Facebook for Me

(Picture Credit - Wiki)

Most of my writing is in the form of poetry and blogs. However, I most frequently "write" directly on the Web. I usually access the Internet on my laptop. Don’t have a Smartphone or whatever. First I check my emails. Then I go onto Facebook: apparently the largest social-networking site in the world.

I access the Internet anything from 2 to 8 times per day. Mainly I spend time on “Facebook”. It is my “Home” on the web. Home Sweet Home.

Recall being on Bebo at one time, but nothing came of that. In fact that site has vanished. Same with MySpace, though that site soldiers on. Am on Twitter too but very few of my real life friends are on that and I cannot find much of interest.

Of course, from about 2010 onwards I spent most of my time on the Triond Forum, where I could “chat” endlessly, but that closed down a few years back.

Apparently I have 128 “Friends” on Facebook which is quite modest, especially compared with the youngsters. On Triond I currently have 780 “Fans”. Some of my Facebook friends are relatives and others are people I know from my childhood, from work and from table tennis. Others are writers I have met on the Internet, including Triond. There is a Facebook Page called “The Triond Forum Gang” which I keep tabs on.

Tonight on Facebook I made a simple open comment: on a UK TV quiz called “Pointless” I was very surprised at their “poll” results on who recognised pictures of certain “Lionels”. Lionel Blair (an old dancer) polled 87%, Lionel Jefferies (actor) 30% and the great footballer (“soccer”) Messi was recognised by only 27%!!! A female friend of mine replied by sharing a funny piece in which football on the media was replaced by “architecture”. In other words, football might interest me but not necessarily the general public. Nice bit of banter there.

Like Triond, of course, Facebook has a Private Messaging or “Chat” system. This is particularly useful to get round out-of-date or faulty emails etc. In fact I use Facebook Chat before trying an email now.

Another good feature on Facebook is that you can “Like” certain “Pages” and receive regular updates from them on your “Main Wall”. So I get updates from my favourite football clubs, from my local newspaper, astronomy pages and so forth. There are Pages like “Beautiful Planet Earth”, “Love Emotion” (now sadly gone), “Dog Lovers” etc. which provide stunning images and touching stories. I can Share all these with my friends too.

Also, if I wish, I can write “Notes”, take photos, make videos and share them all with my friends or the public. As I write this, my table tennis friends have just shared a BBC story about a lad who has no arms but plays using his mouth. I admitted I play with my mouth too, which caused some more banter.

On Facebook there are quite a few Pages where you can post your poems, e.g. “Poetry Zone”. There are also MANY “games” available like “Candy Crush Saga” but I avoid these like the proverbial.

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is by no means perfect. Our UK TV presenter Jeremy Kyle HATES Facebook because people can have horrible arguments on it (then they appear on his show to sort things out). Any social-networking system requires its participants to behave well.

I have chosen my Facebook friends quite carefully and they happen to be a friendly bunch.  

Another gripe is that now and then Facebook try to improve things by introducing new pages, features etc. to cause confusion. But I guess most websites are guilty of this. 

Some of my older real-life friends won’t use Facebook or anything else on the web, which is a shame. I’m happy with Facebook, until such time as something better comes along.

Paul Butters