[marcus_holmes]

I'm totally not tired of Facebook circa 2008 - a bunch of my friends, people I actually know, posting about our lives and having conversations. A fantastic way of reconnecting with old friends and staying in touch with people.

I'm utterly tired of what it is now.

[nephihaha]

Wasn't a fan of it back then. Saw people fighting on it the first day I was on there. Deleted my account. Now back on for work and limit my usage a lot.

[marcus_holmes]

Interesting.

So presumably the people fighting were actual friends (since back then there was nothing else in the feed but posts by people you'd friended)? Do those people fight a lot in real life? How do you cope with that?

[nephihaha]

The interactions were far worse online. A few of them were what I would call acquaintances rather than friends in real life, but yes, I knew them.

On the first day, one guy I did know was attacked by someone I didn't know, who made fun of him for having the middle name Ralph. I think he ended up blocking her. They appeared to have known each other for years. This was within hours of joining Facebook. I stayed out of it, but was taken aback by it.

Another individual I found easy to get on with offline, was very aggressive about a number of issues. I have tended to avoid him since. I think he took some kind of breakdown and Facebook may have even been part of that. His online behaviour cost him his relationship too.

I do have an FB account now, but I rarely go on it (last time was weeks ago). I have to have it for work. I do limit friends to people I've met in person, which does help a bit. But I still see toxic interactions on there as well as bizarre claims (such as someone claiming all countries have nuclear weapons, which was more down to their personal ignorance than conspiracy theory.) As far as the website goes, I got a temporary ban for some weeks for making a short post asking about the mental health cost of lockdowns.