For me Facebook is a great way to communicate with family and friends that I don't see on a regular basis. I text or email family or friends with things of a more personal nature, but on Facebook I let them know what I am doing, where I am going and what I am eating. My severe hearing impairment has made these kinds of communication necessary.
I also just love Facebook ! Like @Lon Tanner , it is how I keep in touch with my family and friends (although I am not one of those people who posts what they are having for dinner), and post things occasionally. Facebook Marketplace is a great place to buy and sell items, and there are also Facebook Online Yard sale groups. One group that I belong to is for lost and found pets in our area, and you can report lost animals to help the owners find them again, or get the word out if you happen to lose your own pet. I really enjoy Facebook Groups, and there is a group (or maybe a 100 groups) for just about anything you are interested in. I belong to several of the North Idaho groups, as well as history groups, and enjoy reading what is going on back in my home area. Another thing that I belong to is health groups, and I enjoy reading how other people have dealt with similar issues, and also ones who are on a low-carb or ketogenic diet. There are lots of political groups, so I follow several of those, and also Trump supporters and Q-Anon groups. Besides those, I belong to several Christian groups, and a few of the Flat Earth groups; so there is really a lot that I am reading and learning on Facebook each and every day, besides just checking in on my friends and family.
@Lon Tanner We here in Laughlin/Bullhead City use a spin-off of FB called "Laughlin Buzz". When my wife joined it had 500 members; now 6 years later almost 6,000! They write from around the world, London and Canada being most common. Some folks come here several times a year; many Canadians spend the entire winter here. Frank
Yes, that is right up there, along with smoke signals, Hal. (It WAS revolutionary at one time, you are right about that part. )
Since my graduation class of 1968 started a FB page 5 years ago, for a Class Reunion, I've been on it since. My wife's oldest sister is on it as well. Love posting pictures and doing the "Throwback Thursday" and "Flashback Friday" thing in photos. There are folks, like our one niece, that doesn't like FB and that is entirely up to her/them.
If you have SeniorsOnly Club what more do you want? Didn't want to and didn't need to follow the crowd. I disliked Zuckerberg's approach of making people pay with too much personal information for a service they do not necessarily need. Have always been using alternative platforms and never felt I'd missed out on something because I was not on FB.
I joined FB a couple of years ago. After a family gathering my sister emailed me an invite and I accepted. I mostly keep up with what the younger generation in our family is doing.
]If you have Seniors Only Club what more do you want? Seniors Only Club does not take care of all my communication needs.
I just heard yesterday that the Japanese, in discussions with several other nations, are discussing the establishment of a new computer interface network to replace the Internet. The internet was originally a military network developed for the U.S. military that was opened to the public in the 1990s, but the WWW is basically a GUI (Graphical User Interface) overlay, and is what most people are familiar with. The new network supposed would be designed for the "WEB" from the ground up and perhaps would have a different address system. A co-worker of mine from years ago did computer graphics and animation as a hobby, and he envisioned a system with a 3-dimensional overlay of the universe in which you would simply click on a location and would be connected there, and written in VRML instead of HTML, as is currently done on the WWW. I don't know if that is what is envisioned by the Japanese, but it will be interesting to see if anything is developed. Allegedly, the new system would not have the "Dark Web" which is supposedly 85% of the Internet now. It was said that Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. would be similar to having a landline phone now. We'll see, as they expect this to be reality in less than ten years.
Agree. And I don't agree with Zuckerberg's ability to moderate and remove content... especially conservative voices.
I use Facebook daily. While this is an awesome forum, I agree with Lon .. it's not enough for my social needs. You can use Facebook responsibly and not get caught up in all the nonsense that some like to insist everyone will be subjected to. I've been on Facebook for 10 years and have never had a problem ... maybe it's because of my settings and my ability to stay within the lines and not click on things just because it's there. I use it for communication with friends and family and also to play some really fun and relaxing games.
I don’t like that Facebook does this , either; but the fact is that Facebook is a privately held company, and not a public one, and that means that the CEO can make whatever rules he wants, and we can either use Facebook on his terms, or not use it. I belong to several of the patriotic facebook groups, and the Trump support groups, so it is distressing that facebook is closing down groups that Zuckerberg does not agree with politically, and I am hoping that a conservative and patriotic alternative for facebook would be developed. Several have started, but as far as I know, none have gotten enough response to make them viable as an alternative for facebook. I use facebook more for the groups that I belong to, than for personal use; so it distresses me that groups can be closed down on facebook, and we have no definite other place for people to form a group that is similar. You can really learn a tremendous amount from the input to these groups.