Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Facebook irritates me

I have no interest at all in "social media" I socialize with real people, not electrons on a machine. I joined Facebook after I received a barrage of "Friend" requests thinking it might be a good way to connect with people. Sadly, it connected me with hundreds of people I don't really know. Friends of friends of tatters whose names I don't even recognize. Initially, I accepted the friend requests of people I recognized or people used tatting as their profile pictures, so I had a vague idea who they were. Many of whom like playing various games on Facebook collecting peas or butterflies or whatever, and consistently send me requests to accept, or send some little bit of something. Signing up for a Facebook account required providing information that I didn't think Facebook or anyone else needed to know so I left those fields blank.

No one on the internet needs to know my personal information. They don't need to know my phone number, address, sex, age, school, occupation or any other of a myriad details that so many people seem cheerful to divulge. Now I know that a lot of these details are on the internet anyway, but why would any sane person want to make it easier for nefarious individuals to collect personal data?

I go on Facebook once in a very long while, but recently I have been receiving emails from Facebook telling me that I have notifications pending and after I ignore several messages, I log into Facebook, delete the messages, many of them from a niece who thinks everyone in the world wants to see the forwarded pictures of whatever animal she thinks is cute, or endless requests for butterflies or peas or whatever other stupid game is being played.

The last time I got another one of these stupid emails I tried to log into my Facebook account and was asked to verify who I am. After typing in the CAPTCHA I was asked to verify who the people were in a series of pictures.

Wait a minute. Who is Facebook to insist that I verify my familiarity with other people? That isn't something Facebook needs to know. As it happens, many of the pictures that they asked me to identify were pictures from other tatters. Like many of us, I only know these people online, not in person. A lot of us use avatars that are somewhat anonymous and if/when we post pictures of people, they aren't people that other tatters could identify.

The whole exercise just makes me fuming mad. Facebook could drop off the face of the earth and I wouldn't lose a second of sleep over it. So I've decided to consign all of their notifications to file 13. I would remove myself from the service entirely, except that I've heard that you can't really, once they have your info, it's there forever. Of course, to remove myself, I'd have to be able to sign in, which I can't.

I don't want help with it. What I'd really like to do is blow it up. NO, NOT REALLY! SHEESH! You can't even express your frustration with things these days without having to pick your words carefully to be politically correct.

mutter, mutter, sputter as she  shuffles off back to her cave.

10 comments:

  1. This post made me smile! I don't use FB either. I think it is too intrusive. They gather too much info, sell it to whomever will pay them big advertising bucks and are a target rich entity for hackers. As you say, much of our personal info is already out there, but as far as I'm concerned I also do not want to hand it to them on a silver platter! I'll at least make them have to dig a bit further! :)

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  2. Yes indeed; Facebook is like the Reader's Digest which kept sending books to my mother for THREE years after her death....
    I signed up last December because one of my daughters was going to be doing a lot of travelling for a few weeks, and that was the only way I was going to be able to see the pictures. She said there was no way she was going to have time to send them all to me individually.
    So now when I no longer log on, I get sad little messages from Facebook. wondering why I haven't been there for such a long time.
    You can actually unsubscribe, I found the place to do it - but they don't leave you alone, even then.

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  3. I am not a member of Facebook, I don't think I will ever join Facebook. I have thought about it long and hard, and so far I can do without it.
    I got an iPad, wonderful I love my iPad, and I can get games some free on it, I must confuse I do play the farm game, but it was free and when I need to relax I find it relaxing, but that's me, and has been a boost while I am ill at the moment and don't feel like doing anything.
    You are not allow with your thoughts on Facebook
    Margaret

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  4. Totally understandable!!! :)

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  5. Hear! Hear! I do have a FB account but if I ever log in or do anything, I get about 8 messages instantly saying "You're on FB?" I happily delete all FB messages without reading them. Much like the coupon emails. : )

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  6. I'm glad to see this post! I only signed on to 'keep up' with what our nieces are doing in college, and to touch base with some other relatives. But I find I can't navigate around in it easily and get frustrated with it. It's like some kind of puzzle, and to me nothing makes sense. Each facebook page seems to be set up differently.
    I have to admit that the world our nieces are growing up in is so far removed from the time we grew up in the 1950s, which I guess means I'm just an old fogey :-) .

    Even though Blogger has some 'issues' for me, I very much appreciate the way it generally functions and am very satisfied with it, overall.

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  7. I never joined i heard from too many friends that have been burned from it too. I heard that all that personal stuff was to sell you stuff on the computer later down the line.

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  8. I am an IT professional and I flat out REFUSE to use Dacebook, mostly because of security issues. I will use LinkedIn, but that's a work thing and a work thing ONLY. I have friends who beg me to get on Facebook, but nope, won't do it.

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    ReplyDelete
  10. Bravo!! I have an account haven't used it in a very very long time. I greatly dislike that they keep changing their format and you have to continue to go into it to adjust your privacy rights and everything else as well, just to keep my info secure.

    ReplyDelete