Facebook Is Evil and I Don't Get It

[Dziubka]

People have been going through their SO's private things way before facebook was ever invented. Going through their phone, their coat or pants pockets, because they might find hints of the other man/woman, reading their mail (snail and e-), because...? I don't know. People have been causing scenes because of a slip of paper that read "B - 964467639". Yes, it could be the signature of a book in the library their partner was looking for OR it could be Becky's phone number and surely they were having fun with Becky all day instead of studying!

I don't get it. I'm a very very curious person. I like to know everything about everything and everyone. And honestly... I'd love to read my boyfriend's e-mails and texts and everything. I'm a sick person like that. Not because I don't trust him, purely out of curiousity. But I'd never do it. I respect his privacy and I want him to respect mine.

If people's relationship get ripped apart because of drama, it's because they let it happen. People have always been irational and will always be, facebook just makes everything more public and through the internet you can wittness more people act irationally than you'd ever have in real life without the internet.

[Trethsparr]

People have always been irational and will always be, facebook just makes everything more public and through the internet you can wittness more people act irationally than you'd ever have in real life without the internet.

Totally agree. I've wondered -- more than once -- if people would have the guts to say the same things in person in front of a crowd that they're willing to post regularly on Facebook or other social networking sites.

[rubydissolution]

Oh Facebook. It hasn't really caused my SO and I much drama. I don't really stalk him, I check is fb once in a while to see if he's posted anything significant. He says if I feel insecure about any of the females on his Facebook I can feel free to check their profiles. I can honestly say I've probably done it twice, and I did feel slightly better afterwards. He has the same permissions from me to check anyone listed on my Facebook as a friend, I don't have anything to hide.

Facebook did cause a huge fight between me and my cousin a while back. I posted a comment about a friend who only really messages me when they have a problem then vanishes into the night. I mentioned that it annoyed me and my cousin more or less called me a b*tch and i should be flattered they come to me with their problems. My friends kinda jumped on her for her comments n she got mad at me for their comments. Then her sister came to her defense and my other cousins came to mine and it turned into a big ol mess.

I use fb to keep in touch with old friends that I lost touch with or stay up to date with whats happening in my family. Stalking kind of abuses the social networking thing.

[aggie]

Well, I feel obliged to take part in this conversation, since I am guilty of some things, that I am going to share with you not to be judged but to sort of give a different perspective.

I have facebook account, so does he. We use it, well, daily. And yes, I visit his profile every day and I know he visits mine too. We call it 'stalking' when we joke about it, but really, with the inconvenient time difference : i go to school when he comes back from work, and he's well asleep when I come back, we exchange few messages during the day, but we barely have time to actually focus on the 'boring convos' such as 'hows your day been' . And this is what facebook is for him, sure I don't post about every single thing I do during the day, but there's occasional photos, updates, comments, links to articles and some music - so when he sits by his computer after work he'll see what I've been up to the night before. I'd send him a message if its something really exciting or something that will particularly matter to him. Now, I am trying my best to use facebook just for that also ... to see what he's been up to, but not in a bad way, just to see what's going on. So, here's my point,
stalking your SO's page isn't exactly 'looking for drama' as many of you said or 'lack of trust' , it's rather out of interest. He usually posts some really cool music that I enjoy so why not listen to it. When we're less busy we do it the other way around - we send each other links, then talk about it, then sometimes post it for others to see. But with current schedules it's just easier this way.


I said I am TRYING to make facebook this to me, because yes, even though I'm super self confident in life, I tend to over-think things a lot. GUILTY, I know. When facebook started causing too many serious doubts and questioning 'who's that, who were you with blahblah' my SO told me that before I talk to him about something I read on facebook I should give myself 24 hours. And it did wonders to me. Even though I still get annoyed when there's a girl all over his facebook (meaning liking/commenting everything he posts, and frankly they come in 'waves' as i call it - one girl for couple of months, then a new one comes around), but after 24 hours actually explaining to myself that I have nothing to worry about, I stop. So it's not really causing any drama between us anymore. Same reaction goes if there's new photos of him that I can't see. I always think of the worst first, and then realize how stupid it is.

Even though I'm guilty of overreacting, I understand your point, how it isn't facebook that causes drama, it's the people themselves. And I agree. BUT, facebook helps quite a bit. It is easier to misinterpret things, you hardly ever know the 'whole' story, but you get bits and pieces that you can put together the way you want, and its been proved that perception of things depends on your own state of mind/mood.

As for password sharing, I agree with Eclaire on that one, I don't think it's trust. Well, maybe when you're in a CD, and using one computer and it's auto-saved then cool. But I can't imagine even asking for the password of my SO and/or bringing up an idea of sharing it. And it's not that I have something to hide, but it's just some sense of privacy. Sure, I could ask him to read a message that I just got on my phone when I'm busy doing something, but I couldn't imagine going through his phone or him going through mine. Neither would I look for 'something' in his pockets. I don't think that's what trust is about.
Plus, I have enough struggle with facebook itself, when it's THERE , popping up on my newsfeed , why would I want to go even crazier.


Ha, one more thing as I just remembered.. we werent friends on facebook for the 1st year of our relationship, but we were both on myspace sending each other comments and writing blogs for one another. I miss that. But then some people found it really entertaining to be a 'news feed' for me - they'd text me from a pub saying 'hey, I saw T. in the pub, with a girl . Aren't you guys together?' or 'Ah, he left with Jess, probably took her home' but nobody cared to tell me, yeah, the girl on the bar was actually waiting for her drink, and that 'Jess' wasn't able to walk on her own so he walked out with her and made sure she got home safe.

Also, we did try hiding the walls from each other, just to protect the unnecessary doubts, we're frequent users, so there's a lot of info on the page, but then the busy days kicked in and we were just sick not to know whats happening with the other one.

[floridaellen]

In high school I got into a reallyy big Facebook fight. Two girls were making fun of my friend calling her horrible names like a slut and a whore and I stuck up for her. But I would have done that in person too. That's the only real Facebook drama I've gotten into.

I check my SO's profile, yes, but I've never logged into his account. I just go to his page to see what he's up to. He only really posts statuses about football anyway and I like seeing what he's up to. I completely trust him; I just like to see what's going on in his everyday life.

There is one girl I hate who posts on his Facebook but she's a bad girl in general. She's sent him naked pictures (when we were on a break so it's technically okay but still) and slept with people when they have a significant other so I feel like my bad feelings towards her are justified. But I have never told him he can't talk to her. Just that I don't like her :P

[Brieasaurus]

I agree with what you all have written. I think that there's a difference between being curious and being insecure though. Back in the beginning of my relationship, I would facebook stalk my SO quite a bit (even if we were talking all day, I'd even check his facebook while skyping.. yikes) and I'll admit it, in the few times that I saw some random girl who he never mentioned to me or one that he had met at a party the night before, I would get extremely jealous and pick a fight. At that time, I thought I was being perfectly reasonable but looking back at it, I really wasn't haha. What really helped me though, was just accepting the fact that you can't control what other people comment or say because a) you don't know them, b) you don't know how they implied it, and c) they might just be quite unintelligent. Plus the whole fact that he's dating you, and not them. That being said, being curious to me is a whole different thing. Someone above me mentioned that they check out what their SO is doing if they haven't talked all day or just to see what's up with their lives, which I think is perfectly fine. It doesn't mean that person is insecure in their relationship or anything. I'll admit that I'm nosy too and like to see what my SO's friends are all up to and what my friends are up and 8 hours later, I'm still on facebook lol. The only facebook situation that I don't feel bad for is when someone's spouse is blatantly flirting with other girls all over the place and their SO "likes" those comments and then 2 minutes later starts complaining about what a bad girl/boyfriend he/she has and if someone else wants to date her/him. Even my dad complains that his friends on facebook are doing that, do people ever grow up? Haha.

[Hololz]

My SO and I both have each others fb passwords. I have NEVER logged onto his profile without his permission. He gave me his password with strict ground rules laid out. So far I believe I have never broken any of those rules. The only reason we do is so we can log into each others pages if theres something we want to show the other that one person doesnt have the permissions for, for example, when we first started dating he had a really close childhood friend whom I didnt know, so he allowed me to log in and veiw some pics just so I could put a name to a face (his profile pic didnt give much away haha). The only other time I logged in was when a girl he worked with posted a comment on his wall and for some reason it wasnt visible to me. He found what she said funny and wanted me to read it too :P We used to JOKE about him having somekind of thing for her and me being jealous because when he was on placement he talked about her non-stop lol. I was never jealous, and he only talked about what she did becuase he found his placement boring and she was the only one to do anything interesting, he let me look at her profile and it tbh all it did was turn my 99.9% trust that he wasnt doing anything with her too 100%.

HE on the other hand has logged into my profile at least once with out my permission. I only found out becuase I noticed "Holly has installed the facebook for iPhone app"... I do not have an iPhone lol. He told me he had logged into my profile the next time we talked, I didnt even need to bring it up. I wasnt mad. If I give him my password then thats a decision on my part, I have nothing to hide. If he abuses it then it was clearly an error in judgement, but so far I have no reason to believe it was.

IF it got to the point where both of checked on a regular basis then I think it would be time for a serious rethink about the relationship. I guess neither of us are jealous types so we never feel the need.

I honestly do think it is the person rather than facebook itself to blame. I know people who used to check each others texts wayyy before facebook came about.

---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 PM ----------

Although I dred to think what things are going to be like when then "timelines" are released...

[NaNi]

I've never had any kind of problems with Facebook. Well, maybe once. This weird chick from the Philippines had a crush on my SO and constantly stalked her, commented on photos and left messages. It got me so angry. But other than that? Yes, I have my SO's password, but I don't read through her messages. Why would I? I stay logged in on my account and simply check her page from time to time. Not that there's much on there. She's not using Facebook as much anymore.

[Trethsparr]

I think that there's a difference between being curious and being insecure though. Back in the beginning of my relationship, I would facebook stalk my SO quite a bit (even if we were talking all day, I'd even check his facebook while skyping.. yikes) and I'll admit it, in the few times that I saw some random girl who he never mentioned to me or one that he had met at a party the night before, I would get extremely jealous and pick a fight. At that time, I thought I was being perfectly reasonable but looking back at it, I really wasn't haha. What really helped me though, was just accepting the fact that you can't control what other people comment or say because a) you don't know them, b) you don't know how they implied it, and c) they might just be quite unintelligent. Plus the whole fact that he's dating you, and not them. That being said, being curious to me is a whole different thing. Someone above me mentioned that they check out what their SO is doing if they haven't talked all day or just to see what's up with their lives, which I think is perfectly fine.

I agree with this totally. I mean, back before I started dating my SO, I looked at his Facebook to learn about him and see what his interests were. (I even saw a picture of him with a female friend and worried that he had a girlfriend already, ha ha.) I think it's totally fine, especially if you're both daily FB-ers, to catch up on each other's goings-on, check out their shared links, etc. It can be a great way to keep in touch while being long-distance.

For me, the difference comes in where someone has their SO's password and private information, then enters their account to read their private messaging. That feels too much like snooping to me, and I don't think that's okay. I feel like a person shouldn't feel pressured to account for every communication they ever have with everyone. That, to me, is quite a few shades different than just looking at someone's public wall feed. (Not that a public feed doesn't have its own set of issues it invites, but, like you said, you "can't control what other people comment or say." I agree with your points.)

[Sierra]

I do think there's a difference between checking out your SO's Facebook page daily and stalking. I don't mean estalking in a fun, playful sense of the word, I mean OMG who is talking to now, who is that who said that on his wall and what does it mean, and more specifically I'm talking about logging into someone else's account and checking their messages and activities and what not.

I just can't imagine logging into my boyfriend's Facebook (if he had one, or his email or checking his texts) because I trust him.

I'm just curious, and now I can't remember who said it, but why is someone nervous about timelines being released? I have mine updated on my profile and don't see how it would cause drama....

[leonsfangirl]

Facebook is only a site, it's all up to the people that use it or misuse it whichever the case maybe. My So and I are both on facebook quite alot. I know his password and he knows mine (farmville is addictive!) I log in, do whatever he asks me to do then log out. If can't trust yourself with the information then don't keep it.

[Hololz]

I'm just curious, and now I can't remember who said it, but why is someone nervous about timelines being released? I have mine updated on my profile and don't see how it would cause drama....

I just feel like timelines have the potential to open a whole new can of worms, if a person is so insecure that they feel the need to read IM's etc, from what I understand (I dont have the feature yet) you will be able to see almost every activity of that person since they joined facebook, including past relationships etc. I got facebook in 2007 (when I was 15/16) and I can almost gaurentee that I have changed since that time. I dont want to read my old "broken hearted teenage girl" statuses, and tbh I'm a little embaressed that I used to post things like that, I was young and niave. I just think somethings need to be left in the past, not dug up again. Im not that kind of person anymore, and thats all my SO needs to know. I feel like they might bring up discussions and drama about things that are really not important in the present.

[Kiara]

Yeah, I wouldn't like my past status to be public either. I don't think they would cause dramas with my SO, but in general i wouldn't like it to be public! I also went trhough all my wall since the beginning just to delete all the post where my ex was mentioned because for some strange reason sometimes those past posts popped out on the right side of my friends's FB page, and I dind't like it! After I realized that, I reconsidered the way I use facebook and I'm more carefull to what I write.

[LilyChiba]

We both have facebook, but I really only use it to play games and keep up with people I don't talk to much anymore outside of that. We're not facebook official either and he rarely gets on compared to me. I've had my fair share of facebook dramas ranging from troll ex-friends to people getting butt hurt over me removing them simply because walking out of their life was better for everyone. It is getting bad how things are on them, so I monitor what I post and who to. Sad case, but its necessary these days it would seem.

[Kerry]

holy crap is there drama on fb!!! women who never met my bf or I tried to destroy our relationship. and in the end what did it get them? blocked from both of us and majorly told off. since we both blocked them- no drama for us.