What are your views on Facebook?

[Accipiter]

Facebook is pretty much still getting onto its feet, what is your personal opinion on how it is used, is it a positive thing to have in life, or do you see its effects as negative? Does it annoy you? Do you see a change in personalities between friends who use it?

Pretty much I'm writing a research paper & making a factual pro-gramme for college, and I need some Primary Research.

My opinion on it at current is pretty pessimistic, I see it being used for self-expression of your minds perception of yourself, I see it as annoying, and forgive me for saying, ******ed. Users can't help but add friends, that they've never met, or only had brief introductions with. I know its called a Social network, but I don't see it as very social, I see it as self-centered.

So what are your views on Facebook? You're welcome to disagree with mine.

[matt$]

I think of it as a great way to communicate with friends although annoying when some find that they have to make a status about there bf/gf or how they aren't feeling great every 10mins... Like you said it also opens up gateways for stalkers to track you down, rape, kill then eat you.

[Accipiter]

I agree, it is being used for a great communications device, just now that people can't customise their Facebook page with ****** MySpace sparkles or backgrounds of cannabis leaves they seem to customise it more through status' that annoy me more than sparkles & cannabis leaves.

It also seems the mass use of it is peoples painless self harming drug to get the attention from a status rather from a slit.

This American spell checker on here is having my life.

[beth]

"users can't help but add people they've only briefly met."

well this is rubbish. i don't add people unless i'm at least firm friends with them.

[Accipiter]

Take a glance onto your Facebook, I'm sure you'll know someone who adds people you've introduced them too for 5 minutes, or had 1 night out with, hardly friends.

[Neversoft]

I think facebook is a vey useful and convenient website for keeping in touch with friends, but that's also why I hate it. Too many people have become reliant on it and it exposes some for the true attention seekers they are. For me personally, it's more hassle than it's worth. I also agree with what you said about the social aspect being very self-centered. The quote below sums it up, really.

"We are tribal people, and while the blogosphere and social networking sites help us keep in touch with our tribes, there's a danger of dispersing ourselves amongst too many contacts. Extroverts are often described as having broad but shallow contacts, while introverts tend to have few but deep relationships. Facebook seems to be making virtual extroverts of us all. In some ways, collecting hundreds of friends dilutes the very concept of friendship. If I'm friends with everybody, am I really friends with anybody?"

[Accipiter]

I agree with all of that, especially the quote, I'm an introvert and I'd rather keep it that way because I favor my own company at times. So I wonder if its mainly introverts that disagree with the way Facebook is used by its mass.

It also attacks the nature of group mentalities which have always been a social survival skill since the first tribes, people are starting to conform and idolise people who they wouldn't normally idolise because their view is pressed onto them via Facebook. A bit like how the distribution industry works with music, putting it everywhere they possibly can to large audiences so people start to believe they like it because their peers do.

[dbgtz]

well its good for stalking people and looking at pictures of those you are stalking

[Accipiter]

Yes, people also stalk others profiles, usually when they see them as a threat, a bit like nature, if you saw someone as a threat you'd check them out. Just Facebook has made it a **** load easier.

[cocaine]

Facebook is pretty much still getting onto its feet

hardly? its 7 years old and has half a billion active users...

[Accipiter]

I mean setting itself into stone, maybe I used the wrong term, it's still trying to become perfect.

[Circadia]

I think its good for the fact you can find and talk to people you haven't in years, like my dad his cousin moved to Amsterdam 20 odd years ago and because of facebook they can speak again. But there are many downsides like the fact pedophiles could use it to talk to girls/boys and bullys could target people on the internet. I like it because i can talk to friends but i would never add anyone i didn't know very well.

[hamheyelliot]

I'm guessing it can vary wildly depending on the person, older members probably don't have to suffer the constant '♥ ily insert name' at the end of every status for example, then again younger users probably don't get the kind of people with 4 figure friend numbers as a result of the 'oh you're a human it seems' rule.

For me the constant rubbish some self centered friends of mine has sent me to Twitter atm.

[Jessicrawrr]

I love it in some ways, hate it in others.
I love how I can communicate with my friends easier, and free.
Hate, how people can just say things they wouldn't do, people have over 1000 friends- they obviously don't know them, and it's an easy site for bullying and everything.

[Accipiter]

Twitter has never appealed to me, it seems like a boring stream of peoples thoughts that would get you nowhere in a general knowledge quiz never mind life, but I've never used it so my opinion is obviously just from observation. I was going to include all social networking / blog sites into this factual pro-gramme until I found out it was only 5 minutes long.

And I agree with Facebook being a different experience to older members, a more mature / catch up approach / serious discussion seems to be what I see it used as for older people.

@LoveLife, Facebook has taken measures against those such things, if its still a threat its mainly down to the users knowledge of it, even though I think the button is only available to under 13's or something.

---------- Post added 12-04-2011 at 08:16 PM ----------


I love it in some ways, hate it in others.
I love how I can communicate with my friends easier, and free.
Hate, how people can just say things they wouldn't do, people have over 1000 friends- they obviously don't know them, and it's an easy site for bullying and everything.

I mainly dislike it for the approach of a meeting tool (as in a tool used to target possible gf's etc.) People change their persona to each friend, although it's nothing new to Facebook that people will change character it's annoying to see it more often.

[Eoin247]

I'm kinda 50/50 on it. In some ways it's great, for example staying in contact is made simples.

In other ways it's bad though. The vast majority of people in facebook take part in the so called "friends race" just to look popular and add people they barely or don't know.

I remember seeing an experiment done a while back on social networks like facebook, bebo and myspace. Something like 90% of boys and 70% of girls would add a person they don't know if their profile pic was good looking. Amazingly most people would also add a randomer no matter what their profile pic or name seemed to be.

[Accipiter]

Thats actually interesting I'll have to look into that. I'd personally feel so uncomfortable adding someone I didn't know.

I accept requests of people I don't know, but I do regret it, but at the moment it's only 2 people, one is in my media class and I expected them to ask about work, and the other a bit hypocritical to my work, I accepted after only learning her name on a night out. Still I only have 30 people on my list so I'm not that bad.

[Judas]

i think it's great. it's an easy way of staying in contact with your friends, reconnecting with old friends or family members, and seeing what everyone is up to.

but like everything it has it's downfalls, but that just lies in the people that use it. yes there are attention seekers etc but where would we be without it? bebo? if you hate people that attention seek - delete them, if you don't want to be "raped, killed and eaten", set your profile to private and don't accept people you don't know lol... i for one don't have anyone as a friend that i don't know, i don't see the point.

i can't understand why people hate it so much, hate the annoying people that use it instead :P it's extremely useful. but of course too much of it can be a bad thing - but that could be said for anything.

[Accipiter]

The main problems is real friends, the ones that would not act the way they do on facebook, in real life.

Its the ones that use it as a cushion to fall back on because they're too weak to sort out their own problems that annoy me.

[Jessicrawrr]

There's a boy who goes to my school. He's gay, wears makeup, and girls clothes and he gets sooooooooooooooo much attention for it, 5000 friends, and thousands of friend requests that he can't answer.
I think that's when it gets too far.

[Judas]

There's a boy who goes to my school. He's gay, wears makeup, and girls clothes and he gets sooooooooooooooo much attention for it, 5000 friends, and thousands of friend requests that he can't answer.
I think that's when it gets too far.


The main problems is real friends, the ones that would not act the way they do on facebook, in real life.

Its the ones that use it as a cushion to fall back on because they're too weak to sort out their own problems that annoy me.

this is what i'm saying, i think there's a fine line between not liking facebook itself, or the people like who you've both spoken about that use it.

[Inseriousity.]

The reason I'm not a particular fan of it is in the name really. Facebook. I come on the internet to be anonymous so posting my face everywhere (and I'm not very photogenic either :P) is the complete opposite of that. I think, as an extreme, it can limit face-to-face conversation. My mum, for example, is always on Facebook on her ipod talking to friends that she forgets to talk to the people who are actually around her.

[e5]

Facebook is great :)

[Accipiter]

The reason I'm not a particular fan of it is in the name really. Facebook. I come on the internet to be anonymous so posting my face everywhere (and I'm not very photogenic either :P) is the complete opposite of that. I think, as an extreme, it can limit face-to-face conversation. My mum, for example, is always on Facebook on her ipod talking to friends that she forgets to talk to the people who are actually around her.

This is also a problem I see, that this social network is taking the social out of social life. It ruins peoples real social lives, they now care more about their farms or their image they need to keep up on Facebook.

I'll admit myself that Facebook may have had some boost in my self-esteem, when I first joined I had the same display for a year because I was that self-conscious about my look. Now I've used it for years, experienced pictures of me being posted collapsed in toilets and what nots, so I don't care about how I look anymore and will post any pictures.

So it has it's positives and negatives, but in this factual pro-gramme, i'm trying to make it very pessimistic / satire, bit of a charlie brooker approach so I can't really comment on it's positive user points :P.

[-:Undertaker:-]

There's a boy who goes to my school. He's gay, wears makeup, and girls clothes and he gets sooooooooooooooo much attention for it, 5000 friends, and thousands of friend requests that he can't answer.
I think that's when it gets too far.

FlyingJesus?

I just would like Facebook to sort out the chat which always breaks, much prefer MSN for talking and FB for just finding out gossip both from real life and news in general from discussion groups. The pages people make are a laugh sometimes aswell. :P

[Camy]

I like facebook in general. What I hate about it is people who add you, that you don't know/hardly know, and don't ever try talking to you. I also hate people who make statuses insulting someone or something, but don't actually put who they're talking about, well just generally attention seeking things people do on facebook annoys me i guess.

[Accipiter]

FlyingJesus?

I just would like Facebook to sort out the chat which always breaks, much prefer MSN for talking and FB for just finding out gossip both from real life and news in general from discussion groups. The pages people make are a laugh sometimes aswell. :P

I use Fb chat because my mates rarely use MSN now, so I have to put up with its ********.

Do you's not feel like when you are reading all this pointless this that you are wasting your life away? It's just like the hypodermic needle theory but within social networking, where you come home, switch facebook on (switch tv on), and just sit their and scroll through it getting no amusement from it.

[dbgtz]

Well it is amusing when theres people ******** at each other, thats hilarious.

[Narnat,]

With everything there are pros and cons but I think there are more pro's. I think its a good thing because you can find family members you maybe don't see to often and it's also a good thing for adults because they have a fair chance of finding older friends ect.

[Stephen]

I've never really used it. I have an account but only ever ended up playing fb games tbh. I find it annoying for some reason

[shizzle]

Facebook is alright for connecting w/ several friends at one common social network site I guess, but it's getting boring for me now and I barely use it.. but I guess it's decent cause you can find old school mates &what not.

[Chris]

Facebook is okay but it gets annoying sometimes. I seem to find myself using it less and less these days though.

[april]

I think people rely on Facebook too much now, much like MSN was for a while except the Facebook fad is lasting much, much longer. For example, I've been to a meal once with a few friends and a couple would say "I'm just posting that we're here on Facebook." I hate that, and I've become to hate Facebook because of it.

Also I hear you can tag people to locations when you're out and about now? It gets worse and worse.

[Charlottay!]

I dont use it anywhere near as much as i used to. People just seem to post the same petty stuff, like lots of lyrics and messages to send "subtle" hints to people they r in moods with and things. just annoys me. I have started to twitter more :)

[Matthew]

I think it's mostly good, but I just can't stand people who 'live' on facebook, like they post a 'life update' every hour, or feel the need to post lyrics to songs they listen to. Also people who just add anyone, like friends of friends of friends just to get their friend count up. I know people with over a thousand friends, when half of them the person will never see/speak to in real life, or even on facebook for that matter.

As someone said above though, I'm not hating on facebook I'm just hating on those people ;)

[Eric]

Facebook is awesome. I use it to contact my classmates. Meet my old friends. Express my feelings. Update what im thinking and doing. And play games with friends. Upload silly pics. Its pretty cool ;)

[HotelUser]

I've hardly used Facebook before.

All I understand is that people post little messages on a wall and upload photos. To be frank that is extremely boring to me and the classmates of mine I wish to speak to I do so via MSN.

I don't like people poking their nose in my business, and naturally since everyone is poking their nose in your business they're going to be judging your every single move and every single word on the thing.

[Eric]

I've hardly used Facebook before.

All I understand is that people post little messages on a wall and upload photos. To be frank that is extremely boring to me and the classmates of mine I wish to speak to I do so via MSN.

I don't like people poking their nose in my business, and naturally since everyone is poking their nose in your business they're going to be judging your every single move and every single word on the thing.

So true.

[Syphon]

I never went on Facebook much untill the start of 2010 or so, this was mainly because most of my friends and classmates started to drift away from MSN and towards Facebook. Because of this I decided to be more active, only because of the fact I had no other free way of talking to them easily :D.

Right now I do enjoy going on it, mainly because of the amount of people I can talk to at the same time and how I can organise events etc. on there for days out. It's also an easy place to find any photos of myself that someone else has uploaded :P.

Though I do agree with HotelUsers comment of everyone poking their nose into your business xP sometimes it'd be nice if you could pick and choose who can read the posts you make on your wall within your group of "friends".

[Technologic]

i would die without facebook

[Accipiter]

Why would you die without Facebook?

[Technologic]

because its where i contact my ballin homes so we can go rollin

[Michael]

Its great, although the friends that constantly complain about their life gets on my nerves.

[Andy-]

I like facebook and use it frequently and you don;t really add your friends bet those you have met and those who you know but don't talk to. But I think customizing our pages will ruin it.

[dbgtz]

It's a great way to not need a good contract on your phone, lol.

[sophiethenerd]

Its good for talking to people but I learned don't add people for the sake of it. Some girl from my old school threatened to kill me. Only add friends and use it as a tool to communicate but don't only use that. Talk at school and at each others houses.
Facebook is great for checking out what friends are up to though.Me and my friend use it to mess around.

[Michael]

I don't add anyone. I find that silly adding them just because they show their 'chest'.

[Andy-]

I don't add anyone. I find that silly adding them just because they show their 'chest'.

Lool on my friends list their are about of people from my older brothers year (11) as i;m in year 9 I don't really talk to them but I know who they are and i'm know to them as ______ brother. I also have contacts that I see around at school and contacts who are friends of friends.

[GirlNextDoor15]

Facebook is like u no a way for us to contact each other. a convenient way actly. but I wudnt suggest kids to have it. They should not use fb as they will go and post everything at their wall. It's like sharing their childhood with everyone when they are still kids.

[Andy-]

Facebook is like u no a way for us to contact each other. a convenient way actly. but I wudnt suggest kids to have it. They should not use fb as they will go and post everything at their wall. It's like sharing their childhood with everyone when they are still kids.

What age do you say someone is a kid? As i'm not that old but can be still said as young and I don't do that.

[GirlNextDoor15]

A kid as in a few years old. I don't need to see you do that. My cousins are doing that. It's just pretty weird

[Michael]

Haha, lol. Some people put so much info on facebook. 'hey im going on holiday!' or 'home alone ;)'.

[GirlNextDoor15]

Haha, lol. Some people put so much info on facebook. 'hey im going on holiday!' or 'home alone ;)'.

Exactly! What if ppl kidnap them or kill them lol. It's tmi

[peteyt]

Didn't read every post but I agree with most of the stuff.

I do really enjoy Facebook. I'm quite a shy quiet person and so I often use stuff like Facebook as a way to express myself, but I'm not an attention seeker. I mainly use it to contact friends and also to promote the station I run. I do have a lot of friends on facebook that I don't properly know, same on MSN, but that's mainly so I have a bigger audience to promote my station (not myself ha).

I think Facebook is great to keep people up to date but can go too far. I don't like the new windows live messenger because it seems to have gone too social. I love to post stuff, but there's stuff I wouldn't post, and it seems like programs like Windows Live Messenger want you to post everything. I'm waiting for the feature, post this whole conversation.

Funnily enough some randomer on Twitter was going all emo last night and I was tempted to post something. I'm all for expressing emotions but come on, not everyone want's to listen to you cry. I find that kind of thing is just attention seeking. If you do have a real problem, share it with your friends and not the world wide web.

[wiktoria]

facebook is ok but my friends post statuses like all the time. For example "brb" does anyone care?

[Ceilidh.]

I love Facebook. I can keep in contact with old friends easily. The odd Facebook status makes me LOL, the amount of arguments people get into on Facebook is amusing. I don't understand why some people decide to post their entire life online.

[Shar]

baitbook init.

I don't see why people see the need to share their entire life story on facebook. It's rather lame and no one caressss.
What really annoys me is when people have a new profile picture of themselves every two minutes of them posing. Just ughh.