Facebook follies: To FB or not to FB...

To date, I have resisted the siren call of Facebook. Part of the reason being that, between my blog, my boards, e-mails, & just general surfing around, I think I waste -- ummm, spend??! -- enough time on the Internet as it is. ; ) Not to mention the odd game of Spider Solitaire, time spent scanning & editing photos, adding to my Family Tree Maker files, etc. etc....

However... while my company discourages employees from logging onto Facebook at work (at one point so many people were logging on at work -- & posting inappropriate content about the company (!) -- that access was blocked for awhile), they have been pilot testing an internal Facebook-type tool for employees. The trial went so well they are going to begin rolling it out company-wide. I will soon be granted access and, since I work in the communications department, I think it behooves me to get with the program. ; )

Our department director, in talking about the new program, was asking how many of us already used Facebook, & quite a few hands went up -- mostly the younger employees, of course, but apparently he does, as well as one of the senior managers. (Both of them, of course, are parents of teenagers...!) So I am thinking that maybe I should give it a whirl, so as not to appear completely ancient (or at least, more ancient than I already seem...), & perhaps to get some experience before getting access to the company version.

Those of you on Facebook -- what are the pros? the cons? What privacy controls are available that you would recommend to a newbie?

Time considerations aside, my reservations about Facebook also have to do with putting myself "out there" -- and having worlds collide. While I've shared some personal information through this blog, I've tried to keep it relatively non-specific. My family & friends IRL do not know I blog -- & I'd like to keep it that way. : ) On the Internet, my main communities revolve around pregnancy loss, infertility and scrapbooking. You all know about my scrapbooking interests, but I have not said much on my scrapbooking forums about my loss & infertility-related activities online.

Even beyond the IRL/Internet divide -- my life has been pretty compartmentalized. Having lived in so many places, I have sets of friends from the different places I've lived & gone to school, friends from our pg loss support group, friends & acquaintances from different places I've worked (including my present co-workers), my extended family members, dh's relatives.... possibly even fellow bloggers/IF/loss board people & scrapbookers -- all people who could theoretically converge on my Facebook page & learn about parts of my life they may not have known about me before this.

It's not that I have anything top secret to hide... but at the same time, I'm just not sure how much I want my co-workers (or my inlaws!!) to learn how I got the nickname "Moody Blue" at university. That kind of stuff.

Is this something that concerns any of you as well? How do you deal with this? Do you have to use your real name on Facebook? Is it possible to have two accounts, one with your real name & one with your Internet ID?

Hmmmm.....

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Proof that I am a technical dinosaur:

• I can remember when we had to use a rotary antenna to tune in the few TV stations we got.
• I was in high school when we got cable TV (which included about a half-dozen TV stations, as opposed to the three we got before that, and the one I lived with for the first 14 years of my life).
• I remember getting a cassette tape recorder & how much fun we had with it, taping "shows" where we sang, chatted & told jokes. (I still have some of those tapes. They are roll-on-the-floor-laughing-until-you-cry hilarious.)
• As I mentioned in my post about the Osmonds recently, I remember using the cassette recorder to tape TV shows, pre-VCRs (you'd just set up the microphone by the TV speaker & hope nobody talked too loud in the background).
• My journalism school class (1984) was the first to use computers (a very primitive program... we also had to share a printer, which involved disconnecting & connecting cables on the wall).
• When I first started work at my company (in 1986), I had an IBM Selectric typewriter on my desk. The department shared two Xerox PCs in a common area (besides the two used by the secretaries). We used a program called WordStar & saved our drafts on 5.25" floppy diskettes.
• Eventually we "graduated" to IBM PS/2 computers & WordPerfect. (We now use Word.)
• There was one fax machine in the entire 10-storey building I was in. If we needed to fax something, we would go upstairs & sweet-talk the secretaries there into letting us send it. If somebody needed to fax something to us, we would give them that number, and ask the secretaries there to call us when it arrived, so we could come pick it up.
• When we had to send a document out for approval, we would pop it into the interoffice mail and then sit back & wait a few days for it to be returned. If it was really urgent & the person was close by, we would walk it over.
• I can remember when music videos were a novelty. About the only time you could watch them was once a week, late on Friday nights after Johnny Carson & the Tonight show ended. (I also remember seeing MTV for the first time. They played Madonna's "Borderline" & "Like a Virgin" endlessly.)
• I still have all my vinyl albums & 45s.
• We only got a CD player about five years ago, and a DVD player about 3 years ago.
• I have never had a Sony Walkman, let alone an iPod.
• I did have a really cool looking Panasonic transistor radio that my uncle gave me for Christmas when I was 12. I would turn it on when I was supposed to be asleep & listen to it with the earphone, twisting the dials. On a clear night, from my bedroom in southwestern Manitoba, I could sometimes tune in WSTP Minneapolis and WLS Chicago.
• I have never sent a text message on my cellphone.
• I do not understand why people think it is necessary to talk on their cellphones in public places as if they were sitting in their living rooms.
• I have never been "into" video/PC games (unless you count Tetris -- I once stayed up until 2 a.m. playing that...!).
• I may be considering Facebook, but I can't see myself signing up for Twitter (but never say never, I guess...!).

Proof that I am not THAT bad:

• This blog. : )
• I have been posting on bulletin boards for a number of years now.
• I can scan & edit photos on my PC.
• I am transferring over my genealogical research into a family tree program.
• I am fairly competent in Word, although I still miss WordPerfect sometimes. : )
• I took a course in Excel (although I rarely use it & consequently have forgotten almost everything I learned...!).
• I can do simple PowerPoint slides (with text bullets).
• I do almost all of my banking online these days.
• I am generally not afraid to try new things on the computer or online... I just like to gather a lot of information before venturing into new territory.
• I do have a cellphone and although it is rarely turned on, it does come in handy.
• I know how to input numbers into its directory & how to change the ringtone. : )
• Consolation: I may never know as much as my nephews do... but I will always know more than my mother. : )