Facebook...The Good or the Bad...Your Say!

[blondguy]

Hi Everybody

Without a doubt Facebook is one of the best social media sites. I have been on FB for a long time and found it invaluable yet very stressful at times whilst having anxiety and/or depression or even just checking it every day.

Your views on FB, its impact on your mental health, well being, whether good or not so good are more than welcome.

Thankyou for reading my thread topic!

my kind thoughts

Paul

[Only_the_lonely]

Hello everyone. Great topic!!

I was on FB but got out. As with any social media sites, the main positive for the website is to share your experience , thoughts and pictures with the whole world and get feedback on your topic. There are also negatives to the social media on the net. The most common one I have found is to create a false impression of your life without any underlying issues that may be bothering you. Friends posting positive posts on dining out, holidaying overseas and attending to lavish parties will soon come across as "brag-book" and it will continue happening as people posting up every half hour can become annoying to the rest of the world , specially people who are going through tough times. The main negative is having people who you joined not offer support by way of liking or commenting on your posts, specially family members. Everybody deserves recognition and a feedback and if your close friends and families don't reciprocate to your post, then it can have a negative effect on you over time. I had a friend who as couple posted lavish pics of holidays and enjoying a 'high life' only to find out they were leaving each other and those pics on FB looked so lovey-dovey was all creating a fake impression to the world. I personally think FB is more of a 'brag-book' where people forget to be human, but rather share stories of them partying and that's not being true to yourself or the rest of your followers. I find it more intriguing when people were posting their pics of hobbie tasks they had done, Interesting things they found in the local market, a good book they have read and recommend, question about life and mysteries that they find intriguing or fascinating etc. Its more then just sharing pics of family / kids birthdays which most people tend to do but at the end of the day, we are like sheep and just follow each other. Its your choice if you decide to join, there is nothing wrong with experiencing it for yourself. Its a good way to share information but I am sceptical of making friends from people other side of the world which I don't know but that is just me. The choice is yours to make. Good luck with it!

[Moonstruck]

Well I am thinking fb maybe not good, all the time anyway, for those of us with severe anxiety, depression or over thinking things ..e.g. I put up something very eye catching, unusual and cute connected with my life and no one at all has "liked" it.....try as I might, I find it affecting me e.g. "don't they like me any more; aren't I interesting enough, doesn't anyone even check my page, can't they at least let me know they have seen it.??" etc etc.

I "like" most of their posts, photos, lovely personal things etc....I at least respond!! How come I like the people on my list.....and so very few, if at all...."like" me??? So I think it could be quite damaging to someone with very low self esteem if just this one occasion has bothered me so much!!

[smallwolf]

Me again! I hardly ever use FB unless I want to be able to pass a message onto someone else. (As an aside, there is another page that I manage, but again, that page is more informational and message passing.) I have used FB to share stuff from BB, and books that I might be reading. My point is that you can "belong" to FB and not necessarily use it.

As for liking other peoples posts and not getting it in return... Me... I will not like another persons post unless it speaking directly to me. Consider it like this... You have friends with a variety of passions, likes, dislikes etc. A friend makes a post which applies to a subset of all their friends. But nobody really set the friends the message will go to. Instead it goes to all. And if you worry about getting likes, this can become a problem. I know. But I got over it. Why? Because later on some people told me they liked the content of the page and more importantly did not want me to stop. So just because they don't like the page, does not mean they don't like page/post. Hope that makes sense.

Finally, some people write on FB what they would not say in real life to other people. My thoughts on this are reserved 🙂

Tim

[blondguy]

Hey Hyper Girl

Thankyou heaps for the mega flattering/complimentary post......:-)

You mentioned your parents checking everything....that can be a pain but the majority of parents do check to make sure people are doing okay. Facebook can be a problem as its unmoderated

Hyper Girl made 3 excellent points with.....

1: I realized my friends wern't actually my friends.
2: I have learnt not to try and say bad things when I am in a bad mood ( though its still hard for me)
3: that any social media doesn't actually show what the person is truly like.

These are the main reasons why I terminated my FB account....and good on you Hyper Girl. I know many people find huge positives by being on FB and good on them! Good on you for saying what some people think yet wont admit to

my kind thoughts

Paul

[blondguy]

Hello Everyone

Interesting news today with Facebook and Instagram introducing new tools to enable users to manage their time on the social media platforms to avoid mental health issues and provide users to set limits on the amount of time they spend on either platform and receive notifications when their limit is reached..

Source/ abc.net.au

"We developed these tools based on collaboration and inspiration from leading mental health experts and organisations, academics, our own extensive research and feedback from our community," Ameet Ranadive and David Ginsberg, Instagram's product management director and Facebook's director of research, said in a blog post

Users will be able to access the tools through the settings tab in both apps

Facebook: 'Your Time on Facebook"

Instagram: "Your Activity"

I hope this comes in handy

my best

Paul

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone

does anyone find Instagram easier to navigate and less problematic that Facebook?

If so can so done explain how instagram works and why they feel it is better than FB.

paul I hope this is on track.

I feel like a social media novice when I hear these terms.

Facebook to me is useful but like most tools must be handled with care, .

If it were not for the internet I would be very isolated.

Quirky

[Moonstruck]

I wondered why someone close to me, and always was a busy fb poster....seems to post very rarely these days....she said she tends to put most photos etc on her Instagram now...and to look her up on there....I am not on Instagram and don't really know what it's for...nor how to look at hers....I have probably missed a lot of her family photos (is it only for photographs?)

I think that because I rarely post anything of my own on FB...(can't see the point of putting little unimportant things up there about my doings..I'd rather save it for something special that happens to me) I get very few "likes" when I do post something on....it does disappoint me I have to admit.

Do you think people don't bother to even check my page....or don't they like me or my activities at all??? I feel a fool putting something special on there and no one even bothers to look at it!

[Crazy_hyper_girl]

Hi moonstruck

i can tell you yes instagram is only for photographs though I don’t go on there. It’s because Instagram is getting more popular same goes with Snapchat ( with my particular age group).

i don’t get many likes either if I post something which is very rarely. I honestly can tell you those people that are your Facebook friends aren’t really your friends, they are all fake trying to make out there life is great and if you don’t follow a particular trend people won’t bother with you. This happened to me and it has stuffed up my life so if I was you don’t take it too hard because none of it’s worth it in the end.

your real friends are the ones that bother to check up on you and see how you are and if you don’t get that then find other people that make a effort because you deserve better and so does everyone else here.

[Just Sara]

Hi Paul and all reading;

On Four Corners (ABC) this week the feature was 'Inside Facebook'. A reporter posed as an employee to get into their training program to see what moderators (people who address complaints) are taught. It was a real eye opener!

Apparently, if someone's page gets an enormous amount of hits/likes, it doesn't matter how violent or full of hate it is, very little is deleted due to the money it generates thru ad links.

The rules for putting warnings up, deleting and contacting policing agencies for instance is so problematic, even the trainers get confused.

They interviewed a child abuse advocate who'd complained about the very same video trainers were using as samples of what 'not to delete'. She was so distressed for the child, she spent months trying to find him to see if he was ok.

The little boy was from Malaysia; his dad was arrested and gaoled for 12 months for his cruelty due to her efforts of locating him and reporting it to local authorities.

Facebook said it would change its rules and training strategies in response.

Most of your thread Paul is dedicated to social media and individuals, but FB's also about groups and organisations. Some are wonderful and bring people together like our local town group, but some are about power, hate, extremism and violence. These are the one's that need shutting down, but they generate too much revenue. Bastards!

Sez

[blondguy]

Hi everyone and thankyou for posting too 🙂

Interesting news with Facebook and Instagram introducing new tools to enable users to manage their time on the social media platforms to avoid mental health issues and provide users to set limits on the amount
of time they spend on either platform and receive notifications when their limit is reached..

Hey Sarah

Thankyou for providing the research through the ABC re Facebook and their advertising revenue being a priority over how angry/violent the content can be by FB members..(Source ABC 4 Corners)

You mentioned "if someone's page gets an enormous amount of hits/likes, it doesn't matter how violent or full of hate it is, very little is deleted due to the money it generates thru ad links"

You also brought up an excellent point about FB dealing with groups and organizations.....and still placing the interests of their advertising revenue first over the well being of people's well being

I dont mind FB making a dollar when it comes to raking in the dollars from advertisers but when its at the well being of peoples welfare it is a huge concern. I smell the greed word despite the benefits FB provides on a personal level

Paul