I joined Facebook in July 2007 at the insistence of a friend. Since then, I haven't looked back.
I only joined because I wanted to keep in touch with friends. Actually, to be nosey is the better word. I rarely change my status on Facebook and I don't often post photos. A couple of weeks ago, a high school classmate of mine from New York wanted to know why I had so many friends (at that time, nearly 530). I told her that I guessed it's because I happened to know a lot of these people from the Deaf community.
More than two-thirds of the people I am friends with on Facebook are people I knew from my high school years at Model Secondary School for the Deaf and my college years at Gallaudet University. There are people I haven't talked to in 10 years, much less seen them in person as they live overseas.
Facebook is the fifth most visited website (and the second most popular social networking site after MySpace) in the United States, and the numbers will probably keep going up as the system slowly gains popularity over blogging sites like MySpace, Xanga, Blogger and WordPress.
A lot of my friends have stopped using their free blog space on sites such as MySpace and Xanga in exchange for using the applications on Facebook instead. Last weekend, after being gone a full weekend at a bicycling event on the Eastern Shore, I arrived home to find four friend requests, two event invitations, and three causes invitations. The numbers will probably vary depending on the level of interest among Facebook users. Some members might get 10 friend requests a day; others may get one per week. While there are people like eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps on Facebook (with over 3,000 friends and counting), people want to be "in the crowd" by being someone's friend.
People are using Facebook more and more to send out invitations to events. Just last week I got an invitation to a wedding reception through Facebook. Sure, that's "green thinking" but I kinda admit, a bit tacky? Maybe not? I've gotten invitations to bat mitzvahs also and birthday parties. I also get requests to support causes.
I've gotten some strange requests from people I don't even know or vaguely know to be their friend. I asked one of my friends who is also on Facebook about what he does about these requests. He said that he only accepts requests from people he feels comfortable with since his privacy level is set to only friends. I agree with this perception and that's my modus operandi lately, to accept people I know well enough to let them see details about myself.
But there are several setbacks to using Facebook. Over at my workplace, we occasionally have Denim Days where we can wear jeans to work as long as we donate money towards a cause. I haven't worn jeans yet on any of these days and a co-worker about why I wasn't wearing jeans or donating approached me. To me, that's pigeonholing the person and forcing them to be part of something they might or don't want to be associated with. What if I just happened to have donated money towards another cause I believe in and not theirs? That same principle lies with declining or accepting invitations to join causes on Facebook. I have stopped trying to explain to people why I rejected their cause invitations because some people get petty when I explain and they don't like what they hear.
Plus there's always the issue of using Facebook at the workplace. People have gotten fired for blogging at work or about work. The same goes for people using Facebook or talking on Facebook at work. My boss isn't a member of Facebook (I think), but there are others who work in the same place as I do that have Facebook and they could easily say something that could get someone in trouble. Sometimes people just don't show common sense.
While Facebook is a powerful social and connection tool for people in the Deaf and hearing communities, it is a tool that must be used wisely.
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