I’m approaching a touchy subject here…Facebook.
My husband and I have been convicted not to use Facebook. It’s a decision many of my friends have not liked but it’s our conviction and a way of protecting our family. I found a great article which I found to be very balanced about Facebook and infidelity. Read it for yourself, but it states that Facebook is just like the phone or the internet. If you go looking for trouble you often find it. Facebook can lend towards infidelity when those who use it are more interested in the past than in the future. It also states that people sin, not Facebook or the computer or the phone. These avenues, I believe, make our desire to stray available at our fingertips. But, like I also stated, I believe where there is a will there is a way. Safeguards are important and necessary as each is led.
I liked the article. We will still choose not to use Facebook as an example to our kids of our choice to go against society and follow God’s prompting in our lives but I feel more balanced now in how I look at one of the social tools of our age.
Most people feel Facebook rocks. What about you?
If you’ve never tried Facebook, it is simply an email and mini-blogging system where you are plugged in to “friends”, which are just people you know. I guess you can use it for infidelity, but I don’t really know how — or maybe I don’t know what is meant by infidelity. I guess you’re worried that someone might try to find old boyfriends or girlfriends?
I am on Facebook and so is my wife. We are “friends” so she can see who all my other friends are and what I post and each time I connect with a new person. In fact, every post except private messages are broadcast. Facebook is not very private, so it is hard to keep things from your friends. If you want to, then you would do it by write private notes, which is just like email. Also, my wife and I both have a computer in the same room, so we are often together when we are online. Again, a little tougher to hide things.
All that said, Facebook does not rock! You get to know that a friends woke up that day, a friend got a coffee, a friend got a parking ticket. And if your friends are into games, then the games a spamming you with how many points they have and inviting you to join.
It’s nice to keep up with the news of people who you don’t see very often. There are photos and people put up interesting links. I don’t really see how it could cause or help infidelity except by helping you find people more easily. But then, that’s also the benefit!
I am on facebook a fair amount. I see how it can be used for infidelity, infact one of my friends broke up her 20 year marrage because of an old boyfriend she found on FB, but I feel that if there weren’t problems to begin with than hearing about an old boyfriend wouldn’t have caused any problems.
No one says you have to “Friend” people you have no desire to interact with. In the beginning I friended a bunch of my high school friends but once I realized that I had gone 10+ years without even thinking about them, I unfriended them.
Facebook allows me to build friendships with people I only see once or twice a year since I live in the hinterlands and have young children. It also helps me build a relationship with my niece who lives across the country.
Like any social media, FB is what you put into it. For safety I never use my children’s actual names, I don’t use my husband’s name (he isn’t on FB), I don’t list any information that I don’t want the entire world to know. But this is just common sense stuff. A blog is more apt to be seen by anyone while a FB account, you can set securities to only allow certain people to see.
But all in all it is a personal choice.
Eh, like the article said, any technology can be abused in some way. Hubby and I are both on Facebook, though neither of us get on it especially often. Not like we have any old boyfriends/girlfriends to reconnect with anyway (I was his first gf, and he was my third bf, with the first and second being insane and a cheater, respectively :P)!
Love FB. But I’m not on it much. Still, it’s super convenient. A great way to stay in touch within private family groups, an easy way to share photos, etc. I don’t know, it’s not much of a time suck for me. The blogosphere on the other hand…