"Nothing personal"

I woke up this morning to a Facebook message from a former girlfriend of a good friend that says "XX and I are no longer speaking, so I'm removing all of his friends from my Facebook, nothing personal".

I get it, but isn't that the very definition of "personal"?

that's FB for ya

... sometimes it's the CL of social media sites

what she means, obviously, is that it doesn't reflect any personal animosity towards you.....she probably has little or any emotion connection to you.

Of course, I don't do the facet00b3s (Get Off My Lawn!) and may not be up on all the proper etiquette you young'uns are supposed to adhere to.

Should have said, "XX and I are no longer speaking, so I'm berkeleying all of his friends from my Facebook, nothing personal" Its obviously reaction she is after.

Those pathetic little cries for attention crack me up.

Just remove the people and move on. It's not like you would have ever noticed.

insert a bunch of old guys complaining about not needing to see what people are eating, whilst completely ignoring the keeping up with friends, events, concerts, etc.

I actually fired up my FB account last week for the first time in years. It's about 50% funny or interesting and 50% mindless BS. I'll probably be going through my friend list and dumping some of stupider ones.

Toyman01 wrote: I actually fired up my FB account last week for the first time in years. It's about 50% funny or interesting and 50% mindless BS. I'll probably be going through my friend list and dumping some of stupider ones.

I do a friend purge about once a year. FB is a great tool, but it works better when you weed out the tools.

Toyman01 wrote: I actually fired up my FB account last week for the first time in years. It's about 50% funny or interesting and 50% mindless BS. I'll probably be going through my friend list and dumping some of stupider ones.

This is a good idea. I should probably do this.

z31maniac wrote: Those pathetic little cries for attention crack me up. Just remove the people and move on. It's not like you would have ever noticed. *insert a bunch of old guys complaining about not needing to see what people are eating, whilst completely ignoring the keeping up with friends, events, concerts, etc.*

I'm one of the "old guys" ... I have a FB page, I've never friended anyone, I've never asked to be someones friend ... I don't have any problem at all with keeping up with friends, events etc ...

Eh... most of my FB friends are people I actually know and FB simply serves as a way to casually chat and keep in touch. I actually enjoy reading posts by one friend who is about my age who had her first child last year. There are only a handful that are purely "online" and are mainy left over from my "Farmville" days a few years ago. Occasionally they post funny stuff... so whatever.

Since I work from home, and most of my colleagues are spread across the continent... FB is kind of my office life. I check in a couple of times a day to pick up industry news, gossip, post my stories and artwork.

I have a FB but I typically just lurk every once in a while, I might go 6 months without checking. My biggest gripe about it is a lot of the people who use it continually think everyone else does too and don't consider there are oher methods of human contact. I got sorta raked over the coals for not RSVPing an invite which went out on FB, that's because I so rarely check it.

I guess, according to a recent article, this makes me a sociopath.

http://jezebel.com/5932465/if-youre-not-on-facebook-youre-probably-a-sociopath

I, personally, am suspicious when I meet someone who doesn't have a Facebook because it usually means that person is desperate to be part of the counterculture and I have to prepare myself to hear a pretentious rant about how he doesn't even own a smartphone, either. BIG WHOOP. Look, we all know Facebook's privacy settings are evil and that, sometime over the next decade, Mark Zuckerburg will probably come up with a way to secretly implant non-optional minifeeds in our brain. Whatever. Every single person I know who doesn't have an account — and I can count them on one hand — secretly goes on their friend's Facebooks to stalk their exes, anyway.

Facebook etiquette is not now, nor ever will be, something I care about, worry about, think about or adjust. It's a silly website, not the fabric of our society.

I love Facebook & I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm 46, but have friends 20-65 actively, not just "Facebook friends". I have a few old high school friends, a few old Navy friends, local and not so local car friends, family both local and distant. Probably ~300 friends & I've at least met and talked to ~95% of them.

I like keeping up on all the crazy E36 M3 that goes on, I could do with less photos of dinner, but the good still outweighs the bad.

But my friend and this lady had only dated maybe 2-3 months total, and I think that was in 2 sections. She was fairly crazy and super clingy. He told me she actually wanted him to unfriend all his female friends because that's being "disrespectful to her". And we went to a local get-together at a Quaker Steak one night, and the lady that runs it is super friendly to all of us. Crazy ex was livid that this (65 year old) woman would dare touch his arm while she was with him.

wbjones wrote:

z31maniac wrote: Those pathetic little cries for attention crack me up. Just remove the people and move on. It's not like you would have ever noticed. *insert a bunch of old guys complaining about not needing to see what people are eating, whilst completely ignoring the keeping up with friends, events, concerts, etc.*

I'm one of the "old guys" ... I have a FB page, I've never friended anyone, I've never asked to be someones friend ... I don't have any problem at all with keeping up with friends, events etc ...

Missing the point.

For example, I can "like" many of the wife and I's favorite restaurants, bands, etc. Then you can easily see when they are having specials, have changed menu's, your fav band is coming to town and other cool around town stuff I would likely never hear about because I don't watch TV or news and I don't read any of our cruddy local papers.

It's a great tool for a lot of things.

In reply to z31maniac:

hmm.. the restaurants I want to keep in touch with e-mail me directly. As do the bands. As do the concert series. None of those use TV, and we don't have a local paper to speak of.

I don't think any point is being missed- it's just that the F-book avenue isn't really needed to do the stuff that people claim that they need it for. There are other forms of communication that work great. Better yet, you get to avoid the odd things that start threads like this.

I see FB and Twitter as what they are- tools to generate money for the owners, and the only way they can do that is advertise, since they offer no other benefit to somone willing to pay them money. There are so many of those out there, another one should not be required to live.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to z31maniac: hmm.. the restaurants I want to keep in touch with e-mail me directly. As do the bands. As do the concert series. None of those use TV, and we don't have a local paper to speak of.

That's a matter pf preference. I'd rather get that information off FB than via e-mails.

Of course the goal of FB and Twitter is to make money. I don't see how that has to be a bad thing.

Jerry wrote: IBut my friend and this lady had only dated maybe 2-3 months total, and I think that was in 2 sections. She was fairly crazy and super clingy. He told me she actually wanted him to unfriend all his female friends because that's being "disrespectful to her". And we went to a local get-together at a Quaker Steak one night, and the lady that runs it is super friendly to all of us. Crazy ex was livid that this (65 year old) woman would dare touch his arm while she was with him.

Your friend needs to dump this crazy beatch.

Ian F wrote:

alfadriver wrote: In reply to z31maniac: hmm.. the restaurants I want to keep in touch with e-mail me directly. As do the bands. As do the concert series. None of those use TV, and we don't have a local paper to speak of.

That's a matter pf preference. I'd rather get that information off FB than via e-mails. Of course the goal of FB and Twitter is to make money. I don't see how that has to be a bad thing.

Considering what FB brings to the table, I'd much rather do e-mail- so, yes, it's matter of personal preference. Again, I don't have to wade through the issues that pop up on the news, nor do I have to worry about my privacy that much, since it's not up on FB to work with. but that's just me.

It's ok they make money- I have no problem with that. But before I start using them, it seems wise to know how they make money- which is advertising. No users spend money at all, right? And if you don't see direct advertising, do you not wonder what value you are to FB or Twitter?

i just don't need another path for advertising that I don't want. so I don't indulge.

Jerry wrote: I love Facebook & I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm 46, but have friends 20-65 actively, not just "Facebook friends". I have a few old high school friends, a few old Navy friends, local and not so local car friends, family both local and distant. Probably ~300 friends & I've at least met and talked to ~95% of them.

Much the same here- being an Army Brat, having gone to school in one state, worked for a while- and made friends and contacts- half the country away, having family that are all over the country, and now living in yet another state Facebook is great for keeping up with all of those friends. Is a lot of it superflous fluff that I don't need to see/hear about? Sure. But it's also very useful to get information out- for example when I likely get engaged shortly down the line, I won't have to worry about many people complaining that they didn't hear about it. I do need to go through and do some purging though of some people I just don't have any involvement or interest in though...

Face what?

Is she hot?

There's a reason I tend to not gravitate towards the kind of people that are really into FB and such.

mtn wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: I actually fired up my FB account last week for the first time in years. It's about 50% funny or interesting and 50% mindless BS. I'll probably be going through my friend list and dumping some of stupider ones.

I do a friend purge about once a year. FB is a great tool, but it works better when you weed out the tools.

^This. And I don't even go hunting for tools. Once a year I sit down and ask myself "have I had any meaningful exchange of ideas or information with this person through this medium in the past 12 months" If not then they go. Its not personal, we may still converse all the time through other methods. It just shows that in that relationship FB has not worked out to be a good medium for us so I remove them. By doing this I keep FB focused on the information I want to see there and it helps.

It's a tool, like any other, how you use it directly correlates to it's results. I can't argue with the results it has had in growing my business so it is effective.

It's also full of a whole bunch of useless stuff, just like the rest of the internet. Filter it to get past than and use it, or don't. You aren't missing out on the world if you don't have it. But as others have noted you can miss out on many opportunities from your favorite businesses/bands/etc.

I have an email list for the business. I will send what I deem important updates to that list, maybe once a month at most. I update our site blog and FB page with interesting but not critical information many times a week, so if people are going the email only route yes they will get what they absolutely need to know but may feel a bit left out of some of the inside info everyone else gets to share.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to z31maniac: hmm.. the restaurants I want to keep in touch with e-mail me directly. As do the bands. As do the concert series.

So you only hear about stuff from places and people you already know about. You never learn about new restaurants to visit from the ones that email you directly... I've found out about a number of good pubs and restaurants that I never heard about before from friends on FB posting about their good (or bad) experiences.