Inevitably the people you don't want to hang around will spend their time stalking you and leaving messages on your wall, while you spend your time stalking and putting stuff on the walls of people who don't want to hang around you but were dumb enough to accept your friend request. Also, those apps that spam emails to all your friends are annoying as hell. I don't give a flying fuck if some kid I vaguely knew in high school got an e-wedgie, and I'm not interested in adding the e-wedgie app to my profile...

BortimusPrime:

Inevitably the people you don't want to hang around will spend their time stalking you and leaving messages on your wall, while you spend your time stalking and putting stuff on the walls of people who don't want to hang around you but were dumb enough to accept your friend request.

Huh. I guess your experience is different than mine. I don't friend people I'm not interested in talking to on some level. I generally don't post things on people's walls whom I don't hang out with on a regular basis!

BortimusPrime:

Also, those apps that spam emails to all your friends are annoying as hell.

True that! But most of my circle of friends has learned to skip the "spam your friends" option when using the applications, so I don't get that many. Except for the Lil Green Patch from all my overly environmental friends.

Facebook ! They should call it Shitbook ! 

Or Faceshit.

One or the other.

Shitfaced - Your condition when people discover the pics of your exploits you uploaded to Facebook while on a drinking binge.

You people just need to learn how to use it. It's quite simple to set up the privacy settings so that certain people can view certain things on your profile.

True dat. I actually like Facebook, especially once I figured out how to take control. I've learned to ignore friend requests from people I don't know (or like), and don't have a problem dropping someone who's posting nasty things on my page. They don't get notified when they've been dropped. Of course the mom in today's column will probably notice immediately, but oh well.

After years of estrangement, I unwittingly accepted my brother's request to be my friend on Facebook. Big mistake! I wanted to reconcile and try to start over. He had other ideas. He trashed me on Facebook and told a bunch of lies about me. He also found out about my business and my blog and trashed my name on those sites too. I quickly defriended him and set my account to private. Then I got everyone's private email addresses and shut it down for good. My girlfriend is trying to convince to set another one. We know how to use the settings and besides my brother wreaking havoc, I enjoyed being on Facebook overall, so I may just set up another account.

This is exactly why I never befriend someone I don't know and always exchange a couple messages with someone who I'm unsure about. Also, Facebook has a pretty easy "delete" button should things get out of hand.

the nature of a mother daughter relationship should preclude the mom "pranking" the daughter with facebook comments. that something kids do to each other.

the problem with facebook, and all videogames, is that it subtracts time from the real world. online friendships are time better spent in face to face relationships.

i know a lot of online denizens will disagree. but remember the CB radio craze? people actually thought they had CB friends too. look at how that went away.

PhysicsGirl:

I don't friend people I'm not interested in talking to on some level. I generally don't post things on people's walls whom I don't hang out with on a regular basis!

I thought I'd really accomplished something when more than half of my "friends" weren't relatives. Then I added more relatives.

With the younger generation, I rarely leave comments on the walls. I've been know to send private messages to the younger ones to ask what they were doing on Facebook at 1am on a school night, though.

I do agree with you that the facebook apps are pretty dumb. Maybe the LW could leave facebook and communicate with friends the good old fashioned way---e-mail and AIM.