{"id":1500,"date":"2018-04-05T09:39:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2018-04-05T09:39:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:39:30","slug":"to-join-or-not-to-join-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=1500","title":{"rendered":"To Join or Not to Join Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/Facebook has appeared in the news quite a bit lately. The social media giant has suffered bad press for allowing scraping of users’ data for nefarious purposes. According to reports, some people have decided to abandon Facebook in response to these allegations.\n<\/p>\n

No need for me to do that. I have never joined it. My reasons for avoiding Facebook included the very issues that now plague the company. This morning’s Wall Street Journal<\/em> summarized them nicely:\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Lost privacy,\n<\/li>\n
  2. Political manipulation, and\n<\/li>\n
  3. Social media addiction.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    While all around me, our relatives, friends, and neighbors spend hours on Facebook swapping photos and stories of the minutia of their days, I have remained blissfully free of what I view as a monumental waste of time. Now, with the new revelations about Facebook and how the company handles personal data entrusted to it, I need not worry if they have compromised my personal information. They do not have it.\n<\/p>\n

    Will Facebook disappear because of this controversy? I do not think so. It offers some valuable features that many people want. For example, genealogists really like it.\n<\/p>\n

    This week the speaker at my local Highlands Ranch Genealogical Society, Dave Barton, delivered a program titled Using Social Media for Genealogy Research<\/em>. He spent a great deal of his time discussing the value of Facebook for this. He pointed out that genealogists can find many Facebook groups that cater to them:\n<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. General genealogy groups,\n<\/li>\n
    2. Location specific groups,\n<\/li>\n
    3. Surname specific groups,\n<\/li>\n
    4. Genetic genealogy groups,\n<\/li>\n
    5. Organization\/society groups.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      These groups tempt me. Dave pointed out that they stepped into the void when the genealogy message boards ended. These groups offer a forum for connecting with distant cousins and learning more about specialized topics. Dave also mentioned that some societies and organizations use Facebook pages in lieu of maintaining websites.\n<\/p>\n

      Should I join to take advantage of these groups? I keep thinking about it. If I knew I could keep an account focused solely on genealogy, I might do it.\n<\/p>\n

      I did try that once before, setting up a business page for this blog. I found it useless. Facebook users could visit my page, but I could not use the account to visit other pages. I quickly abandoned it and have not attempted to log in for several years. The Genealogy Jottings Facebook page is likely defunct.\n<\/p>\n

      I would have to create a personal account to get on Facebook and begin visiting groups that interest me. Perhaps I will, after the Facebook hoopla dies down and we see what protections the company provides to its users. A bright light shines on Facebook’s bad acts, and their leader must appear before Congress to answer for them. Something will change, and then I will make my decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Facebook has appeared in the news quite a bit lately. The social media giant has suffered bad press for allowing scraping of users’ data for nefarious purposes. According to reports, some people have decided to abandon Facebook in response to these allegations. No need for me to do that. I have never joined it. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-genealogy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1501,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}