"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
Having just, with some unease*, bitten the bullet and signed up to
facebook** I'm gobsmacked how many people it suggests as friends, most
of whome I know but some I haven't corresponded with for years. How does
it do it? I haven't offered it my address book but ISTR it invited me to
do that. Is it that everyone else has done so and it's finding my
email addy in other people's address books and offering links that way?

I've now deleted*** my 'real' email address which facebook seemed to have
listed for me (how? I didn't give it to them) and am sticking with a
" type address, so theoretically it shouldn't be able
to link people up with me through that, though if their address books
contain my real name alongside my address it may still be able to guess.


* I have a deep sense of unease that when They come to get Us we'll have
done most of the detective work for them :-

** as myself: I was already on there under a pseudonym

*** ok, I asked fb to delete it: but they could be keeping it but not
telling me

--
John Stumbles


I actually think that Face-ache and the other clones, are one of the most
antisocial and dangerous offerings that have come out of internet technology
in the last couple of years. I have three 'kids' all now grown up and left
the nest, and they are all ardent Face-achers. Apart from the amount of time
they waste on it, it causes a lot of trouble and ill-feeling among people
who are otherwise friends. I think this stems from several issues with
communicating in this way. First, it is very strange the way that some of
the postings are carried out using the third person, like "Fred is not very
happy today" or "Sally had a stinking rotten day at work today". This
creates an immediate detachment from a 'real' communication between people.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that many people now are
semi-illiterate, and use wrong words, in wrong contexts, and often with
wrong grammar. In a face to face conversation, they get away with this,
because the person that they are talking to 'understands' the true intent
because there are visual and implied cues from the facial expressions and
audible intonation applied to the words. When these same words are typed,
however, it becomes very easy to misinterpret the real intended meaning,
which may well have been intended to be a 'throw away' comment, or a
humourous or tongue-in-cheek one. This can then lead to heated exchanges -
like mini flame wars - that often result in ended friendships, or awkward
standoffs. I have seen it time and again when my daughters have been
involved. When you ask them what is going on, and they read out what has
been said in these exchanges, very often with the benefit of being detached
from the situation, you can understand what the unfortunate person at the
butt end of one of these exchanges was trying to say in their original post,
before it got misunderstood, and out of hand.

I certainly won't be joining any of these sites anytime soon. To be honest,
I fail to see the point of having a presence on them, except as a place to
gossip. I can't understand what the attraction is of sharing personal
information about what sort of a day you've had, and what you are doing with
your life, to all and sundry. Accepted, you can set some sort of privacy
that only makes you visible to selected people, but what's the point of that
even ? You might as well write an email each night to a copy-list of people
....

Arfa