but sometimes I think it would be good to have, just to stay in contact with someone.

[TerraHertz]

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no MySpace, no Google+ yet I still manage to have friends and I get out of the apartment two or three nights a week. Most of the networking sites are a waste of time and one or two are privacy nightmares.

Actually linkedin is a professional networking website, its not a standard social site. I am guessing you have never looked at what linkedin is?

I'm pretty sure he'd know exactly what Linkedin is. As do I, who have the same 'wouldn't touch any of them with a pole' list. It's not just social media, it's any company that tries to own you via your net habits.
At one point I made the mistake of joining Linkedin (forget why), and it very rapidly creeped me out with the extent it was double-guessing me and who I might know.

Others may find this site useful: http://justdelete.me/   (Does what it says.)

Google+ is extra-super annoying, because you more or less have to have an account in order to use youtube. For this one thing alone, I loathe google. Hence my G+ avatar.

[Wh1sper]

My dog has one.
And I'm typing for her.
Because the dog playground communicate with facebook only, so my dog ask for an account

[lpc32]

Was it Yes or No that surprised you?

Less "yes" than I expected. It increased some since I posted, but the current 38% is still rather low. I've either overestimated the usage in the general population, or underestimated the avoidance by techies.

All that mundane stuff of everyday life isn't interesting to ME, why the hell should it be interesting to anyone else?

Probably, the people who post this stuff do find it interesting to read other people's daily activities.

The order of operations math problems particularly infuriate me,

What's that?

I tried to decypher my wifes Facebook page once but to me it just looks like this:

Modern art?

Is it only me that's a little disturbed by stuff like this?

The poll says you're not the only one.

Facebook cannot share anything that you did not put there in the first place. If any critical detail of your life is leaked - it is your fault.

Technically, perhaps. But many people are unaware of how it works, or of the implications, or are gullible, and Facebook is like a slick conman that's hell-bent on collecting your data and metadata, and maybe also on triggering "involvement". There are probably defaults that expose information you're unaware of, Facebook "apps" that get permissions you didn't expect, and so on. Add to that phone apps, with their own set of shoddy permissions, that use Facebook interfaces or auto-submit stuff to it, and you get a whole lot of attack/exposure surface. Also, shared by whom? Your own info can be shared by someone else on Facebook, also inadvertently.

Some anecdotes:

A friend recently asked me to check a problem related to something on Facebook, so I had some recent FB exposure. I found someplace where FB asks you to fill in details such as linking/identifying your family members: parents, grandparents, siblings, etc.

I've received an SMS from Facebook offering me to look at photos of a person I've talked to over the phone just a handful of times in a professional context.

A 2nd hand story: a friend told me he encountered people who name-tag faces in photos on their account.

[tszaboo]

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no MySpace, no Google+ yet I still manage to have friends and I get out of the apartment two or three nights a week. Most of the networking sites are a waste of time and one or two are privacy nightmares.

Actually linkedin is a professional networking website, its not a standard social site. I am guessing you have never looked at what linkedin is?

I got my last job solely because Linkedin. I'm earning more and have a better job, better position.
Probably so far the most productive time of my life was when I've uploaded and updated my profile.

[Bud]

I understand what you said re finding your new job but boy, if there is a hell of a confusing web site that is LinkedIn. Every time i log in (to accept connection invites from people i know) i am lost in how to do simple things like see my connections. This site is a total mess, my eng education is insufficient to navigate that piece of crap.

[gnavigator1007]

Hell no.  Never have never will.  I lived so completely of the grid for about 15 years that the state of Florida had no record of my existence lol.  That was a big surprise trying to renew a 12 year expired ID.  Something with the conversion to paperless records.  Didn't have so much as a bill or bank account in my name.  Really a pretty comfortable time of my life.  I've had to make a lot of effort to get back into the system, but Facebook is just too much even now that I use twitter and occasionally post in forums.  Always refused Facebook even when employers have tried to bully me into it.  I'm still pissed youtube required me to get a google+ account. 

[TheWelly888]

Just after I voted, the Nos have it with 51.1% after 180 people voted!

I have a theory why this may be the case - ordinary non-techy people find it awkward to use forums like this especially when putting pictures up or looking up the latest postings and they find FB's interface much easier to use. This forum is full of techy people who can cope with forum webpages and so don't need FB (as well as a much higher awareness of how FB pays for itself!)

I am on a private web forum for ex-pupils of my old school which saw it's traffic decline by at least 80% over the past 2 years since more people adopted FB and went over there. One person admitted that she could not cope with the forum's new interface and so gave up on it.

[rx8pilot]

This thread has been an eye opener. I did not realize so many people were scared and/or hate Facebook and seemingly all other social media. After reading all the posts, I still cannot understand why it is so evil and horrible though. Maybe some people just like to live in pure isolation and have no idea what anyone else is up to.

I regularly learn of important and timely issues about people I know and care about. It allows me to respond (or not) to a need for help or a congratulations for a success that I otherwise would never know about. There is obviously a ton of noise, but it is not difficult to scroll past that one guy always posting about politics and how wrong everyone is. If one person is posting too much, they get blocked with a single click of the mouse.

Everyone knows that FB makes money off of analysis of your activity and posts - they are able to target ads to you based on your location and the content of your posts. Who cares? I usually run a VPN so they don't know where I am, but that is true of anything on the internet. Somebody, somewhere is recording the origin of your IP and if you do not make it hard that will be used to target you for ads and whatever else. Some of the targeted ads are actually useful - I found a machine shop the other day from a targeted ad that I would never have found otherwise.

I have been 'online' since the BBS days starting in the mid-80's. I have never had a single problem with anyone stealing my stuff. The internet has and always will be a double edged sword - just like real life.

[lpc32]

Just after I voted, the Nos have it with 51.1% after 180 people voted!

I look at the 2nd poll option as a practical "no" as well.

I have a theory why this may be the case - ordinary non-techy people find it awkward to use forums like this

I think another factor is that many techies aren't exactly socialites.

rx8pilot: It's not only ads. The leaking of private info to large audiences, potentially irrevocably, can have real life implications. It also just makes me uncomfortable in general. BTW, not many avenues for abuse on BBSes, unless you mean the sysop.

[rdl]

Why do I avoid facebook?
Because no matter what else they want to call it or how they want to justify it, what they do is spying.
And like most people, I seem to have an almost instinctive dislike of being spied upon.

Full Definition of spy

    1 :  to watch secretly usually for hostile purposes

Hostile. Purposes.

On top of that, their CEO is an asshole.

[Davecltl]

I have one just to log in or view items that require a face book account to log in.

[tszaboo]

This thread has been an eye opener. I did not realize so many people were scared and/or hate Facebook and seemingly all other social media.

No. Facebook makes people less happy. There is even studies of it. It is a poisonous place, where people voluntarily become advertisers and arseholes. I see others browsing through their daily bullshit.
Thank you, but no.

[Halcyon]

This thread has been an eye opener. I did not realize so many people were scared and/or hate Facebook and seemingly all other social media.

No. Facebook makes people less happy. There is even studies of it. It is a poisonous place, where people voluntarily become advertisers and arseholes. I see others browsing through their daily bullshit.
Thank you, but no.

Not just unhappy but I can count on one hand the number of people who have got themselves into hot water at work because of something they posted or liked on Facebook in the last few years. Like it or not, this is the world we live in now. Every move you make on social media is judged, pulled apart, assumptions made, people getting upset etc... etc...

Wasn't there an article from somewhere in the world where a judge ruled that "unliking" someone on Facebook amounted to workplace bullying in certain circumstances? I think it was a Real Estate somewhere if I remember rightly. Yes, the world is fucking precious, but it is what is it. Why buy into it?

[German_EE]

Not only that, if you go for a job interview these days they ask you for the ID you use on Facebook and Twitter. A reply along the lines of "I don't use social media, it's a waste of time" gets some very puzzled looks and sometimes the interview is swiftly terminated because they assume that either you are odd or that you have something to hide.

[MrSlack]

I got asked for my facebook ID a couple of years ago. I walked out of the interview there and then even though I don't have one. Bad company ethic there right away. Don't stand for it.

[Mechanical Menace]

I got asked for my facebook ID a couple of years ago. I walked out of the interview there and then even though I don't have one. Bad company ethic there right away. Don't stand for it.

I've had interviews where it's come out you must friend your boss and not hide any posts from them (don't know how they'd enforce that) and others where they've let it be known you must close down all social media accounts, not just advise it may be better to not have them. I think both of these extremes are unacceptable.

[Kilrah]

(don't know how they'd enforce that)

They wouldn't actively enforce it, but jump on you the day they hear about something you posted from somewhere else and they didn't see it in their feed.

That's ridiculous.

[rdl]

The CEO of facebook once referred to users of that service as "dumb fucks".

The more I hear about facebook, the more I think he was right.

[rx8pilot]

The CEO of facebook once referred to users of that service as "dumb fucks".

The more I hear about facebook, the more I think he was right.

I cannot verify that myself, but have no doubt that Zuckerberg looks down on all of humanity. He has learned how to remote control a large portion of the population. I use Facebook, but like most here - with caution and restraint. If there was a global trend toward cautious use of social media, it would spell disaster for Facebook.

[Kilrah]

Not much different from "offline" media who have been doing that for multiple decades.

This poll is interesting, but I would like to have it accompanied by an age breakdown of those who answered. About 50% seem a little surprising, since among people I know in my age group (<35) there are less than 5% of people not having an FB account.

[Dave]

I use it, because you're pretty much obliged by social standards to use it these days.
Staying in sync with college classmates about the things that are going on? Facebook.
Want to know which club you should visit tonight? Facebook.
Friends throwing a party? You'll be invited on Facebook.
Met someone interesting and want to get in touch with them? Facebook.

I only use it through my phone's browser, though. The application was somewhat useful, because you could instantly know when someone dropped you a message, but then they updated it and it required way too many permissions for comfort, so I deleted it for good. Guess what, the battery life suddenly improved. Significantly.

As far as posting on there goes, I only rarely post or put pictures up there, only stuff that I wouldn't mind a broader public to see and even then I only set it to be visible to friends only.
I have just over 200 people on there, only the people that I've actually spent some time with and actually see a point in keeping up with their lives. I only rarely add new ones.

[TerraHertz]

I have just over 200 people on there, only the people that I've actually spent some time with and actually see a point in keeping up with their lives. I only rarely add new ones.

This illustrates something that is central to why I don't use social media.
If one wishes to have a productive, creative life, there's a shortage of time. And every moment you spend reading about and interacting with _other_ people's lives, is time taken away from leading your own life.
On the other hand, the world of political events presents a deluge of information, that also takes a lot of time to skim for important details, if you want to stay aware of the flow.

So there is a three way time balancing act:
 1. Your own creative efforts.
 2. Involvement in the lives of people you know.
 3. Events in the wide world.

I choose to maximize 1 & 3, minimize 2 as much as possible while maintaining just a few friendships. How many friends does one really need?

And I spend way too much time on eevblog.

[Mechanical Menace]

How many friends does one really need?

Last time I read anything about that somewhere between 50 and 150 seemed to be the rough consensus with 50 being the minimum most healthy people need and 150 the maximum they can keep track of. Had something to do with the optimum size of groups/tribes before we had agriculture.

[rrinker]

 How do I Facebook> Well, I have a mouse with a scroll wheel (I hate using someone else's computer and it DOESN'T have a wheel mouse - those are almost essential these days). Anyway, I will log in to FB, and the start scrolling. Fairly quickly - I can read pretty fast although on FB I am mostly just skimming,. I only stop if a) something really jumps out as interesting, b) I hit the end of new posts since my last visit, or c) there's a picture of a Pug - I love my puggies. So your post title had better be very interesting to me or I will skip right on past it. This minimizes the amount of time I spend there, and also minimizes the amount of inane garbage that exists there.

My Pugs, doing what they do best - sleep. Harley is the black one, Trixie is the fawn.

[EEVblog]

I hate Facebook because of the hideous user interface. No, hideous is too kind...
They also fake their video views, allow and even knowingly perpetuate advertising scams, and do nothing to prevent content theft. It is also totally and utterly useless as a search engine to find anything you have previously seen or know is on there.
It's only saving grace is as a contact mechanism for friends and relatives. Even then it's sucks at that, but is better than nothing.

[steve30]

I think this page pretty much sums it up:

https://stallman.org/facebook.html

[MarvinTheMartian]

I hate Facebook because of the hideous user interface. No, hideous is too kind...
They also fake their video views, allow and even knowingly perpetuate advertising scams, and do nothing to prevent content theft. It is also totally and utterly useless as a search engine to find anything you have previously seen or know is on there.
It's only saving grace is as a contact mechanism for friends and relatives. Even then it's sucks at that, but is better than nothing.

Don't hold back Dave - you didn't mention Fail or BS once! 

Not that I disagree - I don't use it at all.

[SeanB]

On the way home there was a person in the Audi TT next to me, driving in traffic and with his phone between his hands the whole time, looking down at the blue FB screen ( only good thing about that scheme is you can recognise it even if you cannot read the text) and driving seemingly by autopilot. Thankfully he turned ( sans indicators) onto the highway instead of going straight and accelerated hard. I do so hope......

Strange thing at the same intersection yesterday I was driving with somebody, and we had stopped there to turn the other way. While waiting we had a grandstand view of a 2 car collision, the one turned without looking, into the one going straight the other way.  Screech, crunch and the poor guy in the red VW golf next to us had to get out of his car, to remove the headlamp assembly that had magically appeared on his car. He tok it, placed on the side and drove off. We had to wait as the light was against us while the vehicle in front went around this obstacle. Of course the first responder was a tow truck, even before the last bits had landed it seemed.

[Tandy]

I had one for a while but it was tiresome, all those pictures of people's exotic holidays and posting of stupid jokes and re-post this spam. I would have deleted my personal account If I could but you can't have a business page without a personal account. So I have a personal account with no pictures, friends, posts or anything. It is entirely blank to allow me to login to administer the business page and a Facebook group for former Tandy employees.

[hans]

I purely have Facebook for technical reasons (namely messenger to reach some people).

My view on Facebook is that the people of my most interest rarely post anything. It's not like those people drown in misery (because nobody posts that), or spend 90% of their free time on the couch.. it's just, meh, why bother with it? If you talk to them 1-to-1 (via Skype or whatever) you have much higher quality social contact and level of interaction.

It may sound depressing, but my view on the daily 'news feed' is that only is about in what we call in Dutch "huisje boompje beestje" - roughly explained as living on your own, doing well, family, etc. Any real-life struggle is taboo on FB and in that sense very unbalanced and unsupportive. There has been some studies that suggests some people get more miserable from reading their daily Facebook feeds because of that (me included).

[BobsURuncle]

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no MySpace, no Google+ yet I still manage to have friends and I get out of the apartment two or three nights a week. Most of the networking sites are a waste of time and one or two are privacy nightmares.

Ditto