I have a similar issue maintaining this blog—I want to update it often enough that people bother to check it, but I am also very selective about what I share. You’ll read plenty about some of the projects I am working on, home improvement, things I am thinking about, plans for the future, along with some random photos here and there, but I want to leave the fun stuff for sharing in person. That said, I do love to share teaser photos and I have no plans stop barraging you with those. And one thing I must clarify, I think it's pretty neat to read about someone's amazing trip while they're on it, but I find it much more interesting to read a detailed blog entry than a 1-line facebook post. When I have time on a trip to jot down some notes (usually the case with my trips to Canada), I enjoy knowing my friends are following along and reading about the trip in more detail than I would probably ever provide in person. If this cheapens the experience for you, let me know, but I like the thought of an electronic diary/blog I can look at in the future. I can't say I would do the same with 1-line facebook posts.
Speaking of cheapening the experience, let's talk about birthday wishes. It used to be that the only way to wish a person ‘Happy Birthday’ was to physically be with a person. Then it evolved to cards via mail, then telephone and finally email. Now it is evolving to text messages. As impersonal as the last two are, at least people remembered it was your birthday and thought enough about you to recognize your day. Now, even the effort to remember is not needed as facebook does it for you. I think facebook sort-of cheapens the whole birthday experience, but that’s just me.
There are other things about facebook that annoy me but I will leave those to the words of Mark Granovetter in his book "The Strength of Weak Ties:"
"Now, with Facebook and similar applications, we have reached a stage where it isn’t just about ‘having friends’ but ‘appearing to be friends’ not just to ourselves but to others in the network. Such applications then work against us. They reduce what could have possibly grown to strong ties to weak ties because little effort is made beyond connecting over applications like Facebook – it is just that easy. The sadder thing would be if existing friendships become reduced because instead of making the effort to meet up and really talk and spend time together, we put that off because being able to connect over Facebook deceives us by making us feel that the existing state of the friendship is healthy and that amount of interaction is sufficient. Weak ties help spread information to individuals that are not accessible via strong ties. The problem to me is that while Facebook becomes an effective tool to manage those connections with people that are weak ties, it also creates the danger of making more ties weak."
You will still find me post on facebook on a rare occasion, but it’s more likely going to be some funny piece of nonsense that made me laugh on my way to the grocery store. Oh, and next time I post a vacation photo, it will have a fat watermark so my photos aren’t stolen* and sold to photostock!! *-and I must clarify here, to say photos are ‘stolen’ on facebook is totally inaccurate—in the terms and conditions of your facebook account you have agreed that Facebook Inc. has exclusive rights to anything you post—your words, pictures and data sent through any application used through their site. I get a kick out of people's anger when they find a photo of themselves with their friends being used in a marketing piece or hanging on the wall in a model home...It is legal for them to sell your photos to photo databases, which in turn sell your photos to companies for marketing.
I will leave you with this funny piece of facebook commentary:
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