Facebook vs Non-Facebook

[stealthify]

This is a question on how 3SGTO members feel about the current state of the 3S community and Facebook.

What is your comfort level of Facebook and community involvement?

1. I use Facebook (and am happy to connect with other 3S owners on it)
2. I use Facebook (and do not feel comfortable connecting with other 3S owners on it)
3. I do not use Facebook (but would consider using it if my chapter/3S friends were on it)
4. I do not use Facebook (and will never use Facebook)

Select the answer that best fits your comfort level of Facebook at this time. If further explanation is needed, feel free to leave your comments in a reply.

History

I've seen the community change a lot over the years. This, perhaps, transcends 3SGTO and can be applied to the Internet as a whole, as we've gone from a mostly anonymous group behind usernames to referring to other members and ourselves by actual names (Ray Pampena, Matt Monett, Chris Hill, Alan, Tony, Greg, Jeremy etc), sharing baby photos, talking politics, etc.

During this change, a lot of walls have come down. There's no denying that Facebook and social media is now prevalent around the world. Many of us use it to enhance our social life, while some absolutely avoid it.

It poses an interesting predicament for those that possess a certain attitude about personal info sharing and still prefer the anonymous way of doing things, or if this change is welcome. The results seem to vary from community to community. That is what has inspired me to pose this question to all of you.

Hopefully the answer to this poll can help many of the local chapters with their decision to fully embrace social media, or just to get an idea of how much of the 3S community they might be including/excluding.

Please be honest!

[stealthee]

I still have a Myspace from many moons again, but I absolultely refuse to use Facebook. I made an account once for less than 10 minutes. I only did it to look up information on a girl who was coming to buy parts off me. I looked around for a few minutes and realized just how stupid it was and deleted my account.

Facebook itself is too intrusive and I really don't need to know every time someone is going to the bathroom, or what they are having for dinner.

[Emilie@GZP]

I actually went through my Facebook and deleted a lot of car/3s people that I didn't know or communicate with directly on a regular basis. They don't all need to know my personal business, baby news, etc. I figure if they want to get in touch with me about car stuff, we have the shop and warehouse pages, and the 3S Facebook pages, or they can message me. There are some things I don't care if everyone sees, but my personal/family updates I prefer to keep between my family and good friends I have made over the years, and people I ACTUALLY know in real life.

I think the internet, to a degree, Facebook in particular, has become too intrusive. There is no disconnect now.

[stealthify]

Great feedback so far.

[Maximal]

I'm with Em on keeping the personal profile just that and a business Facebook page to keep in touch with the 3S people that I don't really know.

I'm pretty careful about who I add as a friend on Facebook to try to keep things private. I do my best to keep it below 200 friends which forces me to do that. I'm actually over that now so I'll probably go through and delete a bunch at some point.

[beepbeep]

It's a mixed bag with me. I use Facebook and for years kept it to just family and people I personally knew....but then, once Ninja Performance got going, so many 3S folks wanted to friend me and I felt like it would reflect poorly on us if I didn't accept them. SO then I had a bunch of 3S folks on my FB posting a lot of stuff I'm not interested in or want to know. So I deleted some. Now, I just add people I REALLY know or folks I've dealt with a good deal online and feel we have more than just cars in common. My personal life is mine, but I don't post anything online that I wouldn't want anyone to know, in general, cos I know if I post it, it's not sacred. I was just mentioning to Chris last night "How did I get 200+ friends when it was only 47 FOREVER!"
Besides, I figure with all of the 'find this dog a home' or 'be on the lookout for this lost dog' posts of mine, people will delete ME!!
Nothing can take the place of this forum, tho, because folks here understand each other in a different way than they can on FB. I kinda liken it to FB is for blood family and this forum (or any car forum) is for car family.

**edit:
That really doesn't apply to either of your choices, Shaun. I don't mind adding SOME 3S members to my FB, just not all of them.

[stealthify]

It's kind of a complex topic that the poll couldn't account for (with the different degrees of info we're willing to share), but for those willing to elaborate:

On Facebook
Just short of accepting other 3s owners as 'friends,' do each of you still feel comfortable using it to participate in 3s-related groups/pages using your real name/location/profile photo/etc?

Not on Facebook
With threads like 'The Who is You Thread', the 'We have seen pics of the cars! Now lets see pics of the owners!' thread on 3SI, Twinsen's old 3S-book/Faces of 3SI (for those that have been around long enough to remember that), etc -- what exactly do you or don't you feel comfortable sharing in particular with a community like ours? I'm trying to get a feel for where most members in today's world draw the line and/or where the level of comfort ends.

[DrGonzo]

I pretty much only add people I either know face to face, or if I converse with them a lot online. I have different groups set up and each has it's own security as to what people can and cannot see of my personal info. Granted Facebook screws up time to time so I never add anything that I wouldn't want to leak out in the first place.

I have nothing to hide really and I'm not one of those people to hide behind the internet. There is nothing I wouldn't put online that I would say in front of the rest of you anyway....

[CoopKill]

What he said ^^!

I post a lot of my passionate view on the times, but nothing I would not share/discuss/debate with anyone in person...

[93STLTH]

I have a large number of 3S Facebook friends. Sometimes, I'll see a post on my news page and go "who the f*ck is that?"
But I never give away too much personal info on my page, so I'm not too worried about who sees it. I'm mostly about posting funny pics and commenting on our idiot President.
I've seen SoCal3S and 3S of Florida go almost exclusively to Facebook pages for their club gatherings and info, but the NorCal people still mostly stick to their forum.