Justathought...I noticed you posted on this forum, where you using a telephone to do so? If we all just did things the old fashioned way, many of the things we enjoy today would not exist. I can't disagree that there are dangers to Facebook and other platforms, but there are a number of advantages as well. I am now more easily able to communicate with people I never thought I would interact with again using Facebook. There are always dangers with new technology; look at automobiles and accidents that occur involving their use. We still choose to move forward and work to control the risks as much as possible in order to enjoy the positives that come with progress...just food for thought.

People don't understand--they never have. The entire Internet and computing in general consists of One's and Zero's. Zillions upon zillions of them get processed and allow your computer to visualize content. BUT, these 0's and 1's are collected from all over the World and when they finally land on your Desktop to be processed to a readable form, the possibilities that they could have been tampered with along the way is gigantic. When you enter personal information--it's all in the form of 1'and 0's and what happens to that information once you have VOLUNTARILY entered it is anybody's guess. They only thing you can really do is ---be selfish---and protect yourself! You are NEVER under any obligation to furnish any personal information to ANYONE over the Internet--EVER. Just don't do it and you will have little to worry about. This also goes for not having any personal information stored on your computer as well. No SS#'s, no bank account info etc,etc etc. You may think that Firewalls and Anti-Virus will protect you, but any good hacker can circumvent those technologies. It's so simple to protect yourself but so few people do it. It's not really their faults--they're uneducated or think that "it won't happen to me", but that could be costly thinking. Take the risks and you won't even know that you have been compromised and your identity stolen until it's too late. BE SMART!

uh....and you have time to post comments to this?  Sounds to me like a hippocrite.

it's cheaper than envelopes and stamps and it only takes a minute to catch up with a friend or family member that lives out of state.

Typing a message or spending a few seconds on a chat leaves me more time to do everything else . If FB is an addiction to some, it's because they allow to be. You have to be disiplined and have enough sense not to put your life out there if you dont want people to know the last time you sneezed or took a dump.

Let me get this straight -

People who spend time on Facebook, MySpace, and/or Twitter are sad losers who are wasting their time.

People who spend time commenting on those losers are somehow superior.

Is that about right?

It is a bad factor in online communities that the bigger it is, the more bad influences show up.  The problem is enforcement and punishment.  Most law enforcement agencies don't care what happens, many thing it's just a civil matter for a majority.  I know around here it happened where some one had their identity stolen starting using data on facebook and expanding.  The cops only cared because the person who had it happen to went out of his way to make a pain of himself and track the guy down.  The person had committed fraud in the excess of 1 million from many identities, and they aren't even prosecuting it as grand theft.

I like it even though I don't use it much.  It's nice to have a way to contact people that you can know what's happening and be involved, but not as time consuming as the phone.  I have a massive extended family, and if I called each for 1 hour a month I would be on the phone for 4 days at 12 hours a day.  Then add into that friends.  Some people go way overboard with it though.

I think it's funny how people claim they dont have time to join facebook but they have time to read this and post their feelings about it. They either dont have any friends or dont understand the new technology.  You just have to be responsible for not giving out your info.  I would question if one of my friends requested my SSN or bank account, DUH!

If you're dumb enough to give out personal information, then you get what you deserve.

I am going for the dumb enough part of all this, like craigslist bull about verifying your age by giving credit card info, all of this is just spam, do not give this info out, nor join any of those sites.

My wife almost got into Facebook but I talked her out of it.  I simply don't see the point of communicating online worldwide.  Like others have said, there's personal EMAIL and the telephone.  People you want to communicate with don't need social networking web sites to accomplish that.

Privacy is golden people.  If I was a cybercrook, there first place I would go is Facebook and the other worthless so-called social sites.