Conversation, Community, and Facebook

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by blueerica

Funny you say that. I'd say because our lives have taken us in other busy directions. I have much less attention to give, which is nice about FB, it doesn't require attention.

For me, I read LoT all the time, but hardly post because I either don't have the time or the emotional energy to put together the type of thoughtful post I feel the LoT deserves. That or someone has already posted my sentiments.

Maybe if I just change my attitude about what LoT deserves or doesn't deserve, I'd be a lot more active. I care a great deal more about the people on here than the people I have on Facebook.

Hmmm...

^What she said.

In my case, life took some unexpected turns, many of which severely limited my opportunities for real-world interactions. I've never stopped caring about anyone here, nor stopped reading all of the comments. More than anything, I just didn't want to be the person always posting something negative, and for quite some time, there wasn't a lot of positive in my life to post about. Rather than be a downer all the time, I felt it best to just lurk.

Thankfully, although my situation hasn't improved as much as I would have liked, my attitude and perspective have, and sometimes that's the best you can do. I do appreciate Facebook for keeping me up to date on the lives of friends that I care deeply about, many of whom post on LoT, but I really miss our old interactions as well, and I miss all of you. I'm simply grateful that LoT still exists, because it still feels far more like a genuine community than anywhere else I've found online.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Still lurking (remotely from USVI)

[€uroMeinke]

I think flippy had a good observation in that you really don't meet people on FB, rather you meet people in other situations and then add them to FB.The only place to "meet" is through comments of mutual friends, but unlike a message board or live journal, you really get no insight about those other people.

Why we aren't here? I think FB still is the fastfood of online interactions, it's easy to skim and make non-committal responses and feel like you're actually connecting with the people you know. It's too easy.

But I definitely feel a gap - perhaps those folks a google can figure that one out and make us google + again?

[Strangler Lewis]

Well, sure, but I think we'd want to slowly circle in on it with our cursor and actually delay, delay delay clicking it, and it sounds like none of us has time for that.

[€uroMeinke]

Today's musing on this topic, I wonder how anonymity played a role in building a sense of community. Before Facebook we were all screen names and pseudonyms. Sure that allowed for trolls and dicks of all flavor, but it so enable people to share a bit more intimately about themselves and build connections that otherwise wouldn't be possible. I know post Facebook I'm more cautious about what I post there and elsewhere since our online lives have become more public and searchable.

[innerSpaceman]

The anonymity of the internet has always allowed for people to say and do things they would NEVER in real life, and hide behind that. But I don't think that was the reason behind the old-school internet "handle" that everyone used for their email addresses and on message boards. I think that was all just for fun, to have a nickname in the internet world. It was affectionate, and I sort of miss it ... but I welcome the more grown up internet universe where I'm simply my real name on Facebook and my email address is myrealname@gmail.com.


The internet offers a sense of anonymity whether we use our real names or not. Everyone here knows who I am - yet I often hit the enter button before realizing it's something I would and should never say to anyone I.R.L.

So I don't think we hid behind the handles. I think we hide behind the keyboard no matter what.

[katiesue]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

.
So I don't think we hid behind the handles. I think we hide behind the keyboard no matter what.

Absolutely agree with this.

[Moonliner]

I'm careful about who I say things to more than what I say. I need a place to vent about my work, wife, life without it getting back to them. The anonymity of the LoT is good for that.

And on that note, Goddammit woman, it's just a few damn bushes. Yes the homeowners association cleared things out without getting a vote, yes it was more natural and beautiful before but it's over. It was over last friciking year. I don't need to hear about it every damn day.

Ahh, I feel better already.

[katiesue]

Facebook doesn't have the community feel. And maybe it was being anonymous here at first then easing into knowing people better that makes it more of a community feel. I know I lurked for a very long time before testing the waters.

The other Facebook things that don't work for discussions for me are the feeds moving so fast. So if say someone posts something actually interesting that I want to comment on but I don't have time then. It's very hard to go back later and remember what it was. Also a lot of the time here the initial post or subject may be something I think I'm not interested in. But the later posts and comments either change my mind or have morphed into something good. With Facebook I'd never know that because if I didn't comment on the initial post I can't really follow it.

Also their constant changing of things and the inability to ever just get all the posts people make to show up in your feed is frustrating. No matter how many settings I change I still miss things.

Just thought of this one too. LoT is sorted by category. I can choose what things I want to look at. I'm pretty sure I've never opened the cute animal thread. Not my thing, not really interested so it's ignored by me. I don't have to weed through a billion meme's and other crap to look for actual posts. I'm on a bunch of diabetic parent groups on Facebook. But even there it's so difficult to go back and find information. Or look just for threads with information that's pertinent to me without reading all the posts.

Also people here can write complete sentences and words. Heck most of us can even hit the return for paragraphs and use grammar most of the time. Some of the posts on Facebook can be almost unreadable.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I think the other factor is not just the kind of audience, but knowing who your audience is. Even on the larger more "public" message boards we used to inhabit, there was a certain level of confinement. Your posts were unlikely to be seen out of that precise context, and the people coming to see that post explicitly chose to enter that context. Facebook, everything bleeds all over the place, all context bleeds together, there is no separation, you can never feel certain about the eventual audience. It makes it a) difficult to be as open and b) difficult to focus your message.