kind of scared to join facebook, but feel I have to

LegacyUser

Ok, first of all I was picked on a little bit during school (I'm now 21)

& ever since I left school I completely lost touch with the few friends I had, & now I'm essentially a loner.
But recently over the summer I bumped into a guy from school (one of the few people I would actually call a friend.) & I started to see him frequently during the summer, it was great. I think he's a really good guy.

on & off, he encouraged me to join facebook & said "it's great for getting back in touch with people." I think he sort of knew about my lack of friend thing.
I just wasn't sure about joining.
Some of his new friends from his college encouraged me as well.

Now, shockingly, one of my tutors from college set up a facebook page dedicated to a module we have. (we're supposed to use it for leaving links, etc)
He told us we all need to join facebook to access it.
He knows I haven't joined & I think he'll use it against me when he is marking me.

some people from a new youth group I joined are encouraging me to join as well.

The reason why I'm scared of joining is, as outlined earlier, I basically have no friends.
So when everyone (people in my course, youth group, old friends) see that i have hardly any friends on facebook, it's likely I'll become a bit of a joke.
I won't have any photos to upload also, as I haven't really been up to much.

I also don't what the bullies from school to be "finding" me & seeing what I'm up to.
I don't know how facebook works, so that doesn't help. I know I'll panic if I join.

I just feel like I've been given so many signs to join it, & I'm really scared of doing so.

Thanks

taram

You can block everyone except those you approve even seeing anything more than a name on the screen, I've done this. I have only about 40 friends added, but 40 people I trust is better than 400 randomers! Anyone who'd care about you not having a million friends on it is sad frankly, and can be ignored

philologos

set your privacy settings right, and nobody will be able to search for your profile, never mind see your page.

Blatter

You're over thinking the whole situation. At 21, I'm sure your former school goers are between 20-22. At this age, nobody actually gives a damn how many photos, friends etc.

As others have said, you can set it to private and you choose who gets to see your page and your personal information. Tbh, you have nothing to worry about.

Moomoo1

never joined FB. Never will. And that guy who expects you to join FB for doing assessed work is out of order also.

I don't like Facebook either. I don't know where this pressure to join comes from, but it can get a bit much. Even people who shouldn't care much about you seem to be a bit annoyed when can't keep tabs on you.

Your college tutor is not being professional by requiring you to join a commercial site like Facebook to pass information. For that he should have an e-mail or bulletin board system of his own, provided by the college.

VinnyTGM

OP, I haven't and don't intend to join facebook. What a way to waste time.
You shouldn't feel pressured by people to join, and your (joke of a) tutor is asking you to use a social site to get module info, unprofessional or what, complain to the college about it.

Q&A

Well I joined facebook and it didn't change my life one bit....I have about 20 people as my friends and tbh that includes a good few randomers. It has its uses but its still only a website.

I do think the OP is over thinking this, however. Facebook by the nature of its success has come in for a lot of debate but its what you make of it. Its no different than a mobile phone or an email..might have a lot of contacts or might not. Both can be abused but its not always the case.

Like others say you pick who you want to be friends with and set your privacy to the level you want. It can be a good way to stay in touch with people you want to and many people set up pages on facebook for comunities and courses. If facebook might be handy why not give it a go. Just remember to keep things in perspective. Its jsut a social website. you can always delete your account if its not for you. I know plenty of people who have done that as well.

nyarlothothep

Its weird the way it has such a hold of people, in the respect that even college tutors will use it to run courses and the way that so many people join it. I myself finally capitulated, I guess its the method by which people want to stay in touch rather than using emails. Don't join unless you want to though, I joined in order to stay in touch with some people even though I have little interest in using it now.

Gneez

I gave in and joined it and tbh I regret it now, people I know a long time all of a sudden come across as pretentious pricks on it, from watching what people write on it I've come to the conclusion that its used mainly for social jockeying more than anything.

You shouldn't feel like you're missing out on much by giving it a miss unless you really do want to get in touch with people from back in the day (which I will admit is mostly what I've used it for)

I use facebook, and I find it really handy tbh. You shouldn't have to join it for college though, that's ridiculous. The problem is, tutors do things like this sometimes, and you've just got to go with it. Why let yourself lose marks because your tutors are being inconsiderate? If I were you I'd just join, for the sake of your college work. You don't have to put personal information on it, you don't have to go looking for friends, and you don't have to make your profile public. You could set it that it's only for your tutor's page and no one else will know it even exists. If it's important to you that you don't look like you're hiding something, it's actually amazingly easy to up your friend count by just adding randomers. 90% will probably add you. I'm probably in the 10% of my friends that actually only adds people I know well (it's not for security reasons, I just don't like the whole friend count thing that used to go on on bebo). Since bebo, people care far less about friend numbers and how active your page is. And if I'm honest, if you don't have many friends, it's not like there's anyone to go checking your page. It's not something people are going to care about, and it's not something that they'll even find out, unless it occurs to them to specifically go about finding your information.

Worst case scenario, you set up the page, you don't like it and you delete it. No harm done.

Bob_Harris

You don't want to join Facebook, or any other social networking site for that matter.

The whole concept is based around attention whoring.

People post pictures of nights out to try and emphasize how they are "mad feckers", take a million photos of themselves in mirrors and post the single one which they actually look half way decent, "friend" people to up the friend count. It's pathetic.

kjl

Well, I didn't want to join it for ages, the one of my friends posted a bunch of pictures on it of a holiday we were on, so I joined and befriended him.

Next thing I know I'm getting hundreds of friends request from people I haven't seen in years, who I would have been quite close to back in the day. Now I love it, visit it about 10 times a day. Everyone I know uses it, and we organise nights out on it, share pictures, chat, play games, share web links and keep in contact. Best website ever IMHO.

OP, you realise you can even make your friend count private to your friends.

It sounds to me like you will enjoy it. You have three groups of people asking you to join it and you are worried about friend count. Just join it, I reckon even the bullies back in school will see you on it and add you just to up their count. Then you have the satisfaction of refusing them.

moco

When I see someone with only a few friends on facebook I don’t automatically think they must have no friends in real life! I’d be more likely to think they actually have a life, therefore don’t spend all their time on facebook.

iguana

I'm another one who didn't want to join it but ended up doing so because so many of my friends were organising everything through it and I was ending up out of the loop on things. I keep an eye on my privacy settings (because every so often facebook randomly changes them). I never play any of the "games" as basically they are just marketing surveys. I rarely update anything about myself. But as long as you are careful about how you use it, it can be a useful communication tool and is an easy way of staying in touch with people.

If one of the things you are worried about is old bullies contacting you, you could set up your account with a nickname and use a cartoon as your profile picture. Quite a few of the people I know do this. That way only people who they choose to contact will know who they are.

changes

I stayed away from facebook, bebo, twitter etc. I don't like the idea of people you barely know or care about asking to be your friend and then in looking at your photos etc.

You can leave your facebook page fairly empty in the sort of i'm not that bothered about facebook kinda way. But i wouldn't worry about not having 400 friends its completely superficial imo. Who has 400 friends in the real world. Most people have between a couple and a dozen real friends.... not john whats his face who was at your cousins party 10 years ago and now wants to be your facebook friend (i'm a bit cynical today sorry).

mikemac

Never was on facebook or bebo.
I do use Twitter though to get the latest sports updates, Twitter is awesome if you know the best sports journalists who always have the breaking news

Don't worry over comparing a profile with a few friends to somebody with hundreds. Most of those are somebody who they may have met years ago.

Now I understand you may need facebook for your course.
In that case just add as much info as you are comfortable with, just name, location. No needs for photos.
I don't know a lot about privacy settings, you've gotten advice on that already

Moomoo1

Moomoo1 wrote: »

never joined FB. Never will. And that guy who expects you to join FB for doing assessed work is out of order also.

Yeah f*ck that. What a twat that 'professor' is!

WhodahWoodah

I have FB but if I had a professor who wanted me to friend their profile I'd totally set up a second FB account that was only for the college thing and wasn't linked to my personal one in any way. Last thing I'd want is for my college professor to see pics of me pi$$ed at the Halloween party last year, or for them to see my sillier statuses or to know I wasn't in college today - not because I had a cold - but because I was out last night!! Dangerous territory IMO!!!

The Nipp

you don't have to join facebook, if you dont want to join don't let anyone pressure you into it.

if that professor requires you to make an account then use it only for that purpose and use a false name, then delete afterwards.

i deleted my account and it was definitely no loss to me. its attention whoring and drama i can well live without. if people want to be in touch with you but can't be arsed to call or email you then it must not be that important.

LC2010HIS

Lets put it this way, I wish i never joined bebo, msn or facebook......

You are better off staying far away. I have no valid reason for being on facebook only that everyone else is on them. I wish I was never sucked in cause it has made me very unhealthy tbh ...

LegacyUser

OP here.

Thanks guys for the feedback, some really useful info here. I didn't think I'd get so many responses, & I think I've made up my decision.

Just one question, someone said you can set up your privacy settings in a certain way to make no one see how many friends you have, even your current friends won't know how many you have.

Is this true? I thought once you accept someone as a friend, they can automatically see everything, & I mean EVERYTHING. Friend count & all.

ongarboy

you can restrict as little or as much information as you like on your FB profile (eg hide your relationship status,photos etc but make your hobbies and age public or vice versa. Also, you can make everything public to everyone or just to FB friends or to no-one as well as various other combinations). Just navigate through your account profile and security settings and it will list everything you want to mark as public or private and applicable to what audience.

I'd also question a tutor's insistence on using FB for course material as while it may sound innovative, it doesn't seem to be the correct approach. What next, using Twitter to tweet whether you failed an exam or not?? As someone said, a college based online bulletin board or networking site should be used for conducting college based course activities. What happens if FB went down hours before an exam and users couldn't access essential exam information for study/revision? The college's IT folk would not be able to assist whereas they would with their own college based systems. If this is something that concerns you, I recommend raising it with the tutor or course administrator.

LegacyUser

Just one question, someone said you can set up your privacy settings in a certain way to make no one see how many friends you have, even your current friends won't know how many you have.

Is this true? I thought once you accept someone as a friend, they can automatically see everything, & I mean EVERYTHING. Friend count & all.

Yeah its true! (although facebook like to make their privacy settings overly complicated/hard to find...but they're there all right!...somewhere)

This prob means nothing to you now but if you do sign up you can change the privacy settings to hide your friends list to everyone (even friends you have addded) as so:

On your profile page, if you look at the box to the left where your friends show up, there's a little pencil in the right corner of the box, if you click this then click the option to change visibility settings(in the pop put box), you get a list of stuff you can change, go to "see my friends list" one and you can change it to "only me"

you can also hide who sees whats written and posted on your wall (even from your added friends)

you can hide all your pictures from everyone (even from your added friends)

You can choose to only show certain info wall posts/photo albums/friends lists to specific friends (while also keeping them hidden from other added friends)

You can hide all status updates from your news feed also

I know people always complain that facebook "puts everything out there" (but its not facebook that gives away peoples privacy, its usually attention seekers themselves who feel the need to show/put everything on it!) .Personally i find facebook great, in that you can really hide everything from everyone if you so wish, once you find your way around the privacy settings.

Maybe set up a fake page with some random email address first and find your way around it before you set up a proper account

As someone already said, at the end of the day its over hyped, joinings not going to change your life or anything and you can always delete your profile if you want!

h8scobes

omg like cum on its just a website

mike65

h8scobes wrote: »

omg like cum on its just a website

Is this parody?

Nevyn

h8scobes text speak is banned on this site.

mike65 if you have an issue with a post report it.


Unhelpful and off-topic posting will get you banned from this forum.
Do take time to read the charter which contains the rules and abide by them.
Have a nice day.
Thaedydal

Naikon

Bob_Harris wrote: »

You don't want to join Facebook, or any other social networking site for that matter.

The whole concept is based around attention whoring.

People post pictures of nights out to try and emphasize how they are "mad feckers", take a million photos of themselves in mirrors and post the single one which they actually look half way decent, "friend" people to up the friend count. It's pathetic.

More importantly, once you post ANYTHING on facebook, you are basically giving consent to have your data(photos, words, whatever)to be used for data mining purposes. Remember, once you put up anything on the net, it stays there FOREVER.
Who knows how that data will be used in years to come.

OS119

Naikon wrote: »

More importantly, once you post ANYTHING on facebook, you are basically giving consent to have your data(photos, words, whatever)to be used for data mining purposes. Remember, once you put up anything on the net, it stays there FOREVER.
Who knows how that data will be used in years to come.

^^^this^^^

once you put something - anything - on Failbook its in the internet forever. you can delete it all you like, but once its been posted its recoverable. as soon as someone else sees it it belongs (in fact, if not in law) to them for them to do with what they like.

treat FB like you'd treat a full page advert on page 3 of the Irish Times - if you don't fancy everyone you know, every interview board your CV will ever cross, and every girl you'll ever chat up seeing your photo's, reading your drunken ramblings, or those of your friends, then don't get involved with Facebook. you might be circumspect, but you can't inforce that on your friends.