Why I'm still on Facebook

[gailkate]

We all know that FB can be a real time-waster. if you filter out all the games (and I'm not yet entirely successful at that), you still get dozens of recipes, kids' softball pics, vacation shots from every stop along the way to the reunion in Dreary Gulch, and so on. One friend of mine has a buddy in the restaurant business and he posts pics of menu items at least every other day!  Cripes.  They're always gooshy with cheese and bacon or marbled steak accompanied by mouthwatering sides dripping with more fat and salt.  I swear I can smell the aromas coming off the screen.

But you also learn a lot from friends who post links to things you'd likely miss. For example, today is the anniversary of Title IX, which increased girls' participation in sports tenfold. If there had been real value put on athletics for girls when I was a kid I might not be such a lump today. (Though I had lumpishness in my genes.)

And then there's this link to a very interesting blog on the dangers of marketing personalization. The Internet is a huge blessing, but more and more what we see is like what we've clicked on before.  Little cyber brownies track your every interest and give you more of the same.  So we not only get ads for stuff to our tastes, but even NEWS tailored to what we've read before.  It's a sobering thought.  

I've just learned a new abbreviation: TLDR, for too-long-didn't-read.  This isn't too long and I think you'll find it interesting.

www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140620114239-17102372-the-downside-of-personalization  

[BoatBabe]

Hmmmm, that link said to me, "Sorry, we couldn't find that page. Here are some others for you to explore."


Even though I'm not happy with Mozilla Firefox's speed, the settings allow me to control cookies and delete them when I turn off my computer each night.

I'll bet others do as well.


I don't like what FB does with my information. But I think each of us should do exactly what makes us feel connected, interested, informed, safe and happy.


[thumbs up!]

[doctork]

I don't think I am on FB, though I did register there waaayyy back when it was a start-up around ten years ago (which is millenia in internet terms), and intended only for students. You had to have a .edu email address to sign up, and since I was a (graduate) student I signed up. But it was small then, mostly young undergrads, so it wasn't of any real use to me.

I don't know if they keep all those real old members, I have no idea what my user name or passwords were. And now I have enough reservations about the lack of privacy and the (mis)use of the information commercially that I haven't bothered to pursue it.

I am on LinkedIn, and between that and other specialized venues I visit, I feel plenty connected.

My upcoming (NYC) high school reunion invitation came via Classmates, and I have considered upgrading there, particularly if I decide to attend the reunion. Of all the "pieces" of my life, scattered literally all over the world, the Staten Island high school is the segment where I feel least connected.

[slb2]

I love FB. I don't have trouble with the muddling that gailkate does because I tend to ignore. I have over 900 connections so there's NO way I could keep up on all those. Consequently, I don't even try. I scroll down my feed a couple times a day maybe more if I have the time. I'll skim about two dozen updates each time. FB filters out most of the updates I'd like to see anyway so I usually go directly to people's walls to check on them.

I've found writing help, job-openings, and networking frequently. I use fb like a water cooler since I sit at home much of the time working.

[gailkate]

I'm staggered that anyone could have 900 connections (I see why you don't call them "friends"), especially as I'm not sure I even know 900 people.

I happened across this site today, which may be of use to BB and K. Quickly scanning, I never found a date, so this info may not even be current. It's also repetitious, but the steps toward deleting yourselves from the social network maw are straightforward.  Even if minor details have changed, it should still point you in the right direction.

www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=related_test

[doctork]

I'm not worried about deleting myself from Facebook. It was so long ago that I had an account, and I am pretty sure there was not much in it anyway since that was back when it was for college students only. As a mid-career grad student I didn't have much in common with the 18 - 22 year old crowd, don't remember posting at all.

No, I'm more concerned with things like the recent "I know where your cat lives." None of my cats are in YouTube videos!

[gailkate]

Actually, it says you joined October 23, 2011. You have 22 friends, including a friend of mine I can't imagine how you met (Chuck Lennon ), perhaps a mix-up with another Kristen.  Another, Margaret Cary, is a friend of Mike Driver (old H.S. friend of mine) who practices law in Denver and may somehow have crossed your path. But what's interesting (or worrying to some) is that Mike and Chuck could be led to your page through me, and heaven knows who all through them and Margaret.

You're right, it doesn't tell anyone much about you. Jane, Amber and I are the only names I know. Your schools are listed as Hobart and William Smith (?), so alums from there might find you. Nothing about Denver, or maybe it's hidden somewhere. I think if you wanted to see which friends are listed you could get in just by saying you've lost your password and creating another.

[doctork]

That is strange. I haven't been on FaceBook in many years, certainly not in October of 2011, but I am indeed a graduate of H&WS. I know Maggie Cary from Denver and we've remained friends and colleagues over these many years. The name Mike Driver sounds familiar and I think he probably was a law partner or colleague of an attorney friend of mine who lives and works in Denver; Chuck Lennon is not such a familiar name (but maybe). What does Chuck do or where does he live? I've met a lot of people over the years, what with all my dwellings in various locations, many jobs, many sales clients, zillions of patients.

Maggie has a lot more friends and contacts than I do, as she lives a fairly high profile life, and was a prominent political appointee some years back.

So what would be worrisome if someone found you through my page? One non-worry, IIRC, Maggie is a liberal Democrat, so you are unlikely to be plagued by right wing conservatives through that link.

One thing that slants my viewpoint is how much publicly available information already exists about me: given my profession, most of what you've cited and lots more is very public. Cross reference my licenses and my education, and a lot of the above would be readily available. So I'd prefer to keep my "likes" more discreet. It used to be that commercial entities had to pay a lot of money, or I'd have had to be quite careless, to distribute all that info. Now it's a few mouse clicks.

OTOH, it is a small world. When I first worked in Kabul, I crossed paths with 4 people I knew from Morgantown, WV (population ~25,000 back then). And when I lived in Denver, one of my patients found out at a yard sale that Amber had been born by C-section a few days earlier!

There is a website named something like "How many of me are there?" where I read that there about 18 women with the same name as me in the United States. I know two of them. Two that I don't know were involved in my three incidents of identity theft which occurred a few years ago (no apparent link to the FaceBook page though). So I wonder if any of those Kristins has entered anything on "my" page.

[gailkate]

I didn't mean I would be worried, but rather that you might be, as some people are. I'm just not tech- savvy enough to know how all the cyber crooks work. Suppose someone who knows Mike goes to his page and finds Maggie, then to hers and finds yours. This person could create an identity starting with your colleges (pretty easy to search on classmates and Facebook), check out the locations of your friends and perhaps deduce West Virginia as a way to narrow their search terms.... and so on. I have no idea what nefarious strategies might be available to a crook. The one thing that I do see as scary is the possibility of a stalker pinpointing a person's location. Most of the people I know post pictures of grandkids, and I think I'd be wary of that.

You're right that a few mouse clicks can pay off nicely without any use of FB, LinkedIn or all the rest.  So much is available even to novices that Orwell's Big Brother looks like kind of a candy-ass.  Fortunately, I don't worry because there isn't much to worry about, but I understand why people do.   

Btw, Chuck has lived here all his life, worked in MN tourism with a special interest in golf.  You might have met him at a golf tournament?  I'm betting this is another Kristin.

[slb2]

Stranger-danger has been a motivator for many over decades and decades to be careful. In reality, I know absolutely no one who has been abducted by a stranger. Yes, it happens, but rarely. I did meet Patty Wetterling at an event at St. Catherine University where she was the keynote speaker, but that's as close as I've come to stranger-danger issues.

Well, that's not true. I knew someone in college who was randomly assaulted, raped, and left in the trunk of her car. The police went to ticket the car for remaining parked more than 24 hours on a city street when she was discovered. She and I were both Criminal Justice majors in college. I don't remember her name now, but she was fairly collected about the whole incident.

At any rate, I agree that ID theft is prevalent and it's happened to me, but not because of what's posted about or by me on the internet. It's always been (twice) via credit card use. The thief somehow gets that information and uses it.

[doctork]

You're right, true "Stranger-danger" is rare, though there is a lot of fuss about it in media.

I am much more concerned about people I know, or who know me, as I have had my life threatened on more than one occasion (usually) due to patient-related issues. A very good reason to maintain privacy concerning the matters I've mentioned.

Because of my work I've known a lot of crime victims, but even there the perpetrators are often not strangers, though the victims will say they didn't know the perps. "These two dewds" always appeared out of nowhere, "No doc, I never saw 'em before." Uh-huh.