FAQ

Find answers to some of the more frequently asked questions on the Forums.

Forums guidelines

Our guidelines keep the Forums a safe place for people to share and learn information.

Announcement Icon
You can win one of three $200 gift cards. Complete our survey by 5pm, 30 June 2024 AEST to enter the draw. Your response will be anonymous so you can't be identified.

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

blondguy
Champion Alumni
Champion Alumni

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

332 Replies 332

Thanks for that em , appreciated.

l wish she'd just delete the stupid damn thing have for yrs. Said she would except she uses it for buy sell. but of course she wouldn't anyway they're addicted grown up on it it's part of their world these days. She probably knows like the back of her hand any tricks or blocks so not even being a fb user myself wll , but yeah l did suggest all that , so did ex , she was all over fb for yrs but saw the light haha , lately , grown woman made a total fool of herself all over it for awhile there , nothin new a dollar for every time l've seen or heard of some of that with even 50yr olds.

Thankfully my d is all wrapped up in life with the new bf lately and he's older too and a pretty smart guy so l'm hoping he's got more sense than to be dragged into ridiculous fb bs and has a bit of a good influence too.

No surprise at all employers snoop around on apps and employees fb , why people publicly insist on splattering their lives all over that thing for all to see is just beyond me . Even my d's grand parents nosy and snoop all over it and watch any of her stuff she's well aware of it buttttt, goes and gets drunk people push a few buttons and next minute there's a shytstorm for anyone and all to see. This group have been poking and prodding since thy were all 10 back in ps even back then d good run rings around them and was way to smart for it , which of course irritates them even more hence they're 20yr olds now and still trying meanwhile d's been out of their bs scene and all the rubbish 6 or 7 yrs different school lives in a new town and all , l couldn't believe they were still at it. Well sadly d's had some very hard knocks earlier in the yr and they' caught her on a low. l haven't been game to bring it up again this last wk or 2 she's on the other hand so happy right now again which will irradiate them even more all over again , butttt life is all about the new guy, ex hasn't brought it up again since that first wk either so l'm kinda laying low on the whole thing haha . Not sure what's eventuated from it all just lately now buttttt, she's really happy again so sleeping dogs can sleep haha. lf it comes up though yeah no worries l'll try to suggest your tips thanks again .

Lots of kids eh haaaa, lucky you , ex and l were just saying a wk back just thank God we only had one haha. And would you believe l wanted a tribe back then , obviously momentarily insanity .

rx

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Awesome rx YES let sleeping dogs lie lololol... ughhh.

Aha my tribe is pretty awesome. My own children moderate their own behaviours by bouncing things off of each other.... kinda like a brains trust.

"Our aim is to work together like a well oiled machine" part of our Family Mission Statement... and we do 99% of the time (it's like running Government here lol!! We've stopped short of "Policies and Procedures", but certainly have "bans" in place as consequences lol).

The issues for us lie in OTHER families sending their kids to ME (alone) to sort out ALL the crap they've done to their own children. Up to 12-17 kids on a weekend mill around here... gosh I need a Counselling degree!
After 30y of other parents doing this to me..... I've had enough.

THIS is what my latest problem is... a wayward child who's stayed here for over 10y AND it's wayward parents full of overblown entitlement.
I directly put it in text the Boundaries of my home; respect being the base.
No rudeness, no demands, no insults. Next time he showed this he would be asked to leave immediately.

I copped an abusive text back from parents! lol.
Wow after feeding said child for over 10y almost every weekend... they expected far more from me. What a joke. I almost said "have fun with the extra $1000 per year food bill now" I stopped short lol.

They banned him from our house lol! I was thinking to ban him for 3-6 months. But I didn't want to rob HIM of a social life... stupid parents making rash decisions out of anger, so they now have a very angry teen at THEIR house, ALL weekend for probably the very first time lol. Awesome. He's not at mine AND we have CCTV.

He went online calling me names last night and the 10+ children here showed me.

I was not abusive. I just asked for respect via text.

Some people don't have the capacity for respect.

So today during part of my birthday celebrations which SOME children asked to be invited to... I will also form a text to these entitled parents warning them of Police action should this abuse continue. I'm done.

Seriously I've had parents LECTURE me what they expect me to feed to THEIR children, after they kicked them out with no money and they had no where to sleep, so I housed them... yah... getting straight down the line now lol.
I said "if you want your child fed that then pick him up and you do it".
"No, we want YOU to do that"
Repeat my statement. on and on.

Some people hey?
EM

Hi Everyone...New posters are always welcome to post too!

Hey RX...really appreciate your proactive feedback! 3 Years already?!.....Im rapt you have found the forums a godsend...and same here after being made redundant in Jan 2016 and joining Beyond Blue when I was stuck

Hey EM...thankyou for the excellent advice you provided on August 7.( above if anyone wants to have a look)

EM mentioned 'Social media is a mine field'....I hear you loud and clear there EM! People that use the appropriate privacy controls have a better experience on Facebook from what I can read from other peoples experiences. I am concerned about the young people on FB with unnecessary peer group pressure..(IMO)

my kindest always

Paul

Hello all

like all tools ,social media needs to be treated with care and used appropriately.

We need to be careful with social media so we are in. O troll and it doesn’t control us,

Quirky

Hiya em and thanks for that . Yeah , unfortunately l know all about parents like that . Back in the day l use to have 5 or even 10 of them over for the holidays or wkneds , well my daughter did. They loved our place and l got along with them all really well and looked after things and ran them all over the place too and stuff. On wee use to drive over to their new place they moved 2hours away, my daughter and l , l was friends with her parents to so we'd catch up them run the girls back to ours and they'd all have a ball. But there was this one evil little frump . This girl wasn't really in their group she'd just force her way in or spend the whole wkend or even the whole holidays sometimes hassling them over sm and fb if she didn't get invited. l couldn't believe the trouble this kid could cause, turns out she'd been well trained by the idiot parents.

And when she did force hr way in and end up staying over with the others sh basically destroy the group and time , didn't know with to do with it- she'd upset them all and start all this crap then she'd go home and tell her crazy parents all these lies about what the kids did to her, it was surreal. Had her man old man call me up a few times and trying to deal with this guy was the craziest thing l've ever encountered , he was a drinker . The mother was just as bad. She was the main one all these yrs later that started again, this whole thing with my d a few wks back, 20yrs old now they haven't even seen each other or the others in 5yrs and she's still at it. Same twisted crap you don't even now where to begin with. Surreal , thought she would've grown out of it,

On of the other's little T , didn't have a dad and we were so close she asked m to be her dad , nearly broke my heart because the problem was l'd be honored except she had this mad family too that would com with it , so l just couldn't get involved on that level. She was a gorgeous kid back then, beautiful heart . My daughter doesn;t see her anymore which is weird they were also really close back then too , instead this other evil thing is still on the scene and still causing crap , unbelievable, d hasn't even seen her in 5 or 6yrs . Could only imagine some of the stuff you must deal with buttt, anyway. Thanks a lot for the tips , very appreciated. Good luck with the tribe. rx

Hi Everyone and a wave to RX

Hey Quirky....thankyou for your balanced post re FB...You are spot on when you mentioned 'like all tools ,social media needs to be treated with care and used appropriately' Absolutely...for adults/people without any self esteem issues for sure. Otherwise it can be a minefield

I am concerned about young people being exposed to the unnecessary peer group pressure on FB as per the first amendment of the US Constitution which guarantees free speech and public expression...Especially during a global pandemic....Free speech is wonderful yet not helpful when we are going through what we are (IMO)

Even adults are vulnerable to any social media site when they are experiencing any level of anxiety/depression

Be well

Paul

CMF
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member

I have FB mainly to keep up with my family. I've never had the app on my phone however when i bought a new phone last year it was automatically downloaded when i set the phone up so i left it. Being in lockdown i found my self checking FB more and more. I didn't want to but i did cos it was there. One of my best friends likes to post her daughter skating, singing her and her husband dancing in the backyard, the family having fun. I realised this was deflating me. Watching her and her hubby/kids mucking around together mad me feel crap, maybe jealous. She's having fun with her family, and I feel alone. If i were to invite my friend over for a cuppa it would be a different story, She would tell me how hard remote learning as been, that her yr 12 daughter had not studied for exams, that someone has been ill etc. There is ALWAYS someone ill or injured or something going on with her, yet if you only saw FB you'd think her life was perfect. So Sunday morning I deleted the app and I have had no desire to regularly check FB. I looked at it for a few minutes last night but that was it. It was consuming me a little so got rid of it and it's been great. I don't post pics of my partner and I every time we go out for lunch or do something, that is our personal time does not need to be shared with everyone. His sis does. she posts all their birthdays making a point of all the food she prepared and putting her self in the photos as the best aunty etc. My partner is not into that, probably doesn't realise she does it. I don't have a need to show everyone all the 'fun' I'm having but she does and it makes me feel excluded from his family, especially during this lockdown period.

CMF x

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

Oh yes CMF... it's crazy isn't it?

When you actually KNOW what's going on in the family - because that's REAL life... but all you see are "staged" photos almost stylised only for FB lol... I don't get it.

What drove me bonkers was the "friend" who was SO hung up on "likes" for every single post and photo that she would text and CALL me to press "like" .... like why should I be forced to like something I'm too busy to look at let alone think about or "like"...

I DON'T LIKE lol...

eeek. Did my head in lol.

The final straw for me was when this "friend" told me off for NOT downloading FB to my new phone, what IS that behaviour even?

I said I was really enjoying the hiatus. 🌴🌺🍸 deserving of three emojis..

I didn't want to see the expensive step by step renovations to a beautiful home when I knew both parties were about to divorce... what's to "like"? I thought it was really sad.

I've not responded to a text of hers since. Still off FB... better for it.

Happy to be rid of the stalkers too.

You've done a good thing CMF, whatever helps you manage YOUR life better is always a good thing.

Onwards and upwards.
Love EM

Guest_1643
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member

lol EM i had a friend like that -

she would freak out about posting things and worrying about how many posts we had. She did everything public on social media - loved to get involved on fights there too... loved to create an "impression" there.

I think to be honest I'm anti facebook for myself. I had it for ages, years and years. And used it to correspond with people and make/connect to new friends. But that was such a small part of it. The other part of it was time-wasting, scrolling, getting FOMO, doing all this image control about how I was perceived there.... It wasn't healthy for me. I deleted it 3 years ago and it's been no-fuss without it.

I think my friendships have become more genuine as a result and gone a bit more back to face-to-face and on the phone.

I know Facebook is fun and honestly i would never judge anyone at all. I just have an addictive side to my personality and felt that the constant churning of information, gossip, news - was too much for me.
Not a huge fan of how they have been involved in misinformation etc with news, and I think the whole "like" button took things to a new level of lows. It shouldn't be about collecting popularity, but it is. To those who can maintain FB as a safe and cosy, private place between friends, my hat goes off to you - I just never managed to do that myself, and got a little too addicted for it to be healthy.

ecomama
Valued Contributor
Valued Contributor

lol yes same kind of stuff..

I also have no issue with others having FB.. great!

Getting back to "that friend" lol... she also scrolled through my friend's list and kept badgering me about how I knew this person or that person... wow too much time on your hands lol.

What was disconcerting (again) was that she contacted ALL of these people via Messenger also and asked them about their relationship with me...

These friends were pretty upset, tbh we were all confused.

I felt like I was ping ponged into a barrage of convos I did not NEED at that time - or any time tbh lol. I'd rather watch my grass grow than get caught up in any unnecessary drama.

But in our work lunch room, the convos about "Why did ____ say THAT on FB?" are pretty confusing to me.

Why not ASK them?

"Social media" has created a very weird context for ppl relating to each other. Or not relating to people in normal ways.

Sad thing is that all this out of the ordinary stuff like waiting with baited breath for ppl to "like" a photo of a plate of food etc is creating alot of angst and other negative stuff.

It's also spilling into other areas of communication too... like getting photos of plates of food from FB friends who know I'm not on FB lol.

I'd rather see a photo of them or even their dog or a frog in their backyard lol!

I think we're missing the point somewhere.

EM