Facebook - Friend or Foe?

As my previous post was about Twitter, I thought this time I'd turn my attention to Facebook. This was also partly inspired by a conversation I had on Twitter - someone mentioned that they didn't really want to do Facebook but that some of their friends were on it, and refused to communicate in any other way. Therefore he was forced to have an account in order to keep in touch with those people.

Now, is it just me, or does that sound like bullying? Someone who doesn't want to do a particular thing is being forced to because of the actions of others.

I can completely understand the situation and have a similar one. However, I refuse to join. In consequence I do miss out on knowing certain things and that's something I have to accept. But I wasn't interested in joining up when Facebook was all the rage a few years ago, and I have even less inclination to now. The security issues they've had worry me. The decisions they make at times worry me - notably the most recent one about the beheading videos being posted on their site. For more information on that story, see here

The main thing that irritates me about Facebook, however, is that it's made us lazy. As mentioned above, many people put their 'news' on their page and expect others to read it. It doesn't matter whether you are close family or a 'friend' - a term which seems to have very tenuous connections at times. You all get the same news. There's nothing personal for those who are closest, and that just seems  a bit off kilter to me.

Surely the way you tell a loved one something is different from the way you tell someone you've never even met, who's a friend of a friend of a friend. Don't the people who you really spend time with, or you are emotionally close to, deserve a little more attention and consideration, rather than having to go wading through comments from people they don't know in order to try and ferret out a bit of news that could have been put on an email in moments?

Now, this is all about the personal pages of Facebook. For businesses, I can see the purpose. It's a good way to keep people up to date with news and events, if you know that many of them already have FB accounts. It encourages them to interact in a way that they might not if that news was solely confined to a blog, for example. In fact, I'd be interested to hear from anyone who did have reservations about setting up a page but has done so anyway - has it been worth it?

In the meantime, a little request. Please remember that just because people aren't on Facebook doesn't mean that we don't want to hear your news, or see the funny photo you took at the weekend. We just need to be told in a different way.

Twitter for Writers

I like Twitter. I find it fun and the short attention span it requires suits me down to the ground. I have interesting and fun interactions with other people, many of whom are writer-ly types and it does rather make you feel as if you are not totally on your own after spending hours writing/researching/making notes, etc. You can just drop in, say hello, see what's going on, then come back out again.

What I don't like is being bombarded with messages to buy someone's book all the time! Tip: This isn't fun, it's not interesting, it's not polite and mostly, it's just annoying. It is also the surest way to get me to unfollow you, or not follow you at all, if I look at your tweets and see that this is all you do.

Someone put it well the other day when there was obviously a bit of a blast of this sort of behaviour going on, when she said 'Twitter this morning feels like walking through a market with all the stall holders shouting at you to buy something'.

As I say, I do like a bit of Twitter. It keeps me amused when I'm in a queue and can often give me a giggle when I'm least expecting it (like on a train whilst sat on my own yesterday...a little awkward!) and I like that. I don't like those who use it for ranting and vitriolic messages to people - whether they are well known or not. If you don't like someone, ignore them. There's no need to be nasty for the sake of it.

And by all means, feel free to mention your blog post - but not ten times a day! And feel free to let us know you have a book out - again, not ten times a day though. All this does is irritate us and make us less likely to even take a look at it, whereas a gentle hint occasionally can have the opposite effect entirely.

So, if you don't partake, you may want to give it a try. But if you do, be yourself and only let the salesman out every so often. It's much more fun that way!

Happy Tweeting!