Aha! It's NOT just me.

[gurdymonkey]

Everyone was doing it, you see. So I logged on for the first time. And they said, "Give us all the addresses in your email." So I stopped. Right. There. Visions of spammers and hackers danced in my head like a thousand smirky Hugo Weavings in cheap suits and dark glasses. Friends don't do that to friends. Not real friends anyway.

Then someone who is a rational, intelligent human being - or at the very least, my kind of crazy - friended me.
And somehow I tripped on a root and fell down the damned rabbit hole.  And they asked me to put my home address and phone number in my profile! Sure, that's JUST what I need.

It's weird in there. It's pointless. It's all "Here, play this game," and "Here, I saw this roll of imaginary toilet paper and thought of you." WTF? Two whole people actually asked me how I've been.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/04/29/notes042909.DTL

I don't have enough hours in my day as it is.

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

I said the same thing about Live Journal when I joined. :)
Yeah, I joined Facebook, but I already warn people, I don't have much time for games and just ignore all the requests piling up. No, I don't hit any buttons, I just IGNORE them, period. Some times something interesting pops up and I go do that, but I just glance at the list and then go back to reading what my friends are up to.
I still can't figure out twitter, but several things I do use it, so I joined and follow a few conversations.
The Mythopoeic Society does use Yahoo Groups, Live Journal, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with our members. And to encourage our members to communicate with each other. It seems to be helping.
The trick is to not even Try to Read or Do Everything. Just what gets your interest.
And yes, you CAN refuse friend requests. I do on occasion, and I've been refused on occasion too. Everyone is entitled to keep their list as small or as big as they like. And no one should have their nose bent out of shape on how someone else keeps their list. But then again, I've never played status games.

[spearweasel.livejournal.com]

Ditto this. I don't use FB for anything other than the occasional "oh, so that's what you are up to".

No need to take it as seriously as SFGate Energy Vampires guy.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Facebook apps suck. Mostly.

So the big secret: On the right of every post, if you float your mouse, a "hide" item will appear. This will allow you to hide the person (which I don't do) or, if the post is created by an app, hide the app.

I hide almost every app that posts to me. I never have to see repeats of them again.

The other big secret: Once you've hidden an app, there's an "edit options" down at the bottom of the page. Click on that and it will give you a list of all the apps you've hidden. Click on an app name and you can go to the page for the app and block it.

Blocking apps is good, it prevents you from approving an app by accident.

The last big secret: If you find yourself on an approval page for an app, click the app name. That will take you to the page for the app so you can block it.

As for useful bits?

Visit your profile page. Under the "What's on your mind" over to the right there is a little "settings" link with a gear. Click it. Import the services you like, particularly the ones that don't make you enter a password and userid for the service. I import my public flickr stream, delicious bookmarks, public livejournal posts and shared google reader blog entries.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

So if you don't like it, just don't do it.

Me, I've connected with three people from my far past that I thought I had lost forever and have leads on two more. Plus random folks I hadn't realized were missing me. Plus a branch of my family that drifted off some years back.

Chatting at a party is pointless too. We do it because it's fun. If it's not fun, we go home.