Recently I had my first hacking scare on Facebook.  Some friends let me know that they had received friend requests from me, when I was already their FB friend.  It wasn’t a big deal in the end.  I reported it to Facebook, but in the meantime, I changed my password, and also my cover and profile pictures, so that my page would look different.  I turned off the log on with profile pic option, and also logged out of all other devices, so that I would have to log in anywhere else with my new password.  No drama.  I’ve been on Facebook for many years now and this is the first and only problem I’ve had.  Not bad.

It made me think of what would be said by a few close friends I have who have very negative comments to make about Facebook, in particular.  Most of them do not use FB at all; a couple to a very minimal extent.  The most negative comments I hear are about the ‘triviality’ of posts (‘going to the toilet now’; ‘having eggs for breakfast now,’ and which I grant were true in the early days), or the problems of trolling, and posting of derogatory images, such as ‘revenge porn.’

Cyber bullying is also an issue, and I know my daughter was subject to this via facebook and phone in her early days of secondary education.

However, I choose to have the following take on all of this.  And, I’ll do it in point form, to make it more readable, but basically here are MY positives for approving of Facebook (and I’m talking specifically about FB here, NOT Twitter, or any other social medium.)

•  Email:  my anti Facebook pals, say, “oh why can’t you just send me an email?”  Like the old fashioned snail mail, it is wonderful to receive a ‘letter’, and they are fooled by the immediacy of the internet into forgetting that most people would say ‘oh I’m just no good at writing letters etc‘, to the point that writing an individualised letter, just does not happen! It takes as long to write an email as it does to write a letter, and, excluding business or any other quite focussed purpose, it’s a very unlikely outcome.
• Making new friends:  Facebook allows a quick, conversational, and undemanding response; in both a verbal and/or visual way within a group, select group, or one on one basis, in virtually real time! It allows one to keep in touch in a normal everyday way, independent of geography, time zone, or any other physical constraint including physical disability; and even to the extent that the FB translator works, to language constraints.  In other words, it makes it possible for friendships to continue, start and develop, in real time!
• Keeping in touch:  My friends and family are my greatest treasures!  Sometimes they move – go interstate, or overseas.  Sometimes they are ill, in hospital, and I can’t see them every day.  My children don’t live close to me, or they travel.  I meet new friends with shared interests, in other countries, other hemispheres.  With all of these people I can share and grow friendships way beyond the purview that I had less than 20 years ago.
• Bullying:  poisonous gossip, the sharing of compromising images – all of these existed way prior to the internet, and more specifically, Facebook.  There has always been the need to be savvy about the kind of material that becomes available in the public domain, and now in 2017, dissemination is so much more easy and pervasive, I acknowledge this!  Taking the time to become familiar with your privacy settings, working out what you make public, what you limit to select groups – you can do all of this if you take the trouble to do so.
• Advertising: well, seriously – you telling me you believe any of this is free! Of course not…someone always pays!  But the advertisers on Facebook are paying to put stuff in front of you, just like they have been doing since commercial media started to operate in Australia!  And at least you now have the choice of seeing the kinds of ads that are more relevant to you!  I have found that  the best way to cut down on the kind of ads you ‘see’ on Facebook, is to stay away from the ‘like’ button, especially from stuff other than your friends’ personal posts!  I’ve never paid for an ad on FB!

In conclusion, I acknowledge there are many aspects both positive and negative to this overwhelming ‘cyberworld’ that we now inhabit – all of which can be perceived and argued about in many ways: but for me – I choose, (oh,let me repeat this: I CHOOSE) to select my social medium, and make it work for ME in the most positive way that I can!

And by the way, I actively choose NOT to use Twitter – I think it is a vehicle for politicians and advertisers, and a platform in which too often the brain is NOT fully engaged before the message goes out!

Pax, my darlings!