Can Someone Explain Facebook/Twitter?

[jobob]

I see the condescension swings both ways.

[Irulan]

I don't get the point about how some use Facebook instead of calling, because calling takes too much time.

I have friends and family members that live in some strange places. Ever tried to place a phone call to Angola or Cambodia?

Keeping in mind that no one's going to force anyone to join FB if they don't want to, I really enjoy it. It's one stop shopping to keep on top of what others are doing or their state of mind; one stop shopping to share photos with others; and I can play scrabble with my mom.

I'm also with the poster that found some long lost people. Back in the days before computers, if you were transient, moved a lot, it was hard to keep track of people. Maybe you didn't have a phone for six months or forwarding address expired? I too found some very special long lost people and it's been a hugely rewarding experience to reconnet.

Note, you don't have to friend everyone that asks you, and you can hide anyone you want.

[SadieKate]

Does this mean less bonding? After hearing stories how little some people trust even some of their siblings....gosh, I trust mine, all of them 100% even if we're not on the phone/email/FB/Twitter/letter every week or every month.

Bully for you that you have such a great family. Some of us have very dysfunctional families but that's a different conversation.

Shall we go back to the agreement that FB can be a benefit for some? Pick and choose your own communication style. Under your argument I should call my dad even though he can't hear me.

[shootingstar]

Great Sadie that FB works for your situation.

For those involved in counselling for bilingual, multilingual families....some family members can't even read the language of mother tongue or 2nd adopted language. Guess audio clip should work if they can work the technology.

Verbal works..even if horribly imperfect..I can't even understand my mother 40% of the time. I've lost alot of my Chinese speaking fluency. Can't read Chinese. Translation software for certain languages is time-consuming since words are used creatively by human beings.

With an immigrant population increasing in North America...phone is still the best method in some families.

A note for all future counsellors. When you do cross-cultural family counselling. Technology will not solve linguistic gaps. We still have the world insisting on English fluency, despite translation software.

We're just grateful father can speak English over phone...but he won't be around forever.

[papaver]

For those involved in counselling for bilingual, multilingual families....some family members can't even read the language of mother tongue or 2nd adopted language. Guess audio clip should work if they can work the technology.

Verbal works..even if horribly imperfect..I can't even understand my mother 40% of the time.

That is sadly a side effect of FB. I speak French fluently but I find it very difficult to write it, so I hardly ever do. So for my French speaking friends I prefer to pick up the phone.

[SadieKate]

Ha! Then there are people like me who can stumble through simple written French but are flummoxed by spoken French.

Yah, I took multiple years of Spanish, German and French throughout my school years and drove my teachers nuts. Aced the written tests and failed the spoken tests. Guess that's why I typeset and proofed in 12 languages for the UC Press. Great visual memory. Horrible sound memory.

[MartianDestiny]

It amazes me that some people seem to generalize that the use of Facebook is exclusionary to the use of other forms of communication.

I still walk down the hall to talk to my roommates or officemates when that is an option.

I still go out to dinner, movies, Bunco nights, pumpkin carving, gingerbread house making, study groups, doggie play dates with my local friends frequently (at LEAST once a week).

I still go home for Christmas.

I still call my parents and grandmother weekly and non-local friends occasionally.

I still *GASP* write and mail hand-written letters to my best friend.

I still keep private conversations private (either phone, email, or facebook PM).

BUT I also keep up with many more friends that I would not be able to otherwise. I can inform multiple people at once, I can include pictures or video, and I can receive similar messages that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten due to cost prohibitiveness or it being hard to track me down (I've had OVER 6 different addresses in the past 2 years...). I can keep in contact easily and more regularly with people multiple timezones away were schedules and price prohibit frequent phonecalls. I've "re-found" friends that I'd lost contact with. Been quickly notified when friends who I care about but am not in regular contact with need help, etc.

If Facebook is not for you, that's fine. Using it doesn't mean you fall into a black hole in front of your computer though.

People who are rude or lack social skills will be that way whether they are on Facebook, email, passing you on the street, or calling you on the phone.

[ny biker]

I will say this, I think the makers of facebook add to the confusion by forcing you to create an account in order to see what it's like. I wanted to just look at it before I had to sign up. Even a simple demo using fake profiles would be good. I wound up having a co-worker show me her page.

[Pax]

...People who are rude or lack social skills will be that way whether they are on Facebook, email, passing you on the street, or calling you on the phone.

I disagree. I've met many people from a motorcycle site I frequent, most of them as the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet in real life but on the internet they say incredibly cruel and thoughtless things at times. They've told me it's because they have to "be nice" IRL and the internet gives them opportunity to cut loose.

The anonymity of the internet has managed to offer people the opportunity to behave abominably with limited repercussions. You can be anyone you want to be on the internet, you can say anything and have little fear of it coming back to bite you. For example, I imagine this entire thread would have gone very differently if we were having this discussion in real life.

[jobob]

Seems to me your beef is with the internet in general, not with fb in particular.

To me, fb is like that "Thread Drift" thread, but with a much smaller, much more known audience.

[NbyNW]

That is sadly a side effect of FB.

Um . . . I'm pretty sure these kinds of problems existed before FB.

I don't think anyone is saying that FB is the be-all end-all of communication tools, it just happens to bridge a gap in some cases.

I've got friends who post in Chinese, which I can barely read, and one friend who posts in English when he wants to reach his English-speaking friends, and in Norwegian when he is directing updates to his Norwegian community. I don't mind this in the least.

I'm not saying these are the deepest, most substantive or meaningful interactions or anything -- but when opportunities to hang out with dear friends are rare, it's nice to know that they're out there living their lives and doing well. Or if they're not, as others have said above, it's also nice to know if there are ways to lend support even from far away.

Shootingstar - I hope your family is able to figure out a solution to the language barrier. My own family has had to muddle through with similar situations, sometimes you just have to get creative. Good luck!

[MartianDestiny]

I disagree. I've met many people from a motorcycle site I frequent, most of them as the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet in real life but on the internet they say incredibly cruel and thoughtless things at times. They've told me it's because they have to "be nice" IRL and the internet gives them opportunity to cut loose.

The anonymity of the internet has managed to offer people the opportunity to behave abominably with limited repercussions. You can be anyone you want to be on the internet, you can say anything and have little fear of it coming back to bite you. For example, I imagine this entire thread would have gone very differently if we were having this discussion in real life.

I'll concede the point to an extent for internet forums such as this and cites like myspace, etc, where strangers are dealing with unknown strangers.

The anonymity is gone on Facebook, however. You register under your real name, friend people you actually know. What you say and do there has real life consequences. People don't (typically) act like they would on a forum. If the above doesn't apply, well, I don't see how very many people are listening to you anyway because not many will friend a stranger on facebook; let alone keep one that turns out to be rude.

I'd also argue that your biker acquaintances aren't really all that "nice" of people anyway; if they are only "nice" because they "have to be" IRL. They just feel they can show their true colors on the internet. That's too bad. If they can't realize (or worse, don't care) that on the other end of the computer is someone that's just as human and hurts just as much as someone standing in front of their face are they really great, awesome people? Even if they hide it well when they talk to someone's face?

[limewave]

I have a feeling that a lot of us that have FB accounts still . . .

send handwritten letters
call friends and family
meet face-to-face with people

I'm not trying to be condescending or anything like that, I just feel like some people have made comments that assume if you use FB, you lack social skills outside of the internet. And that just isn't true.

[IFjane]

I have a feeling that a lot of us that have FB accounts still . . .

send handwritten letters
call friends and family
meet face-to-face with people

I'm not trying to be condescending or anything like that, I just feel like some people have made comments that assume if you use FB, you lack social skills outside of the internet. And that just isn't true.

Amen

[Pax]

...I'd also argue that your biker acquaintances aren't really all that "nice" of people anyway; if they are only "nice" because they "have to be" IRL. They just feel they can show their true colors on the internet. That's too bad. If they can't realize (or worse, don't care) that on the other end of the computer is someone that's just as human and hurts just as much as someone standing in front of their face are they really great, awesome people? Even if they hide it well when they talk to someone's face?

It is a BMW motorcycle site populated primarily with very well off middle aged white males. Most are guys who would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it, they donate to many good causes, and are family men for the most part. They use the internet to blow off steam and to allow the thin veneer of civilization to slip now and then. I don't understand it and I try to avoid judgment...but then again they're men and we don't often see the world through the same lens.