is facebook for women and effeminate men?

[mamelukesabre]

When I first got pushed into signing up for facebook 3 years ago, I thought it would be a waste of my time. after a month or two, I decided it was kinda fun. Then I started hearing bad things and started worrying about security and my use of it tapered off. Now, 3 years later, I don't look at my facebook much but when I do, I notice two things:

its almost purely women that put things on facebook and make comments on stuff.

its purely women that are sending me friend requests and I have no idea who they are.

Is facebook dying off, drying up, wasting away? Is it turning into a ladies book club or ladies cribbage club? If so, how long before the same thing happens to FR?

[ccmay]

I’m educating many people on conservative issues, and about Herman Cain, too.

Yup. I have over 300 friends, probably 230 of whom are apolitical. I post one or two thoughtful, educational posts on conservative topics a day, sometimes more. I think I'm getting through to a lot of them. It's easy to overdo it, though. I am thinking of cutting back to one a week or so.

[mamelukesabre]

Good point. Lets hope it stays that way. If I start seeing a strong FB like trend on FR I’m afraid I will drift away from here as well.

[mamelukesabre]

But you are both women, so you’re kinda not so good anecdotal evidence.

[Spunky]

I finally couldn’t stand all the people telling me to sign up to Facebook and started an account"

Same thing with me. Besides my kids wouldn't send me pictures of my great-grandkids in e-mail. They said you can see them all on facebook.

The venue I see is one guy pushing Ron Paul. A women posting cartoon jokes, and people inviting you to play games. Most of the people are playing the games.

[POWERSBOOTHEFAN]

I wasn’t talking about you! I go on the Tampa Bay Lightning page and there are people whose comments are impossible to understand because of the run-on sentences.

[Sir_Ed]

Hope you don’t mind if I disagree with you, and continue keeping in touch with my friends through Facebook.

I do enjoy silence and peace, although I have no dog and the silence is found deep in the woods where I go mountain biking, not in my living room...

Ed

[Spunky]

Then there are the addicted facebookers that are compelled to tell you where they are every couple hours...via iphone or android. I wonder if they actually do that with their phone or if there is an “app” out there that automatically sends a facebook message whenever you are moving?

My grand-daughter has a cell phone and she said there is something she can check and it says she is close to this place etc and she can put in the one she is at and it shows up on facebook. I read recently where people visit movie sites, music sites, etc and they don't read the fine print and hit accept. Well now when they do that they have given them permission to let facebook know what kind of movies you are watching (some may be watching movies they don't want their wife to know about, but facebook then can say so and so is enjoying such and such of movie.

[se_ohio_young_conservative]

I am a Facebook guy. I am in touch with out of state relatives I rarely see. Friends I went to school with and then lost touch. People I have worked with in the radio business.

I don’t give personal information to people I don’t trust. I don’t allow people I don’t know get access to me.

I feel like I can trust about anyone here on Free Republic. thats the big different between FR...and other sites like FB

[Politicalmom]

I don’t have to worry about that too much. I went to a Christian high school. We only had one Democrat in our senior government/economics class. We tormented her mercilessly all year. :)

I’m providing information to a willing group, mostly.

[Darkwolf377]

Hope you don’t mind if I disagree with you, and continue keeping in touch with my friends through Facebook. I do enjoy silence and peace, although I have no dog and the silence is found deep in the woods where I go mountain biking, not in my living room... Ed

Who said you had to pay attention to my opinion at all?

The original poster made reference to being at home with his dog. That's all the livingroom commment was.

Actually, you're demonstrating the mindset that makes Facebook so pointless to me. No one cares that you go out in the woods. No one cares that you keep in touch with people on Facebook when I don't. Yet you seem to think my expressing a different opinion would somehow mean I'd be offended by yours.

I don't care, and I don't care if it's on Facebook, either.

That's the point.

[mamelukesabre]

I wondered if there was something like that going on.

[VanDeKoik]

Facebook is whatever you want it to be. Too many people make such a stink like it’s so beneath them to use it. It’s the same thing they said about email and the Internet itself. Oh well.

I personally hate using the phone, do not make social visits, and cant remember birthdays for the life of me. For introverts like myself, Facebook has been a lifesaver.

[Greysard]

I'm using Internet since its early days, with Trumpet Winsock and PPP/SLIP and Linux 1.x. I guess I'm an early adopter - and an early unadopter too, if there is such a word.

I never had a FB account, and I never will. If a thousand friends tell me to get one, my answer will be still "no." I don't do Twitter, I don't do Google Buzz, I don't do Google Plus, etc. etc.

These are all machines for datamining. These services aren't provided for free; you are paying with every bit of data that you enter. Like World of Warcraft, these companies entice you to spend more and more time there, away from productive life. They want you to play stupid games, they want you to send useless announcements of irrelevant facts, they want you to read those announcements coming from others. None of that is productive; all of it is harmful. You can stay "connected" all day and accomplish nothing.

FR is sufficiently different. There is only one reason to visit the FR - to read good posts and to write a few comments; perhaps to post something truly interesting once in a while. None of these posts are "pushed" to my phone (if I had such a phone.) FR is like a bulletin board - you can walk up to it whenever you have time, read whatever you want and scribble a comment or two on margins if you have something to say. Maybe someone will reply, maybe not. It's a low profile operation.

However FB, Twitter and other time-wasters are here to stay, just like TV and radio. This is because most people are happy to waste their time on useless things - especially when those people are young, immortal and without obligations. Like MySpace, these services will be catering to children. I believe the watershed between childhood and adulthood will be the day when a person willingly deletes her "social networking" accounts and starts living real life among real people, doing real things.

[Brad’s Gramma]

I have a dog AND a FB account AND I enjoy the outdoors!
;)

(Actually.... I created the account to rip off all the pics of the grandkids)

[ccmay]

But you are both women, so you’re kinda not so good anecdotal evidence.

Sshhhh! My wife reads this site. I'm not sure she could handle the shock if she found out I'm really a woman.

[dr_lew]

Let’s just say that Facebook is for women, and men can join in if they want to, making no asseverations thereby.

[desertfreedom765]

To me their is value in being anonomyous or invisible. Facebook is the opposite of this.

[ccmay]

I'm using Internet since its early days, with Trumpet Winsock and PPP/SLIP and Linux 1.x. I guess I'm an early adopter - and an early unadopter too, if there is such a word.

Pooh. I used it long before DNS, let alone SLIP.

[golux]

Facebook helps me remember all the girls I once had.

[BigCinBigD]

“its purely women that are sending me friend requests and I have no idea who they are.’

Those are hookers...