Friday, April 6, 2012

"F" is for Facebook

Ah, Facebook.

We have a love-hate relationship, you and I.

You're a great way to stay in touch with friends and family from a distance; share photos, news, and experiences; plan trips; meet other like-minded people; and even network for business.  I've met some other amazing authors this way, and keep in touch with the writing community.

You're also a giant horrible time-suck.

This is what you do...


That black spot in the center? If you squint really hard, you can see me flailing around as I check my timeline to see what some crazy person I haven't talked to in years is complaining about (but won't unfriend because I'm a creepy stalker); sift through game requests for Blitzy Farm Mafia Words; scroll to see what my friends are doing and if it's more interesting than what I have going on; and laugh at people who forgot to log out, leave their computer on, and instead get "hacked," i.e. some enterprising friend finds their open page and and posts about their unsuspecting friend's undersized genitals.  

But, for sheer entertainment and connectivity value, you're mostly a good thing.  Like, 70%.  That's a C, Facebook.  A passing grade, at least. 

All of this said, I would be missing an opportunity to mention that I have a Facebook author fan page, and I'd love it if you'd stop on over and give me a "like."  I update on blog entries, things I'm writing, and writing news in general, and love to interact with you and read your posts.  There's a link on the right side-bar, but since I'm feeling generous today, here's the link.  https://www.facebook.com/sarahallanauthor

xoxo Sarah

7 comments:

  1. Facebook is a great way to connect with people. I work in the evenings and on weekends so I love Facebook as a way to keep in touch with my friends who don't work my same schedule.

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    1. I completely understand! It's a great way to catch up when your own human time-lines don't match up.

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  2. Facebook is a huge time-suck, very true but I think lately, I've started to spend more time on blogger and twitter.

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  3. Not that this makes me cool, but I'd been "socially networking" for years using nerdy things like message forums and, um *newsgroups.* (I swear I'm not THAT old but nerds have been doing this "computer stuff" for awhile). ANYWAY, facebook definitely opened the floodgates to EVERYONE getting online. But think about it, that was only about 5 years ago that facebook became everyone's new "addicting" pasttime (personal rant: shouldn't it be addictive?!).

    Since my friend's timelines have been overtaken by sonograms and pictures of cake-mashed-faced kids, with maybe only a side shot of their arm in their profile, I've pretty much migrated away from that toward twitter, which I find far more entertaining and enriching. But I try to peek in on facebook specifically to visit author pages, band pages and other things that are doing more of the social network aspect than water-cooler gossip about who's starting another mommy blog.*

    *no offense to mommy blogs. But if I've friended you on facebook, I've friended YOU, not your mommy blog.

    Sorry for so much ranting. I'm glad all the mommy's have a place to post their potty training stories. OK I swear I'm done!

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    1. I also spend a lot of time on Twitter...the connectivity is instantaneous on there, too. And I totally agree about the mommy-blog stuff...yeah. Rant all you want, my dear!

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  4. I cope with facebook better than twitter. I have two accounts. One for writing friends and it has an author page. The other is for family and friends in my other life. It works better that way for me.

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    1. That's a great way to do it! I have a personal profile as well as the author page, and I usually don't cross-post much at all. I'm making sure to post the blog posts on both, though...never know who will be interested. :-)

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