Facebook Depresses Me - Facebook Blues

[Deleted member 12723]

I got online in Febuary of this year. I will not get a facebook account. Too much crazymaking and high drama for me. I do not need that in my life. I get requests to go on facebook in my e-mails but I just delete them. I have heard too many horror stories about the way people treat people on there.

I have the forum and they are safe for me. The rules keep it simple for everybody. No trolls and no flaming. I like that alot. Well that is my 2 cents.

 

[Tanishq]

I feel luckier that I got good people from some other nice forums. They are honest with their opinions. Well, I have deleted some people who were not talking to me at all.

I talk to only numerous people whom I believe(on facebook). Previous forums were very addictive for me because in reality I was wondering for some treatment for this all trauma and emotional abuse. I kept feeling ignored and yes, I was able to get little amount of relief. but not like this forum.

Indeed, this forum is really neat and helpful place for those who are suffering like us.

Thank you gizmo for your opinion.

 

[Philippa]

I haven't really had any bad stories on facebook...except for my brother, adn I deleted him as soon as he started attacking me, and one woman from my old school, but she was not well at the time. I deleted her too...problem solved.

But yeah, I mostly don't like going there much. It feels compulsive, like a habit. I only go there because of a few people i really do like.

 

[blackemerald1]

Apart from my nasty experience with FB, good grief if you want to send a happy snap there are so many alternatives in terms of computer programs including sending via email and lets not forget mobile phones too. Some people love getting pics., in the post too. FB friends, I really don't think is the be all and end all. I cannot delete my account as it is a family account put there by another member of our family but I have not visited it for so long I have forgotten.

My son has a close group of real time friends and lots of acquaintenances. I asked him the other night what he does when he gets horrible messages. He told me that the offending party gets either totally ignored or his friends flood the person with critical comments. It is sort of a group protection thing and he says it works well.

But we do not all have these sorts of friends and personally I would love to shut down the family account.

If things such as FB do not meet the needs of the account holder, get rid of it. Like every thing else in life, from getting your car fixed to buying something or a service, if it is not good, get rid of it and vote with your feet.

blackemerald1

 

[LC23]

I am probably in the minority here.

I use Facebook and keep the drama low by muting/unfriending drama queens (and kings). I think it can be used just fine as a complement to, not a replacement for, real life interactions. I enjoy being able to keep up to a small extent to people I would otherwise not talk to at all (for reasons of distance and circumstance). I like being able to share photos without having to email a bunch of people with JPGs or links. (I try to keep my email traffic fairly low in general; it's more stressy for me than FB for a few reasons). I also find it handy for sharing ideas and also for networking and occasional self-promotion - as a self employed artist, I can't justify not using it for that reason alone. I don't trumpet about my doings constantly; but when I have a show I can let dozens or hundreds of people know at once and give them an invite with all the details. I have a handful of people who are email-only and I send them information that way.

There's an browser plugin called Social Fixer that will allow you to rein in the annoying posts to focus on what really is/can be rewarding about it. You can block keywords, block apps, and also hide certain things in your profile. It fixes a lot of the interface problems people have with it too. Also, using Friend Lists allow you to target your postings to the people that would be interested. I have a list for family, a list for artists (who have interests that differ from the general population), a list of people who like to talk politics (sparing the rest from my politics posts), a list for people in my region (for when I want to announce something of interest to locals). A little thoughtful application of these two things can clean up the experience and minimize the drama.

Of course don't go overboard, but I think past a certain point swearing off it entirely might be a form of unhelpful avoidance for some. I empathize with feeling like you need to cut off from it entirely, but like anything - moderation is the key. Just share what's worth sharing and appropriate to share. Keep the rest unposted. It's not rocket science. It's just a means of communication. As we used to say in art school when dealing with computer art and design program: use the tool, don't let the tool use you.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I respectfully disagree that cutting Facebook out of your life is a form of avoidance. There are a million and one other ways to keep in contact with people.

1) Talking on the Phone
2) Email
3) Snail-mail (yes, I send my sister actual hand written letters all the time...yay for treat and cardstore for the 847 free cards I've gotten from them so far...)
4) Texting
5) Carrier Pigeons
6) Smoke Signals
and so on...

Ok, so the last two were in sarcasm, but you get my point. You use FB as a professional tool, most of us don't. I hate the idea of self-promotion. Again, I'm not there for business, but you are.

Uhm, remember waaay back when FB didn't exist? (Oh perish the thought!) What in the world did we ever do to communicate?!? We must've been like a bunch of monkeys running around poking each other... (And now we can poke each other electronically, too!)

 

[LC23]

*patient sigh*

Yes, I get that there are other forms of communication. I even use most of them. I call people on the phone. I meet them in person. I send email. Hell, I even use snail mail once in a while. I'm just saying that FB is just as valid and even useful form of communication, no more or less so than any of the ones you listed. I don't agree that FB has to be a depressing or PTSD-worsening experience, and it can even be a positive experience if you know how to filter what doesn't work for you. Any of those forms of communication require filtering - telling telemarketers to take you off their list, filtering spam, sorting your junk mail from your real mail. A positive FB experience requires more filtering, but I'm here to say that it can be had. For example - I have come into contact with quite a number of healing arts practitioners in an organic, unhurried fashion, and advanced my own treatment of my PTSD because of it. There's a number of opportunities I got, not just work-related, but life-related, that I probably would have missed out on had I exiled myself. I've even made real-life friends from conversations that started from FB.

BTW, none of those forms you mentioned are ideal for more than one image at a time, so for image sharing, Facebook is vastly superior. I have a Flickr and a tumblr that hardly anyone I know personally visits, even when I send links by email. I post a link to that same page on FB, or more often just sharing the images on FB, and my images get seen and I get to share a bit of what goes on in my head with others in a way that won't make them wig out . It's a form of communication and expression as valid as blogging, scrapbooking, having a pen pal, or any one of a hundred other things people do and share with others.

I am there a little (maybe 5%) for business and mostly (95%) for keeping in contact with friends and yes even new acquaintances, and there's even a little bit of overlap from time to time, but not that often really. I'm not a tireless self-promoter, but it would be foolish to not use the shortest-distance mode that reaches the most people with the least amount of time, say, for those few times a year that I have a show, one that I worked very hard to realize, and have little chance of breaking even on.

People said telephones would destroy our humanity too. People said personal computers would destroy our humanity. Radio. Movies. Movies with sound. Television. Video games. All of them received the same kind of criticism at one point or another - that it was shallow, and vapid, and people didn't really discuss matters of importance by them, and that it winnowed away our essential humanity. Just like in any other form of interaction or communication, there's good ways to go about it and bad. Sorry it makes you bug out. For me, it's the very least of my problems, and in many ways, actually enhances my valued real-life relationships with my nearest and dearest.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Now you're sighing at me? Ok, I'm not going to argue.

 

[blackemerald1]

LC2C I think if you use a program on the internet for business you are in an entirely different position than those people who have posted here with detrimental experiences of a personal nature. Nobody in the thread that is opposed to FB was using it as a business tool.

I think FB is ok if you are ok with it. If you do double flips to filter trouble out than well done but others here have expressed the view that they don't want to do that and I guess then it comes down to who is a "friend" and for what purpose, business or pleasure, which leads back to what are you using FB for. Junk filters are automated in most email programs and it takes one phone call to get rid of marketing people.

FB is not the superior way of transmitting photos over the internet, it is just a nice place to show off pics., Professional photographers do not use FB to send their proofs to others and I am sure, due to their legal rights they never will. Again, if you have some happy snaps to show your "friends" then FB might be fine, but for others who have posted there it is not.

Comparing FB to the advent of the television etc., is stretching the discussion. FB has been around for a number of years with little change to its interface. The people who have posted here and are now opposed to FB including myself, have already used it and found it to be disatifactory for one reason or another and they are not using FB to get hundreds of people to come and see something they wish to show and or, sell. So there is a big difference there.

Just recently the State and Federal Governments are stepping into the fray to try to stop on-line bullying which has taken on some high profile people and the comments mad were disgraceful. Imagine if someone with an account was unwell and went to his/her FB and found some terrible comments. It has already happened with one television personality being admitted to hospital because of what was said to her,

I was around when radios, telephones and telly's and personal computers came onto the market and starting to reach people in far away places -they were amazing. I do not recall anything but a huge buzz because it meant that communication was at last a reality in our huge continent. There was no fear mongering. Recent studies just released suggest that some people get mentally sick from too much aggressive computer games, but we are not all out there shooting each other after playing a game. A man has just been convicted for murder after grooming a young girl on FB so it certainly has its perils.So again horses for courses.

There are so many pro's & con's about FB, not the least being how unwell you are when you open an account. I also suggest in closing,that the word "friend" as it is used in FB is a bit misleading. I would prefer acquaintance until you really do become friends and for me that is a high bar on a program like FB. But I do acknowledge some people have fun with it, other's do not and I suppose if you run a business and can use it for that purpose well done.

blackemerald1

 

[LC23]

I've already mentioned that my business use is not my sole or even my major reason for being there. my main purpose there is to share with family and friends. I never claimed it was how I sent files professionally or that I used it in any industrial kind of capacity. Just networking and the occasional event invitation. And yes, photo sharing - it is the place where I consistently get the most views, feedback and interaction on my images with the least amount of effort.

And yes, actually, even if you've never encountered it, there have been exactly the same kinds of criticisms as the ones being leveled at Facebook for every communication advance in the last 150 years. Telephone, radio, TV, computers, cell phones, and now social media have all had a vocal minority of people deriding it as fake, not worthwhile, dehumanizing, the death of true communication, etc. I've heard it myself for everything from video games and email to cell phones and social media. And then you quote some random unsourced study about how video games cause mental health issues, yeah, right, like biochemistry and upbringing and a hundred other emotional factors aren't part of that. The physical dependence issues aside, nearly all addictions - chemical or otherwise - are rooted in emotional issues at their core. The need to feel something to distract from that deep emotional wound is what drives people to drink to excess, shoot heroin, gamble too much, take sexual risks or play video games too much. (There's actually a lot of parallels and overlap to be found in addiction recovery issues and PTSD recovery issues.)

BTW, unless you're over a hundred or have a time machine, you were most certainly not alive when the telephone first became popular. There were half a million in the US alone by 1900.

But I digress. Of course there are risks with FB, as with any human interactions. I just don't think that FB has to be a depressing or threatening place, and with a little bit of effort and common sense, it can accentuate your real-life friendships and relationships and even open the door to meeting some other like minded people. I've met some people that have helped me deal with my PTSD that I would not have met were I not on there. I've made connections to creative collaborators. I've been able to share things with friends and have them share things with me that 10 years ago we would have simply missed out on. I get to see things from places I can't be, and get a little glimpse of from afar, like my twin niece and nephew on their first day of preschool, or a wedding that I couldn't make it to, or pictures of a new baby or whatever. Not to mention using it as a news aggregator and email inbox de-clutterer (I get a handful of emails a week, just from people I actually want to here from). And yes, the occasional professional lead. Those things have in my opinion improved my overall quality of life,improved relations with real-life friends both near and far, and I just want to give credit where credit is due.

Just tired of tech being used as a scapegoat when the real problems are usually within ourselves.

 

[blackemerald1]

Hmm well what a response. FYI telephones, televisions and computers were not rolled out in this country at the same time. It took many years for these types of technology to reach the distant parts of this continent I said in my post," I was around when radios, telephones and telly's and personal computers came onto the market and starting to reach people in far away places -they were amazing." I remember when the first telephone was installed onto the Station I was raised on. I remember Dad bringing home the first television and how jaw dropped we all were. But watching it was very limited because we had to use the generator to make power for the house and that was very expensive due to fuel costs. So, I did not need to be 100 years or more old to experience the inventor or initial invention to appreciate their spread through society and experience this new thing. I think you need to read more closely. I also do not have to know who and how the people were that thought of the FB concept and who followed that onwards and upwards to the actual program.

You are entitled to your opinion LC2C but your 'conspiracy theory' regarding people hating all things tech., is not what this thread was about. I am certain most of the people who wrote on this site watch telly, dvd's, use phones and all sorts of techie things without a thought about it. Their, and my concern, is that FB can, and has done damage already and it certainly is not moderated like this Forum, so Governments etc., are doing catch up right now because of the damage it has already done.

I wrote about the alleged damage some studies and scientists suggest that occurs to people who go out and kill after watching some kind of aggressive killing software. this is not a competition LC2C, the correlation between mobile phones and brain tumours has already been made. I did not say I agree with them, I was suggesting that one ought to be open to the possibility that something technological, purely because it is technological,does not mean it is necessarily good for everyone, and may have adverse effects. I cannot be bothered finding you the science journals and articles these studies have been made in. I still use my mobile phone, I still play aggressive games. But at this stage I haven't got a brain tumour nor killed anyone in a disassociated state that can be without doubt related to a computer games.

LC2C I love computers, I have dismantled and rebuilt a number of computers, I own all sorts of software and I am completely self taught apart from ringing my techie friends if I find something I cannot fix. I listen to digital radio every night. I have lots of great techie., books and I am a confessed addict of computer magazines. My sons, whom I raised on my own, grew up in a computer environment and can build their own computers in their sleep because I could only give them money for components and tools, not for someone in a shop to build them. Also, we lived for a substantial time where there was no computer shops. The boys loved it when the boxes reached the post office.

I am not slinging off at FB because it is technology, as previously described why would I be so. But I believe, as other's in this post do too. (I think) that FB doesn't suit them and LC2C that is okay, really it is. As I said, if it works for you, well done.

 

[LC23]

Conspiracy theory? Um, whatever.