Question about Facebook...
 

Evening all,

I thought I would ask for two cents from everyone. With the increasing amount of people using Facebook, I've been thinking about joining... but I'm leery of it. For the people who ARE on it right now, do you prefer using your real name, or an Alias? I'm torn between having one for fandom junk, or for real life stuff...

It's a toss. If you use your real name be careful what you say. Employers check FB and if they see you saying stuff they don't like it could wash back on you or not get you a job. That's really the worst of it. I don't get many friend collectors, Myspace I got tons, and it's a nice way to keep in touch with people you probably would have no other means to speak with. Old friends find you and family members, it's really interesting actually.

It's a lot cleaner then Myspace and a great resource for social networking. If you're into promoting things FB is the place to do it. If you create fan pages for things you can switch between them all under one log in which is really nice.

You'd have at least one friend right off the bat. I uses my real name...haven't had much problem. Biggest problem is turning down all the farmville invites.

I use my real name. *shrugs*

I like it cuz I can keep in touch with family and friends... I mostly use it for that, genealogy, and games.

I use my real name. If you're worried you can use the security settings so only your friends can see anything you do on there.

Yup, I use my real name as well. Facebook is a bit safer to use than Myspace, in my opinion, in that it doesn't allow people to randomly request people; it caps if you have too many unfriended requests. Also, as GK mentioned, you can set your privacy settings as strict as you like.

Either way, Machi, we know who you are. :P ;)

Facebook is one of the few places online where I use my real name.

As for joining:

Be aware that Facebook has a long history of changing their security settings with little to no warning, and they have a fondness of opting people into things without asking.

You can keep things locked down pretty tight, but I think the better security would be to not put on facebook anything you wouldn't want everyone to know.

I know I will be unpopular at this thread, but I HATE Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube comments. I don't believe that social networking sites are a proper way to meet friends, or even a proper way of speaking. You will never see those icons on my websites unless Webs attaches them to my pages behind my back. Besides those kind of websites are showing that we as people are getting a bit too attached to the computer and less on the real world. Here's an idea for good alternatives: you want to meet people-- get off your butt off the computer and go out in public; you want talk to someone you can't meet up with-- try that handy-dandy invension called the phone. In this kind of world, you're going to need REAL friends, real connections to get ahead in a career, and net friends are not real friendships. They just call themselves your friend.

Oh and another reason why I don't care for those sites, which as addressed here and that is violation of privacy rights. I don't feel it's right that management or college teachers have the right to screw you out of a job/degree because they are spying on what you are saying about them. That is so thin-skined of them. You will exist much better without all of that stuff.

And I can give an example of how damaging Facebook is. A few weeks ago, I saw a new interview and it showed a badly dressed 20-year-old punk (all in green, sunglasses, acting like a jerk) says that the government has put more people on the streets more now than ever. Then he said that he himself is homeless, but he talks on Facebook all day long. He seems like he being on Facebook with no home of his own is a celebration. This is just some loser punk who his parents didn't want to support anymore and didn't want to get out and get a job, but he blames the government to why he and others like him are homeless.

Jesus. I don't like Facebook much either, but you have to be the most miserable person on these boards.

Up your blow hole punk loser! And I've seen the kind of things you say to people on this site, and I have to say you are a real piece of work. You don't have to stomp all over people just because you feel you need to have an opinion about nearly everything. So back off!

Right. But look what I found!

While I think your argument about "net friends not being real friends" is entirely baseless and borderline retarded, some of my best friends in the world are from this very forum, I do think Facebook has given too many stupid people a very visible way to b*tch and complain about how worthless they are.

I had a Facebook that my fiance made for me, but I used it maybe a total of 3 times. I think it's a complete waste of time and people who spend their days on there are worse than any poop-socking WoW player, because they have this insane need to know everyones business ALL THE TIME. That and Facebook games are the bane of this f*cking planet. People paying thousands of dollars to play a sh*tty version of Harvest Moon and Sim City, when they could just pay anywhere from $10-$50 for a game a hundred times as deep and a million times more polished, are all mental cases who need to be drug out into the street and shot.

I use my real name. Probably not a great idea, but I do it. I have all the turtle people and real life people on together. I think it's kind of fun to see people interacting who wouldn't normally.

And yelling at Cure isn't going to change the fact that social networking websites are popular and will stay that way.

This is hilarious. Why did you even include "YouTube comments" with those? That isn't a type of social networking- this forum is closer to Facebook than YouTube is. Who are you to determine if "net friends" are real friends or not? I met the love of my life on the internet (on this very forum) and we're in the process of getting an apartment together right now. I'm not sure how much more real you can get.
Your "example" of how damaging Facebook is has very little to do with Facebook. I can assure you that this person's political views did not come to be simply because he made a Facebook account. Your logic is idiotic at best.

I have facebook but hardly ever use it i prefer the old fashioned way of talking to my friends the phone lol. :D

I use my real name, phone number and address on Facebook. I'm not a private person. Come at me, bro.

I don't use my real last name on FB. Firstly, it's not very common and would make it easy to find me IRL. Secondly, I don't care about 98% of the people I went to school with and have little to no interest in getting back in touch with them or having them find me.

As for app invites.. someone mentioned that a few posts or so back. Apps can be blocked from contacting you.

looking at your avatar then reading that , just fits perfectly. lol

I use my real name...really facebook isnt something that great...And of course Im careful to not befriend everybody who see my pic and send me a friend request. Of course Ive set the profile setting to the maximum of privacy I can get but that doesnt mean that Im safe....anyway I find it as a good way to communicate with my friend that have left my country or town...