Gregg.Siam wrote in post #14279378
The more I read what you write, the more I know you don't have a clue. Facebook provides interaction that email and chat cannot. It allows not only you but others you would never have met to share interests and possibly meet people you would have never seen before. Email, chat and text message will never provide this.
Let me give you an example. I'm living in a foreign country and don't speak the language very well, but I share a common interest with Thai photographers. I have met more photographers on Facebook than I could have ever met in my life any other way. This has transmitted into real world friends and people that now join together on weekends to shoot. Even if we all just joined together on weekends and allowed stragglers to join at the shoot, we would never come close to what FB provides.
As to your snide comments about facebook users not being clever speaks volumes about your myopic viewpoint, bitter outlook, and also makes you a hypocrite. For starters, Google does the exact same thing. I take it you have never used Google before or ANY other search engine? Google has and always will sell your data. Your personal data is something that you control on FB. I guarantee you can only see what I want you to see. If I have your name from simply driving by your house, I can tell many more things (voting records, taxes, property ownership, criminal record, employment, etc...) about you from public records than anyone could gather from a social medial site unless you put it out there.
The overall majority of Facebook users are intelligent enough to manipulate and post parts of their lives, which is normal for anyone that lives in the digital age. They are also smart enough to limit who can see what and secure FB for those that don't want to access their data. You should probably get a grasp of reality before making derogatory remarks that make you look like an idiot.
I also find it funny and hypocritical for someone that praises a crap site like LinkedIn and bemoans about personal data being used. I would never put where I worked and who I worked with on any site. There is not one person in the history of LinkedIn that has ever gotten a job from that site. It provides nothing.
As for employers asking for passwords and searching FB profiles, those stories originated from the US. Here in Asia no one really cares what you post on FB.
My girlfriend teaches Master degree students and uses it as a tool
in addition to email, phone conversations, personal meetings, and class time. She also has a PhD. Kind of doesn't fit your derogatory sweeping generalization now does it?
I have lost track of how many businesses I have visited as a result of FB. I'm not talking the cheap ads on the side, but business pages. For example, I knew when the very first 5D MKIII's arrived in Thailand because of a vendor that posted it on their FB page. I was on the BTS going across town to see that vendor to purchase it when another (my favorite) called me to let me know they had it as well. I guarantee the vendor that posted in on FB reached FAR more people in a shorter time via FB than the other vendor did by calling customers one by one.
Your comments about most facebook users being college rejects and stupid really just shows how bitter and out of touch you are with reality. You should probably just go outside and scream at all the kids to stay off your lawn.
I was asked to sign up for a Facebook account at the start of university - and never found a use for it - eventually deleting the account.
People from my school year adding me and I don't know if I ever talked to them... - people posting random games or their drunk images from parties, plus a generally very vulgar use of language, but what does one expect of today's youth anyway?
Neither of this occurs with IM or E-Mail. But back to your reply.
Why would anybody look for people to meet online? Why not go and find a photography club? Find a forum?
Add to that, why should I have ANY interest in talking to a random person that is not introduced to me by a common acquaintance or who I meet directly otherwise (job interview, shopping at the same shop for years, etc.).
The argument that you need to hand all your personal details to a US company for potentially finding a few people with similar interests seems to me rather - ehm, idiotic.
And yes, facebook users generally communicate in vulgar ways using incorrect grammar and punctuation, that is even if they can be bothered to construct sentences in the first place.
There is a saying in mathematics - exceptions prove the rule. Maybe you find 1% who don't. But then again, you don't hand over your personal details to a US company to find the 1% of users who can communicate decently and coherently of which some potentially share an interest with you.
Now you are indeed right about google selling your information and you are indeed right about the fact that there is nothing you can do about it. However you are completely wrong (!!) if you think you have any control about what facebook does with your data. Facebook sells what they want to sell and collects what they want to collect - and happily breach EU law (by not providing access to all data they collect which they must if you ask to see it).
And I also think you are very wrong stating that you can gain a lot of information from just my name: Maybe in the US you can, but that country has virtually no privacy laws. In the EU that is a bit different. Be my guest to try if you have time.
And in terms of users controlling what people see: People could, but most people won't.
What some people might be good at is presenting an image of how they want to be seen. But again, they will be a minority.
LinkedIn - again, how can you know if you don't use it 
. At least it isn't a collection of drunk adolescents. Yes, maybe its advantage is overstated, maybe it isn't. If anything though, it offers a more professional environment. In terms of employment history, you don't have to put it on there, but for academics this is generally public anyway.
LinkedIn is a completely different environment. It also isn't a place where people don't waste your time with status updates no-one wants to see.
Having said that, I don't make any active use of it.
And about people using Facebook: I see people wasting their time on it here at university rather than thinking about their PhD, some more some less. In any way, it requires a browser that is constantly open, something neither E-Mails not forums require. You check on them when you have the time. (Or let Outlook do that for you - I only get my university emails at University and My private emails on my phone, the rest can wait.)
Lastly, thankfully there is no situation where I end up with children on "my" lawn.
- and won't ever use an apple device 
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