Forums >Suggestions and Feature Requests>Facebook - Wall Posts
Kalsarikännit
people complain about not "getting" facebook while posting to a public internet message board. I find it very nice to have my runs posted, and then have my other running buddies (and some family members) provide some commentary / feedback.
I post to a running board because I can get all of my self-involved narcissism out here on you lucky folks where I am still more private than posting the same stuff about myself all over the web on facebook, twitter, blogs, etc where every freak I have ever met can find out info that is none of their business. Also, if you have your log open you can get feedback here from runners. I don't need feedback from my family. They don't know shit about running. But if you need all of your buddies and family constantly affirming that you are spectacular, and they just don't know how you do it because you ran six miles today, then yeah, I can see how it would be important to publish your training log.
Don't forget about the blog. There aren't enough runners describing mile 20 bowel movements on the internet.
I want to do it because I want to do it. -Amelia Earhart
an amazing likeness
I post to a running board because I can get all of my self-involved narcissism out here on you lucky folks where I am still more private than posting the same stuff about myself all over the web on facebook, twitter, blogs, etc where every freak I have ever met can find out info that is none of their business. Also, if you have your log open you can get feedback here from runners. I don't need feedback from my family. They don't know shit about running. But if you need all of your buddies and family constantly affirming that you are spectacular, and they just don't know how you do it because you ran six miles today, then yeah, I can see how it would be important to publish your training log. Don't forget about the blog. There aren't enough runners describing mile 20 bowel movements on the internet.
This may be one of the finest messages ever to grace RA. I'm awestruck....
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
But if you need all of your buddies and family constantly affirming that you are spectacular, and they just don't know how you do it because you ran six miles today, then yeah, I can see how it would be important to publish your training log.
I'm guilty of that. When I first started running in September it was motivating to me when my friends and family would comment on my running posts. When I ran my first 20 miler it did boost my ego to have so many posts about how awesome I am. I'm still running and while I don't think the FB app is the ONLY reason I kept it up, I have to admit it helped.
Today before even seeing this post I changed my RA setting to not show my log on FB anymore. I'm just enjoying running for me now and I don't need that external motivation. I do appreciate the app though and when I start training for a marathon again with my friends I will probably change it back because it's fun to see their posts on FB, even though I know we could all log on here and check each others logs.
Thanks for your hard work Eric!
not bad for mile 25
Eric could turn RA into a kind of FB for runners. We could friend each other, and have a steady feed of everyone's awesomeness. Oh, wait.
Probably way off topic now; but I find it amusing that people complain about not "getting" facebook while posting to a public internet message board. In any event; for those of us who share on Facebook the integration is appreciated. I find it very nice to have my runs posted, and then have my other running buddies (and some family members) provide some commentary / feedback.
Public message boards =/= facebook.
Anyway, I "got" facebook. As with all things, I had to balance the pluses and minuses. The minuses won, and I gave it the boot. Life is so much better with less fake amped-up drama. I mean, there's a bit of that here too, but it is easier to contain and doesn't spill over to friends-of-friends in the same way.
facebook is evil.
Why is it sideways?
It's really easy to get all high and mighty about people talking to each other. People have a need for community and communication. That's not narcissism.
Most of what I see on the internet is people talking to people. Sure, they talk about themselves, but that's because that's what they know. Lord knows I have an ego. Thank God I have an ego: that just means that I care about what I do. The alternative is not to care about who I am or what I do, not to share it, in short: not to exist at all.
I don't think the problem with people today is narcissism. Quite the opposite, I'd say.
I won't say that the problem with "people" (as a super broad group) is the n word. But when you do find someone who seems to be all full of him/herself at n word level, it can be enormously frustrating. Or a source of great entertainment.
See: our favorite cherry picker
Oh yeah, absolutely. I probably shouldn't have generalized about people, and I should be clear that I am ambivalent about FB as "community," but I guess I don't want to think that I keep my log open because of extreme self-love, but because I feel a little bit like I am on a team, sharing training, successes, failures, etc.
That's probably cheesy, but I can say that before RA I had a hard time motivating myself because I really missed being part of a team. Now I kinda feel like that with my "friends" (some of whom have even had the scare quotes removed) here.
MTA: I should have been more clear and just said that I think that social media responds to the loneliness of contemporary life more than narcissism.
Running Rev'd
It is possible to have your RA log post to FB but only have it show up to a certain group. In my case, I have a "Runner" group of friends, theoretically made up of people who might care about my workouts or at least won't block me from their feed for having my workouts post. This side-steps a lot of the problems with my parishioners or co-workers seeing my workouts but still getting encouragement and feedback from other friends.
Called to Endure - Blog
"Everyone gets the sunset. Only the dedicated earn the sunrise."
Feeling the growl again
When I made the self-absorbed comment, I want to be clear I was referring only to MySpace, not FB and certainly not a place like RA.
MySpace's issue was in the name...."My".....me me me me me. People covered it with their music pictures of themselves, more self-absorbed emo rantings than I ever cared to see. Very immature and self-centric, and in the short period of time I perused it over a few beers I foud how it was used to be fairly consistent.
FB is what you make of it. I'd say the majority of my "friends" use it somewhat like I do, a vehicle to communicate about their family and events on a semi-infrequent basis. It's more two-directional and (at least for all my HS/college friends at the same stage in life as me) it tends to be more about their kids etc than every little personal detail about themselves. There are always a few who are self-centric....one comes to mind who I KNOW is married, I've met her husband, but in 3 years she has posted not one comment about him of picture of him, just her, her girlfriends, and horses. Then there are the people who LIVE on there, and I end up defriending/blocking them for too many irrelevant posts.
My real issues with FB have to do with the management and their "we know what is best for you, you will thank us later" attitude. No, I don't want everyone knowing every article I read on the internet or tracking my GPS coordinates, thank you. And I don't give a dang about anyone else's, either. But I guess when you are a 20-something billionaire who never worked a real job you have time for all that.
MTA: I see RA and similar sites very differently, it's totally about community and interaction. I don't get to hang out around a lot of runners in person anymore, so this is my substitute to get that fix. I like following how others are doing and such. I don't post to my FB wall and didn't publish my log here for a long time because...frankly I don't think anyone is all that interested in what I am running now and most of the time I hope they aren't.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
I wonder where the dividing line is between community and narcissism when people are updating information about themselves incessantly throughout the day. Of course everybody has a need for communication, but it is much more satisfying when it is done one-on-one. I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I text all the time. If someone considered themselves to be "communicating" with me by throwing some useless crap out about what cereal they had that morning to me and 100 other people, it would not quite be the same.
And who the hell are these people that are "friends" on FB? All I hear about is friending/de-friending/being forced to be friends with weird people you don't like. Doesn't it diminish the meaning of the word?
Joggaholic
I get those random friends request occasionally. I tried to be polite and accept them, and then put them into a non-friends list with absolutely no privileges to see anything from me...
I had about 400 fb "friends" at one point and it really weirded me out... because in no way do I really "know" 400 people, much less am I friends with that many. Using the definition of "friend" that I grew up with. Or "know".
But here's the thing. I have encountered many folks who are a generation (or two, depending on how you count) younger than me. These are the people who started using fb back in college before fb became The Big Thing. These folks have 2000-5000 facebook friends and think nothing of it. In fact, when I've asked them stuff like "how can you have 3000 friends?", they get semi-defensive in that way that young people do when you are either being condescending or an old-person know-it-all... the point being, that's just how they've grown up with facebook. The word 'friend' means something completely different. The person with 3000 fb friends may or may not be touched by the n word. They surely have a different concept of friendship.
And candy used to be a nickel.
Related note: are any of you facebook folks 'friend collectors' or know someone who is? This overlaps the group I mentioned above, but it isn't just the folks who grew up with fb in school. Some people just seem to be obsessed with adding folks to their list to build their list. This person may not be consciously narcissistic, but damn, if you have 5000 "friends", how can you spend the time having two-way conversations and relationships? It is too easy just to broadcast...
...which brings us to twitter.
Facebook I get. Twitter, I only kind of get.
<sidetrack> What I don't get are people on LinkedIn with baby pictures of themselves... </sidetrack>
I wonder where the dividing line is between community and narcissism when people are updating information about themselves incessantly throughout the day. Of course everybody has a need for communication, but it is much more satisfying when it is done one-on-one. I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I text all the time. If someone considered themselves to be "communicating" with me by throwing some useless crap out about what cereal they had that morning to me and 100 other people, it would not quite be the same. And who the hell are these people that are "friends" on FB? All I hear about is friending/de-friending/being forced to be friends with weird people you don't like. Doesn't it diminish the meaning of the word?
I guess the positive spin is that this stuff is small talk. A thing that I have noticed: you get more communicative feedback if you post about ordinary banal stuff and I think it's because most of what people are doing on FB is just saying "hey." A lot of what I talk about with my wife at dinner or what have you is just ordinary details of the day: what happened, what I ate. So, yeah I guess it's communication in the sense that communication is just as much about hanging out as doing something meaningful.
But I do see your point. There are also a few people out there who rub me the wrong way. I'm pretty sure I am that person for some people. But then again, such is the nature of life.
I have been texting more lately. I am ambivalent about that, too. But sometimes we idealize that kind of small-town face to face stuff without really considering how that was also really bad and gossipy and embarrassing and inescapable--and really worse for people who didn't have the personality for it. Sometimes it is nice to be able to "block" your friends when they are being stupid.
It's sorta unfortunate that the term "friend" is associated with FB, and maybe it hurts the meaning of the word, but I sorta think that most people get that this is just a FB jargon.
All that said, over the year or two that I have had FB, I have been posting less on it and have blocked the feeds of a lot of people. I use it mainly to message people instead of email because it's easier to look them up on FB than remember email. (But I did recently put up a picture of me racing and running a PR that a lot of people commented on, and that made me sorta happy.)