Facebook 101 – Liveblogging this session

Why Facebook 101? That is the question that Phillip Jeffrey started his session with. He said he spoke about Facebook last year at Moosecamp, though I somehow missed that. Interestingly, this is one of the first times I have heard people here at Northern Voice speak about Facebook.

I just don’t seem to “get” Facebook. I understand the concept, of course, but being somewhat shy I find it a strange concept to go look for people I don’t know and add these people as “friends.” How can I have friends I don’t know (whether F2F or electronically)? Another thing I really do not “get” about Facebook is that there are not RSS feeds. Why should I have to log on to Facebook to see if there is a new discussion in one of the groups of which I am a member?

Phillip is now showing his Facebook profile. Completely overwhelming how long the main page is and how many links and groups and favorites. I can’t imagine how many hours he must have spent setting that up in that way. 

He showed how there are lots of privacy settings, to be able to differentiate between fiends, acquaintances, and others. This almost seems to be the main point of this session — what do the different privacy settings mean.

I was hoping there would be more of the reasons to use Facebook that would convince me to use it. Perhaps this is something I need to accept will not work for me, and that Facebook is just an application I do not like? I certainly spend enough energy trying to “get” Facebook and trying to figure out why people spend hours there “friending” others, as if there is a popularity contest in having the most number of people who we do not know.

Perhaps one of the things about Facebook I do not like is that I do not own the items that are uploaded there. There is not a way to be able to export or output information out of Facebook. Once it is there, there is not a way to be able to get it.

I wonder if my feelings about Facebook are related to my interest in post-modernism? Perhaps I do not like the idea of a place where everybody else seems to go and follow almost without a reason that makes sense to me. Do I really have the interest and time to sit at Facebook and see who is going to what group and saying whatever? I already do this via Twitter. Perhaps that is enough.

Ultimately, Facebook is not worth the energy I spend trying to figure it out. I hardly use it anyway, so should probably remove the components from it I do not value. Perhaps I should think about Facebook as a value proposition–what value, if any, have I ever received from it? With all the applications and personalities out there, should I have to use anything I really do not want to?

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