thank you for doing this. i gave up on facebook just a little bit before the pandemic. the only reason i haven’t deactivated my account is because of the groups i belong to on there (two of which are rem related). i never felt a connection like i did within the forum sphere. so this is a real comfort.
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My activity on Facebook has always been very general, meaning I’ve never really joined or participated in specific groups. I don’t think I knew there was a Murmurs group, or if I did, I chose not to participate for whatever reason. So I haven’t personally experienced the drama and headaches of participating in, or moderating, a Facebook group. It’s an attention span problem. I think most people can only spread themselves out so far. It just seemed easier to go to one place for all online social interaction, and I guess I chose my newsfeed. A price was paid, though.
My very general/generic use of Facebook has contributed to my personal distaste for it; I don’t care that much about the majority of the people I’m “friends” with. Every time I log onto Facebook, I’m greeted by childhood friends I’ve long outgrown, current and former co-workers I don’t even like that much, and relatives who are disturbingly stupid. Murmurs was different because it was never based in the generic. We all had a common bond, and that seemed to be a solid enough foundation for individual connections to grow in a more natural way. I think Facebook and modern social media ruined that, and if it had been left undisturbed, Murmurs (and other Forum communities), would have kept going and I think many of us would have continued to participate.
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I can tell you that I have been using Facebook much less this week.
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Same here.
I have very mixed feelings about FB. Like many have said, it’s allowed me to reconnect with many old friends and that’s been great. I use it for some private groups but I don’t get that involved with the group drama because I have enough of that shit in my own life.
But, it has done so much damage, and I don’t know that Zuckerberg truly knows or understands how much damage FB/Meta has done. Or the implications. A former prof from library school, Siva Vaidhyanathan, has written a lot about the impact of Google/Googlization and social media—specifically FB.
I used to teach from his book, The Googlization of Everything, in an intro to research class I used to teach. Six or seven years ago, it would weird students out, now it just doesn’t even phase them.
I’ve had a copy of his book Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy since it came out a few years ago but haven’t read it yet. Mainly because I needed and need a break from the doom and gloom.
Also, in general, my social media of choice is Twitter. I’m @ estephan if anyone wants to follow. It’s mainly cat pictures and me bitching about the Packers.
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These days I’m strictly using Facebook to check a specific group where people agree to buy and sell stuff - music, toys, books, mostly vintage thingies. Then once a month there’s a big gathering, sorta like a fair where those transactions take place. Every now and then there are good vinyl records available (Yeah, over the years I’ve grown a small but prideful vinyl collection, which is clearly a sign of getting old), so I check the group for that. I actually got the (used) vinyl of Document for quite a bargain.
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As a social media specialist who deals with Facebook all day, thank you for the respite of this lovely little corner of the interwebs.
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A friend of mine who is a writer left FB several years ago because she felt it was fracturing her mind. Below is a link to her blog post about it followed by a recent article from the Guardian that delves a bit deeper into those sentiments.
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From the day I joined Facebook in 2008, I understood the fact that we are not customers, but rather the cattle that Facebook feeds to its real customers.
The main attraction of the site for me is that, if something major happens in my life, then I can simply write one post and let everyone…everyone…know about it, instead of having to make multiple phone calls to friends and relatives. It is also a great way for me to keep up with the local running community and for me to find out about concert tours.
Back in 2018, when I went to a hospital emergency room with what I thought was a kidney stone, only to find out that I had somehow miraculously been walking around for a day or two with a ruptured appendix, I was able to keep everyone I knew updated as I spent seven days in the hospital recovering from the resultant near-fatal infection.
As we all know, Facebook has been illuminating during the past two years, and not in a good way. I also do not like seeing so many ads on my news feed. Despite all of the lunatics-running-the-asylum annoyances, however, I still enjoy its above-mentioned practical aspects.
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My inability (and desire) to be on Facebook was directly proportional to my number of ex-wives at any given time.
So this recreates an ex-wife safespace. #grateful.
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I use FB to share memes or news articles - sometimes with opinions, esp regarding the state of the health care system that I work in. Lots of my friends who are also nurses post memes that help me cope. So there’s that. And like Jason said, it’s an easy way to let people know when stuff is really going on with me. Like job changes or health stuff.
But mostly I find everyone keeps it so superficial on there - it’s not REAL. No one on FB knows my real lows or highs or how I’m doing day to day.
I’ve been on twitter for nursing related commentary and politics - I follow a lot of journalists, and it’s the best way to know the latest news. But honestly, twitter has been pretty depressing, and it’s just as easy to get into a negative-mood echo chamber as it is to get into informational echo chambers.
Thank you Ethan for bringing back what used to be my home. 
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I follow a lot of MDs and nurses on Twitter. At the beginning of the pandemic, it really helped me understand what was happening.
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Yeah, when half my department (incl me) was redeployed to ICU last May/ June, I started tweeting a lot about what was going on. I have a lot of local journalists following me, so I try to give some info they don’t get from press releases. I haven’t worked in a Pandemic unit, but my dept gets a lot of issues related to hospital capacity. I just have to be careful not to be too specific and not get in trouble from HR!
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This articulates why I resurrected Murmurs
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I have a question for you. As I mentioned, I just finished Reveal The Story of R.E.M and in the back references he used, one of the sites mentioned was murmurs3.com What was 3?
I have removed the FB app from my phone but I haven’t quite shut down my account. I post updates about my health there for family and friends so I don’t have to have the same conversation over and over again with them. It’s exhausting enough to get through the day. I do have some vintage style and classic film groups I am members of that I like to check in with on occasion. I have a harder time letting go of Twitter. I keep trying to mute vile people but it’s an impossible task. But starting with Minimizing FB has already lightened my mood.
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A typo. We had www3.murmurs.com once during a server move.
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Thanks 
Facebook gave me a warning, because I, innocently wrote,“Burn them. Burn them with fire!” Which I can somewhat understand, if it was referring to people…
…it wasn’t, it was referring to a Star Trek post about being forced to wear red shirts.
Later, Facebook kinda came back with an apology, but the damage had been done. I soon, thereafter wrote only in all lowercase and no spaces or punctuation. I claimed it was because that’s actually how most languages were formed, which was true, but it also how I was treated. I’m only on there for my family and a couple of groups, anyway.
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I only use Facebook for:
- R.E.M. related stuff
- Family and friends birthdays, as I’m terrible with dates
So very excited that this safe place is back on track
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