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Comment on Facebook considered harmful for adults (a letter from my aunt)

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Maybe it's just my own raging adulthood, but I don't get the joke here, much less see what would cause you to fall off your bed laughing.

She fears that her computer may be vulnerable to hackers, and believes that Linux users are more likely to be sophisticated computer users who "know what they are doing." Both sound like reasonable assumptions to me.

She finds it creepy that someone she hardly knows went to the bother to look for her on Facebook, and then attempted to "Friend" her. Once again, I have to agree. Speaking only for myself, I tend to take a Groucho Marxian position, and think that anybody who actually wanted to "Friend" me on Facebook must be such a loser as to be someone I'd never actually want to be friends with, and conversely, all of my real friends know me well enough to communicate with me through other, more appropriate channels.

So, tell me: what's so funny? Unless what you mean is really "Facebook considered pointless by adults", in which case I have to concur.

So, tell me: what's so funny?

That innocent childhood naivety ("Mom! This looks scary!") coming from a very unusual source.

I'm 29, an age where a few of my friends "grew up" online, and a lot of them did not. It's remarkable to see the behavior of those that "did not": they tend to have really different attitudes toward things like sharing photos and exposing information about their lives to people. Social network "Friends" are a great example of this: people that grew up "offline" tend to treat the social network friend links like true friend connections, but "online" people tend to assign social network "friend" status to acquaintences.

Someone that grew up "online" might really find the "offline" behavior amusing or endearing, particularly when accompanied by such a dose of tech-antisavviness.

Counterpoint: I grew up "online" but ended up with somewhat severe sociopathic tendencies -- I go to lengths that surprise myself in order to keep my real and online names disassociated.

I am 29 as well, and have also noticed the odd gap between people who found the "social" web before MySpace and those who found it after (all those facebook kids!). I almost want to say it's possibly a "generational," phenomena, but probably not.

Maybe it's more or less cliquish. The machine built before the hype machine is much more elegant.

Facebook does remind me of a data mining monster. And being that it was "founded" by one who is younger than me, I can't say I trust it any further than it can be metaphorically thrown.

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