Thursday, May 26, 2011

Even EHV-1 Has a Facebook Page



I recently stumbled upon a Facebook page for EHV-1 at this link.

I asked myself, "Am I the only person in the world who has not joined Facebook? For heaven's sake, even a virus has its own Facebook page. Am I not better than a virus? Shouldn't I have a Facebook page?"

I know I'm not the only living Facebook holdout but our numbers are declining.

I have nothing against Facebook, but I hesitate to join for these reasons:
  1. My free time is severely limited. Will I have time for Facebook?
  2. It really annoys me when I'm buried in work at the office and I see co-workers around me killing time on Facebook.
  3. It bugs me that Facebook insists that members sign up with their real name, threatening expulsion from the community if they choose a pseudonym. (I started to join, but changed my mind when I read this rule.)
Perhaps I should give Facebook a try.  I don't know. I keep getting invitations to join and I feel bad that I'm ignoring them. I'm receiving more and more invitations from equestrian friends and horse professionals. Will I miss out on some good information if I don't join? It's not that I don't want to be "friendly", I'm just not sure I want to give up my privacy and give into the Facebook frenzy.

I wonder how long I can hold out. If I join, will I forever be stuck in Facebook's database, even if I delete my profile? Will it consume my life? How long can I remain "friendless"? I just read this article:

You Have No Friends - Everyone else is on Facebook. Why aren't you?

A few months ago, I said I would never want an eReader such as a Nook or a Kindle. I would miss the feel of holding a real book in my hands and turning the pages with my fingers. Reading a book electronically just didn't seem right. But I decided to consider it.  Now I own a Nook Color and I'm hooked on eReading.  I like to read and now easily carry umpteen books with me in my purse and read just about anywhere, even in the dark.

I can be assimilated.
   
I hear of horses who have their own Horsebook on Facebook. But I can't see any of them because I'm not a member. 
  
Does your horse have a Horsebook page on Facebook?
Do you find Facebook to be a benefit or a burden?
   
Hmmm? I'll have to think about it some more.

13 comments:

  1. I don't do Facebook or any other social networking site - blogging is enough for me, and I don't need any more distractions/time sinks.

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  2. I use facebook to keep in touch with family. Lately even avoiding that!

    I also have a facebook page for Mid-Michigan Collies - my kennel.

    What annoys me is the constant requests from my "Friends" to play this game or that game. Not to mention the virus'.

    Avoid FB if you can is my advice.

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  3. I know several people who aren't on facebook, you are not alone! I also know tons of people that use pseudonyms. When I first joined years ago it did consume a lot of my time but the novelty wears off, especially if you have a busy life. I do like some aspects of it - I recently had a reunion with some girls I haven't seen since high school. It was a lot of fun and wouldn't have happened without facebook.

    I had Hazel on dogbook for awhile but didn't keep up with it, she has more friends than I do anyway ;)

    I do hate when people invite me to events only through facebook - most of the time I don't get the message on time or I forget about it until it's too late, whereas I wouldn't have forgotten a phone call.

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  4. I've been invited to join Facebook by a lot of people and I refused. I feel there is already enough personal information out there and I don't need more of my privacy invaded. It's a time killer too.
    Blogging once in a while and trying to keep up with blogger friends is plenty to keep me busy.

    Another thing that keeps me away from Facebook is the fact that anyone can look you up and get in touch. My feeling is that if I wanted to look up someone to contact I would, at my discretion, not theirs. Sounds unfriendly I know, but if I want to see what high school friends are doing (and I don't) I'd look them up.

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  5. I love Facebook as I can keep in contact with friends in other countries more easily but it does take up a lot of time some days. I don't do the games or other apps - I think that is where you get hacked.
    If you don't want to do it don't. There's only so much time in the day.

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  6. You can set your facebook to not be open to the whole world, you can block the stupid stuff and can set your contact info to the bare minimum. So its not that intrusive. I dont put anything very personal on it, but its a cute way to check in with cousins and extended family I dont talk to much. Real life is in blog land! Give it a try just with a few people.

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  7. No Facebook for me either. No. Nope. No. I want my life to be just that, mine. And nothing about my life is so important or so snazzy that I need to report it to the world. I just don't want to be tethered like that. And ditto what GHM said. I've trained my email program to tag all FB invites as junk. Ha!

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  8. There are a lot of pros and cons with social networking sites. I love that I have been able to connect with family, high school & college kids, former students that I haven't seen in years. I feel closer to them since friending them and getting a peak at their lives. I don't like that my data is out there - kinda like my underwear: it's clean and only a bit tattered, but I really don't want just anyone to see it!

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  9. Thanks for the good opinions and info. I'm still thinking about it using Facebook minimally, if I can figure out how to do that.

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  10. I use facebook to connect with my very large family. Our kids post all of the photos and video of our grandkids on their pages and they asked that we join so that they can upload them all once. We put every privacy setting they have on and so it is designed to only put the info we want to see and share only the info we want to share. It doesn't suck very much of time at all. The first few days it might because you're setting it up and reading about everyone else and your friends are happy to see you so they're writing all the time, but they lose interest! haha. ;) Also, my horse friends have pages for our coffee dates and we our horse information. It actually makes communication between groups much easier.

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  11. I am on Facebook, and at first spent a lot of time there. Now I don't ever get on it, but I do check news feeds on my phone every couple days. It can be time consuming if you let it. Then there are some annoying things, like when your friends play farmville, and it automatically posts those friends of yours that play it on your news feed and it takes up tons of space. I don't do the games and it is annoying to me.
    But it is a great way to hook back up with friends from high school or old work friends that you haven't seen or talked to in ages. That is a definite plus!

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  12. Yes, you must get on FB and then make sure to 'friend' me. My FB badge is on my blog:)

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  13. It's tempting. I almost signed up last night, but really don't want to sign up under my name. I thought I'd try something like a fan page associated with my blog, but I think I need an account first. Arghh...I go back and forth.

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