Two weeks on Facebook...what does it all mean?

So, I gingerly stuck a toe into the morass that is Facebook two weeks ago and sent out a few friend requests (coaxed over the phone by my daughter).  So what have I learnt in the last fortnight about this creature and was my initial scepticism of it well founded? Well, I have discovered-

• That people seem to be able to locate you and friend request you even if you didn't contact them.  This was a surprise.  Why on earth would anyone want to connect with me, if I haven't invited them?
• That in amongst the welcoming messages were several dire warnings about it.  
• That, unlike a blog, you cannot control the content on your page (I knew this). 
• That it operates in the world of real names (see below) and it is sometimes difficult to work out who someone is when I only know their blogger name (as I found out at the Salute bloggers meet).
• That you quickly discover far more about people's lives than you ought to, or want to, know.
• That there are Facebook pages for a number of wargames companies I support, with up to date information on what they are up to.  This is the biggest discovery, I think.  I had always assumed that company websites would have the latest news but this is not so.  
• That there are groups of other users which revolve around particular hobby interests.
• That there is a danger, as with my children, that it takes over your life.

Well, some surprises but mostly what I expected.  I am still not sure if this is going to be an ongoing thing or just an experiment for when I have to launch my work focussed one.

The real issue is one of identity and persona.  Scott pointed out that Facebook (unlike Blogger, for example) doesn't like pseudonyms.  Recently, (and he has done it before) John Treadaway, of the South London Warlords, was urging TMP members to use their real names.  One of the things that surprised me is how many people are prepared to put their real names out there and then hold forth with their views on all sorts of stuff.  I may just be paranoid but this doesn't seem to be a good idea to me. However, your personal experiences shape your views on this, I suppose.

If we look at identity, then one key aspect of my life is that the first name I was given is not used by any of my family and never has been.  My sister, for example, doesn't call me by any of my real names and those of my parents friends who are still about don't either.  Many assume that this name (originally derived from a nickname when I was a baby) is my real name.  When I got married many of the people attending the wedding came up to me afterwards and asked about my name, in genuine surprise.  My wife and children don't use my real name as they know I actually don't like it very much.  So, I have always had a situation where I have my real name for things like school (actually I had a different nickname, again, amongst my friends at school), work and acquaintances and a completely different name for family and family friends.  This created two separate personae for me too.  I think everyone has many different personae (maybe they don't) but it seems that with Facebook, in using your real name, you have to be happy to let your different personae be revealed and the different parts of your life be exposed to all.

This leads to another point about keeping different aspects of your life separate which, again, Facebook militates against.  You can, of course, cant your page so it defines one aspect of your life as I have done with mine and wargaming.  I won't, on the whole Friend request someone whose Facebook page doesn't have wargames content because they they may want to keep that aspect of their life away from their family life, for example.  I also wouldn't post something on someone else's page or share a post, on the whole, either as, again, you are risking treading on other people's personal space, I feel.  Personally, I have a number of different interests but I wouldn't put them all into one place (as critics of my multiple blogs berate me for!).    I also have, for example, different groups of friends who I wouldn't want to meet each other.  Just because I like A and B doesn't mean that A would get on with B.

For some reason I am unable to explain, the word "politics" always conjures up a mental image of potato salad.  

Coincidentally, here was something on the internet, when I was setting up the Facebook page, about what things you should never discuss with work colleagues.  It was common sense, really, but I will never discuss religion or politics, for example, simply because, firstly, I'm not very interested in either and, secondly, they can be very, very divisive.  It's a matter of degree about what you talk about with friends and colleagues, of course, but you always have to assume that anything you say to someone may get repeated to someone else (just like anything you post online).  I am surprised by the number of political comments I have seen from people.  I have recently been helping a firm to recruit some specialist staff.  The Chairman gets his HR department to search candidates social media for an online presence.  If he sees political statements on Facebook which don't match his own politics that person is not going to get recruited.  This is why I don't support the John Treadaway "lets all use our real identities" view.  There are aspects of peoples lives which, if I knew about them, would have a similar effect on me if I was recruiting staff.  I have met people who view any interest in military matters as dubious, for example.  I was speaking to a friend this week (who doesn't have Facebook) and he relentlessly cyber stalks anyone he comes across at work and informed me of how much information you can find out about someone just from knowing their real name (especially if the name is a little bit unusual).

Another thing I have discovered is that posting on Facebook with a link to one of my blogs has demonstrated an immediate effect, as can be seen from this chart looking at my Argonautika blog after a Facebook link.

Overall I quite like Facebook so far.  I like being able to do shorter posts than I would on a blog.  I like access to up to date information from figure manufacturers, I like seeing what other people are painting and gaming and I like some of the military photographs posts I have seen.  What I am not so keen on are political statements, "wittily" captioned pictures, polls and so forth but that, of course, is because people use Facebook for a wider circulation than just wargames contacts.  It's mixing "friends" from different lives, again.  The experiment continues for the time being...