#8~~~Facebook Rules~~~

I saw facebook as a topic and smiled. I am a facebook junky. I admit, I resisted at first, hearing it was for college kids and I was a myspace kind of girl. I enjoyed the page design, HTML coding, aspect of making a myspace page. Things changed and myspace turned into booty-call central and I knew it was time to make the move. When I initially set up my profile I was one of a few people from my high school and from my library that used facebook. Within a matter of weeks and months everyone I work with was on it too. Then suddenly people from high school and college whom I had not seen in 20 years were adding me on facebook...it was like a virtual reunion of sorts.

At work we use it to see where people are, to chat back and forth from office to office, and the library has it's own page that our staff posts library and academic-related news for our student subscribers, and slowly but surely we have a student following. We post an announcement and low and behold they respond back with their thoughts, comments, etc.

I love facebook to add my favorite shows, restaurants, clothing stores, comedians, and the list goes on...by adding chik-fil-a we learned that last Friday if you dressed up like a black and white cow and go into a store you would eat for free. Starbucks sends out specials and freebie notices on there as well. One of my favorite shows, "No Reservations" on the travel channel tells me when the season premier is...and I have the option to give a thumbs up on what I like and what I think is good.

The anonymity issue is an issue, but resist it all you want, we are a society moving towards having our entire existence floating around in cyber space, so you might as well test the waters while they are still simple and shallow. What I like about facebook, as far as privacy goes, is yes, you put a name on there, however, only those you allow to look at your profile can look. Sure, they can pull up a photo, and maybe the area you live (if you put that in) but don't feel like you have to put a photo of yourself. My alter-ego and super hero is Super Girl, so my facebook profile sports a lovely pic of Supergirl and her long, blonde locks flowing in the wind. I am a long-haired blonde, but I don't wear a cape (not in public anyway) so even if they find me, without my allowing them access to my profile all they will know about me is that I live in "Funky Town" and I am a Supergirl fan named Elizabeth. Anonymity is a real issue and I don't intend to make light of it at all, however, online existence is the way we are headed and denying that will only prolong the inevitable.

I love the facebook quizzes! I am aware that they do allow those people to look into your profile and things I probably have no knowledge of...and I may suffer repurcussions from it down the line...but it will be and 1000's of other quiz addicts taking the fall together.

To me the fear of online, social networking anonymity is less than my fear of handing over my debit card at a restaurant, store, etc...we have this false sense of well-being. So we try to be careful and do the wise thing to protect ourselves. The same goes for any online platform.

I can hardly go the weekend without a visit to facebook. But I attempt to have 2 days facebook free, yet it beacons me throughout the weekend and sometimes I can't help but to give in...because I always need my facebook fix!