Can Someone Explain Facebook/Twitter?

[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.

[Shara]

When I first moved here I used facebook to join several moms groups so I could meet new people and socialize myself as well as my daughter.

Today, through Facebook, I found out that one of my friend's daughter died because of H1N1. I would not have found out about this through any other means. I do not get together with her (or the group) very often because I'm in school full time and she's been dealing with a very sick child. But today I was able to find out within ours of her darling daughter passing. I was able to (like, literally, hundreds of others) share my sorrow and my sympathy with her and let her know that she was not alone and her daughter was loved. I would not have known her or her duaghter if it wasn't for facebook.

I use facebook to play scrabble with my mom every day even though she lives in a different province.

I find my school friends online so that I can ask them when an assignment is due or if they want to swap essays for review.

I find out how my sister is doing in her classes and how my niece is.

I find friends that I knew in Japan or Chile but either lost their email or never had it.

Through other friends I find out about other mutual friends.

I have reunited with people I knew in elementary and secondary school.

I find out about promotions, heartbreak, losses, random thoughts and more.

And I love it. I don't think it's egocentric to care about what is happening in other people's lives or to want to share about your life through an electronic means.

What is the difference if I come here and post a thread entitled "my dog is sick and needs to go to the vet" or if I post it on facebook? The only difference is here I chat with strangers, there I chat with friends. I'll get pretty much the same responses.

People use it in different ways. It doesn't mean that all people are the same. Some people spam on it just like on forums.

Bottom line... it's a networking site.

Twitter I don't really use that much. i have a few 'followers' for my etsy business but that's about it.

ETA: Facebook is not about eliminating oral or face-to-face contact. It's about networking in general. I have joined local biking groups on it (haven't gone yet but will...) I have met people through my mom's group and we go out for coffee when we can. We also exchange ideas about events/festivals/movies/etc. that we can take our kids to. We talk about sales and more. And then we go out and do it.

[Crankin]

It's sort of interesting that there are so many opinions about this.
I have made some conclusions, mostly about myself.
I have pared down my "friends" over the years. I mean real friends, not FB ones. I guess I don't feel the need to stay in contact with a lot of people from my past. I moved a lot in the past and at each stage, I let those people go.
I have a very small family, most of whom are not particularly computer literate. My brother doesn't even have a computer, although my 85 year old dad does. He can barely use the mouse, so I stopped emailing him. I call.
I stopped talking to my family that lives near me, mostly because of their offensive (to me) racism and political views...
I don't share photos, articles, political stuff, jokes on line, in any form. I don't know how to download photos from the camera, to my computer. In fact, I barely know how to use the camera. The only place I've posted photos is here on TE, and that's only after my DH has sent them to me, or put them on my laptop. The whole thing is a mystery to me.

So, I guess my world is pretty small, compared to most. I have 4-5 good friends here and lots of acquaintances. One kid and my dad, and brother are in California. My other kid is here. Other than one or two friends in AZ and my former exchange student, who is now in Colorado, that's it.