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My experience with facebook has been a process of stumbling through the society pages of the digital age and learning what is proper netiquette. Seeing as we're all going through this at the same time and it's all new and made available to us and constantly updating as technology rapidly advances. There isn't one governing body over the open sewer that is the internet where you can find anything you want and a lot of what you don't want.
Facebook has made me question the nature of relationships and reflect on my own relationship with others. When I was taking care of my infant niece I spent 12 hours a day with her five days a week so I'd post pictures on facebook to share with family. Nothing inappropriate but then I was asked to take them down by my brother but I knew it was really his wife's request. His explanation was that sexual predators would get them and learn her name and track them down. An infant baby on her mat playing, really? Never the less I found myself offended but took them down only to find the parents do the very same thing I did and post pictures of their child on the internet. It was awkward for me because while I know I am not her parent I am her Aunt and I spent the vast majority of time with her during her early development and it was ok for them to do it but not for me? As if I would have sexual predators as my facebook friends and they wouldn't?
Other times I would have ex-boyfriends requesting to friend me and I'd deny them. They can clearly see I'm married and it's really not appropriate. But after one friend request from them would come another and I got tired of that. There are also the people that you know but maybe don't really like and they request you and what do you do? Then there are those people you request to friend and think everything is fine with them and they don't accept you or reject you. How are you supposed to take that message? How do you take the rejection requests? We're friends but not really friends?
There are people I friend and discover I really like them and then there are people I find to discover they are really dramatic. I also found facebook good for networking. If I needed notes for a class I missed I could get them from a classmate. If I wanted to get to know someone more but didn't have the time or the means to hang out with them there was facebook. When I was half a world apart from my spouse and going through the long distance there were friends for that. There were friends for the immigration process and friends for the egyptian military process. There were book club friends and groups I'd moderate online. I made a lot of mistake and probably every mistake you all named here except for the posting my uterus or vagina online. I do find it a bit gross to see a persons ultrasound as well but then again I might feel differently about it if it was my own. I haven't been there and done that yet so how would I know how I'd feel about sharing it with others when it came to that point in my life?
I've connected with friends from long ago. I've watched my little cousins blossom in what seemed like over night, grow up, get married and start a family of their own and I couldn't have done that without facebook. In a way it connected me to members of my extended family that I didn't know too well but always wanted to. I agree about all the body pictures of the young and the restless. I even recall my own phase and sit back with amusement as I see the next generation go through it. Sometimes I want to get involved and tell others to cover up but then I find it's easy to get sucked into other people's dramas and maybe a light arms length touch is appropriate.
When I got a text message there was a terrible car accident on the eve of Christmas and my husband was involved it was agonizing so I reached out on facebook to anyone who spoke Arabic to make three way calls for me to know if my husband was dead or alive in the hospital. I was in 24 hours of pure pain in not knowing because we couldn't contact anyone. They bury their dead in 24 hours over there. In separate calls I was told my husband was dead. Then I was told a friend was dead. Then I was told my husband was dead again. Finally we reached my husbands family and who comes to the phone but my grieving husband because his oldest and best friend had died in the car accident. I was relieved because there was some confusion because they are both doctors with the same name but I was also devastated because I also lost a very good friend in the car accident. Without facebook I would have been in the black hole of not knowing for some time as my husband grieved the loss of his dear friend.
I went off facebook thinking it had become to personal and too much, time consuming, over exposing. I had to answer to too many people who now had an expectation of you making your life public and I had unknowingly danced my way into a public persona online and massed a following if I wanted it or not. You take the good with the bad.
Now with my work it's a requirement to have it because it's become a tool that has reached it's tentacles into many facets of our lives. I've hurt people by defriending them and then after I get over what ever it was that was my reasoning for defriending them I recognize that and regret hurting someone unwittingly. I've been hurt by being defriended too and by not being accepted as a friend. It takes me aback when I realize the importance that we put into it. Online friends are real friends too and I am sorry to have lost some of them a long the way of my journey in my bumbling through the digital life as I figure it out as I go along. Thankfully most of them are rather forgiving. With a sort of public personality I'm unsure how I should treat facebook but I have some ideas though I'm not quite ready to accept requests for friends from someone in Mexico City that I've never met before who friends me out of the blue because I do worry about facebook hackers and viruses. But if I met you online or in reality I'm likely to accept the friend request. Family or friends I've learned what information to share about myself and I'm not so worried about people outing me because pretty much it's difficult to keep a degree of privacy these days. I suppose that might be part of the online maturation process if we can call it that. I don't think I'll be weeding my friends list anymore though because maybe I just need to take a break from online activity. In a few months I might want to check in a see how you're doing or how you're little ones are and that's life. I don't have to be constantly connected to everyone in my life and I'm not always. There are people I know who aren't on facebook or don't use it much and that's fine too.
Facebook has made me question the nature of relationships and reflect on my own relationship with others. When I was taking care of my infant niece I spent 12 hours a day with her five days a week so I'd post pictures on facebook to share with family. Nothing inappropriate but then I was asked to take them down by my brother but I knew it was really his wife's request. His explanation was that sexual predators would get them and learn her name and track them down. An infant baby on her mat playing, really? Never the less I found myself offended but took them down only to find the parents do the very same thing I did and post pictures of their child on the internet. It was awkward for me because while I know I am not her parent I am her Aunt and I spent the vast majority of time with her during her early development and it was ok for them to do it but not for me? As if I would have sexual predators as my facebook friends and they wouldn't?
Other times I would have ex-boyfriends requesting to friend me and I'd deny them. They can clearly see I'm married and it's really not appropriate. But after one friend request from them would come another and I got tired of that. There are also the people that you know but maybe don't really like and they request you and what do you do? Then there are those people you request to friend and think everything is fine with them and they don't accept you or reject you. How are you supposed to take that message? How do you take the rejection requests? We're friends but not really friends?
There are people I friend and discover I really like them and then there are people I find to discover they are really dramatic. I also found facebook good for networking. If I needed notes for a class I missed I could get them from a classmate. If I wanted to get to know someone more but didn't have the time or the means to hang out with them there was facebook. When I was half a world apart from my spouse and going through the long distance there were friends for that. There were friends for the immigration process and friends for the egyptian military process. There were book club friends and groups I'd moderate online. I made a lot of mistake and probably every mistake you all named here except for the posting my uterus or vagina online. I do find it a bit gross to see a persons ultrasound as well but then again I might feel differently about it if it was my own. I haven't been there and done that yet so how would I know how I'd feel about sharing it with others when it came to that point in my life?
I've connected with friends from long ago. I've watched my little cousins blossom in what seemed like over night, grow up, get married and start a family of their own and I couldn't have done that without facebook. In a way it connected me to members of my extended family that I didn't know too well but always wanted to. I agree about all the body pictures of the young and the restless. I even recall my own phase and sit back with amusement as I see the next generation go through it. Sometimes I want to get involved and tell others to cover up but then I find it's easy to get sucked into other people's dramas and maybe a light arms length touch is appropriate.
When I got a text message there was a terrible car accident on the eve of Christmas and my husband was involved it was agonizing so I reached out on facebook to anyone who spoke Arabic to make three way calls for me to know if my husband was dead or alive in the hospital. I was in 24 hours of pure pain in not knowing because we couldn't contact anyone. They bury their dead in 24 hours over there. In separate calls I was told my husband was dead. Then I was told a friend was dead. Then I was told my husband was dead again. Finally we reached my husbands family and who comes to the phone but my grieving husband because his oldest and best friend had died in the car accident. I was relieved because there was some confusion because they are both doctors with the same name but I was also devastated because I also lost a very good friend in the car accident. Without facebook I would have been in the black hole of not knowing for some time as my husband grieved the loss of his dear friend.
I went off facebook thinking it had become to personal and too much, time consuming, over exposing. I had to answer to too many people who now had an expectation of you making your life public and I had unknowingly danced my way into a public persona online and massed a following if I wanted it or not. You take the good with the bad.
Now with my work it's a requirement to have it because it's become a tool that has reached it's tentacles into many facets of our lives. I've hurt people by defriending them and then after I get over what ever it was that was my reasoning for defriending them I recognize that and regret hurting someone unwittingly. I've been hurt by being defriended too and by not being accepted as a friend. It takes me aback when I realize the importance that we put into it. Online friends are real friends too and I am sorry to have lost some of them a long the way of my journey in my bumbling through the digital life as I figure it out as I go along. Thankfully most of them are rather forgiving. With a sort of public personality I'm unsure how I should treat facebook but I have some ideas though I'm not quite ready to accept requests for friends from someone in Mexico City that I've never met before who friends me out of the blue because I do worry about facebook hackers and viruses. But if I met you online or in reality I'm likely to accept the friend request. Family or friends I've learned what information to share about myself and I'm not so worried about people outing me because pretty much it's difficult to keep a degree of privacy these days. I suppose that might be part of the online maturation process if we can call it that. I don't think I'll be weeding my friends list anymore though because maybe I just need to take a break from online activity. In a few months I might want to check in a see how you're doing or how you're little ones are and that's life. I don't have to be constantly connected to everyone in my life and I'm not always. There are people I know who aren't on facebook or don't use it much and that's fine too.
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