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I have a friend who posts constantly, always "so blessed" or something along those lines, referring to her kids, H, or running (she's into marathons). And she uses hashtags incessantly. I mean her post will often look like this...

"So blessed with #mythreeboys, #atthepool, #livinglife #tothemax

It drives me insane! But she is an otherwise lovely person, so I just view this as a personality quirk and scroll right on past.

Yeah! What's with that hashtag thing? I'm old enough to remember that as the "number" sign, later "pound." What does that eve mean? I don't tweet but I thought it was supposed to be someone's twitter address.

Hashtags confuse me. My niece tried to explain them to me once but I was just lost.

You are not odd, I used to find it odd too...key word "used to".

Like anything else, FB can become addicting - I am now an addict myself. I don't post every few minutes, but sometimes I am TEMPTED.

For me, I like the feeling of being connected and connecting with people and its fun to show what I'm doing and see what other people are doing, even if its random stuff.

I'm guessing its that way for others too and I'm guessing that sometimes its the only connection some of us have at times. Like SI - another addiction.

I check-in everywhere when on vacation. I usually will write in my journal about my vacation after I've returned, and I can go back and look at my check-ins to remind myself of all the fun things I did.

And as far as worrying about people knowing I am on vacation and my house is free to rob I have around 50 FB friends...all family and friends/people I actually know. So I am not worried that any of them are going to rob my home...I am not sharing that info with strangers. My FB privacy settings have me locked down pretty tightly.

I am 26.

Normally I would NEVER vacation without my cell phone.

But last year, my H and I went to vegas and I forgot my phone. Completely forgot to pack it and left it plugged into the charger at home. By the time we got to the airport and I realized, it was too late.

I spent the entire flight freaking out about not having my phone. I had a legit excuse for freaking out- my parents were watching DD, and what if there was an emergency. But also...how was I going to take pictures? How was I going to text friends? How was I going to update my status for a week??? H brought his phone and assurred me that we could check in with DD via his phone and my parents could call him if there was an emergency. I had my camera, and he had his phone, so we could still get pictures. No biggie. I had to go on a vacation and live for a full week without FB.

It was amazing. I actually got to go to vegas and see it. After the first day, I wasn't worried about my phone at all.

I remember back in the day when we took family vacations, and there was no texting or facebook. My parents were mia with friends for their trip and caught up with people when we got home. We had the hotel phone, and grandma had the number. Vegas was the closest I have been to that since I was 14 and got a cell phone. It was kind of nice.

DH and I share a family FB page, and the only "friends" it has are our parents and siblings and three of my closest cousins. No friends or coworkers - it's essentially a family photo sharing app for us.

That said, one of my sisters is the type to post continuous hideously over-filtered pictures of herself, her dogs, her lunch and her feet. She posts FROM yoga class, taking the time to "artfully" blur the other people in her class! She posts pics of her food WHILE eating at date night with her husband! When asked about it, she always insisted that it "only takes a few seconds" and that she's so fast at it by now, it doesn't interfere at all with her enjoyment of her life. And from the outside it looks like she lives a very engaged and fun and busy and full life, so I believed her. Sort of.

Then she came to visit us for a 3 day weekend and she did nothing but stare into her phone the entire time. She lurked in hallways taking "artistic!" pictures of OUR dogs, us, the table set for dinner, the sunset through the trees in our yard with glasses of wine in the foreground (she poured two glasses of wine as props and then left them there on the back deck table!) It was insane, we barely spoke and she may as well have not been there at all. She connected to no one. Maybe she felt connected to her FB friends, I have no idea, but she spent the entire visit on FB. Looking at her entries, it appeared that she had a wonderful 3 day weekend with her family, did fun things and enjoyed good meals and drinks and views. She didn't. She wasn't present for any of those moments. It was so sad. I hope she has created good artificial memories of her staged photo visit, but it really made me sad for her.

So strike another mark in the "I don't understand" column. I do get snapping a few fun pics with your phone to remember moments, of course I do. But immediately filtering, editing, uploading, posting, captioning, arranging? It's like "life staging". I don't understand and I'm very, very glad my DH and children are physically and emotionally present at our best moments.

It's like "life staging".

I don't get it either

I think FB is great for what I use it for. Talking to my cousin and family that live all over the country (not that I have a big family...lol!!) And I like to post pictures of Teddy and Kyle

One of our friends posts different 'selfie' pictures every single day. Always the exact same pose, the exact same sunglasses...just different back grounds. In her car, out shopping, eating, etc. I mean, seriously...just how many "likes" do you need

The biggest thing about FB that I just cannot wrap my head around...the personal garbage that people put out there. I don't want to know that you're fighting with your sister or 'unfriending' someone you only know over the internet. I don't know...I suppose people use it for different reasons

Ack, I didn't realize I was so annoying!

I post gym stuff, because, like AJsmom, I use it to keep me accountable, I have a lot of friends trying to lose weight.

I post pictures and check ins all the time. Mainly, because we travel, a lot. I like the little map thing that shows me all the places I've been. I like the map being more and more full of dots. And, I post a lot of pictures. Facebook lets me sort them better than I've found on the computer. And, I have all my "good" photos from Spring Vacation 2013 in one place to look at when I want to, without having to go through the 14 of DS's arm he took while trying to take a pic of a tree. Basically, I upload a ton of photos, for my own enjoyment. I use facebook like a travel journal. I figure, friends who care can see. And, friends that don't can unfriend/block/delete/click "don't show in news feed".

However, I don't post many pictures of food, or very many inspirational quotes. Or the recipes that have been flooding my newsfeed lately.

I'm enjoying my life and I'm "there". Just like every parent on every trip ever, I have a lot of pics. But, you see my albums by choice, I don't invite people over for dinner and get out the pictures. And, a huge majority of the time, I'm either passenger in a car (on vacation) or sitting in a hospital parking lot, waiting for my husband to get off work, so, I upload pictures, even if it does mean I miss watching the sights, like a Dr, sitting by the trashcan smoking a cigarette on his lunch break. Just because I'm posting pictures from the beach I went to at 10:30am doesn't mean I'm still there at 12:30.

eta:Oh, and as far as people knowing i'm out of town, my close friends and family already know. In fact, anyone who knows me, knows they are about as likely to find me out of town as they are to find me in it. The other people are from SI and if any of you use the opportunity to fly out to my house and steal a 5 yr old laptop rather than visit on a day i'm home and go out to dinner with me, than I will be very sad.

[This message edited by Weatherly at 10:22 AM, August 21st (Wednesday)]