Facebook ID Probe Shows Things Getting Worse 174
An anonymous reader writes "According to Sophos, Facebook users are getting sloppier with their personal info, not better. Revisiting a 2007 survey in which a plastic frog got 87 hits out of 200 friend requests, this time a rubber duck and a cat got 87 out of 200 friend requests, plus a bonus 8 friends who decided to trust them anyway. The research also suggests that older Facebook users are sloppier than the young, being keener to build their list of friends. (The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young.)"
Self correcting problem (Score:1, Insightful)
Good. Let Facebook go the way of the dodo. It's the equivalent of those "personal home pages" people put up when they first discovered the Web.
Uhh... (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFS: "The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young."
They've also had a lifetime of real life social networking (not the online kind) to boost the level of friends and acquaintances they would like to keep in contact with.
Young people are very cliquey with their behaviour in regards to friends. When I was in school, I could've counted my true friends on my fingers. When I went out into the world and bounced jobs for a couple years, I met many more interesting people that I remained friends with after the jobs had come and gone.
Also, do we really need another article to tell us that the older people in society are less hip to the social network scams?
Nah - I think you can blame Mafia Wars, Farmville, (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm thinking that a lot of people add folks they don't know into their friends' pile for the applications, esp. games. After all, Mafia Wars and the like are rigged to get you more in-game "power" (more defense, offense, etc) with the larger number of friends you add (and then subsequently add into your "Mafia", or "Neighbors", or "Crew").
Here is a crazy idea (Score:5, Insightful)
How about not putting stuff up on social media sites that you wouldn't want posted on a bulletin board at the local laundromat? Why on earth would I post my DOB, address, phone number there for example??
Re:Nah - I think you can blame Mafia Wars, Farmvil (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
If this trend is true, it points towards our "habituation" with the notion of the lack of privacy in our society. I think that along with the flood of information in our society comes the feeling that "all information should be freely available". People in general are becoming de-sensitized to this trend more and more, and expect more information about themselves to be available publicly. Not even just online - take a popular show like CSI. I think it's just sort of assumed that everyone is leaving this massive digital fingerprint behind them.
Spammers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Could it be that these befriendings are from people who don't care about privacy, or, put a better way, want to use Facebook to send spam messages, and so will befriend EVERYONE?
Re:Here is a crazy idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Does the article discuss how much info each user leaked? I wouldn't be real surprised if the older users posted less info and were thus less concerned with privacy (It also wouldn't be shocking if they were simply less aware of it).
not for nothing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are they being friended to REAL accounts? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have time to waste keeping one account up to date. I can't image keeping track of two. When do you find time to code, hack, and generally do geeky stuff?
Purging my friend's list (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Self correcting problem (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you're hosting an event, you don't want to have to enter 50 numbers in a text message in order to invite people whose participation is only marginally necessary. It's also nice being able to keep track of people with whom you've been acquainted in the past, but aren't close enough to for a phone call to be warranted.
For example, you may not be close enough to Mike to call or text, but with Facebook might cause you to say, "Oh, Mike is getting married. Maybe I should shoot him a note." Or, "Jim is moving. Maybe I'll drop by that going away party our common friend posted." It may not be the ideal tool for communicating with your closest friends and family, but it's great for keeping in touch with your fringe friends and acquaintances.
I will say, though, that if you don't have any real friends, and all of your are internet friends, facebook may not be as useful.
What planet are you sending this article from? (Score:2, Insightful)
The article seems lost entirely in its own little world and clueless whats going on. Facebook IS farmville, vampire wars, pet society, arena, etc. People join those groups, spam them for invites, and get invites in return to build up their game networks. I know one actual person in my list that doesnt do this, shes in high school and actually uses facebook to talk to her friends and complain about homework. Weirdo.
Now to discuss that people who play facebook shouldn't put too much personal information on their profile is a decent topic. But dont come at it so naive.
Re:I'm friends with a Turkey, but it's restricted (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't understand what the big deal is about finding someone's address and phone number.
Back in Ye Olden Days, when people had telephones that were plugged into walls, all this information was printed in large books distributed free to every customer.
Re:Purging my friend's list (Score:2, Insightful)
I must be in the minority.
According to the 'study', 41-46% of people accepted blindly, so you'd be in the majority.
- RG>
Older users have more family... (Score:1, Insightful)