Facebook - an online popularity contest? A way of lowering self esteem?

Yup. It's always been that way. It's the same with MySpace. I knew a girl who had like 50 000 friends because she was pretty, and EVERYONE added her! She'd have no clue who most of these people are, but they still added her and talked to her on a regular basis and she'd do the same thing.. and most of them were older guys and lived LIGHTYEARS away! I don't get it. I have MAYBE 100 friends, and they were all actually friends of mine. It wasn't a popularity contest to me. It never has. I think it only adjusts your self-esteem if you allow it to. Try not to let others tell you who you are, or who you should be. Facebook is supposed to be a social networking site for friends. Sure, make new friends. But there's no reason to have more than you can keep track of.

I have a facebook but have not been too impressed with it. I like mylot ten times better. There is a boy that's my sons age that has been running his smart mouth about the rapes here in town. i'm about ready to put a knot on his head. I don't like that at all & need to find out how delete him before i give him a good going over, lol.

I think I have a total of 5 friends. Two I knew in school. One I knew at yuwie. I get a bunch of requests for nonsense that I pretty much ignore. How many balloons can one receive? Or someone throwing a cat at me. Good grief. I don't go looking for friends on there or even on here. I think I might have made a friend request a total of two times. I see even less of a point to Twitter. Useless.

Hey there MistyWood I joined facebook about 4 months or so ago and was really into it to start with. I saw some pics of mates where they looked really great and told them so. There was one person I went to school with one girl and I barely recognised her. I thought it was her mother!! She had put on loads of weight and looked really old. I of course didn't tell her this but it certainly didn't stop me from talking to her. I have since gone off facebook a bit and don't really go on there much. When I was chatting to people I suddenly realised how many years it was since I had seen them and I didn't like that much. You are never going to get those great, stressfree, carefree times back again. I don't have many people on my list and I am fine about that. I have people who have asked to be on my list and haven't spoken to me on there at all. Some seem to be a bit up themselves and thats ok with me, I am not bothered. I happy with my life and who I am!!

oh my!!! i am just new in facebook my friend and well i am not really into it. my friends, high school classmates and colleagues just invited me to be prt of it. but i dont even visited it that much. they even think that i am being unsocialize... but they dont know that i am more into mylotting than facebooking?! lol! but then i will try there as well to find more people who might find mylot a god way of socializing as well. and earning!!! jhelai

I am sorry if this is the effect of facebook on you. I have not created my account there so i cannot relate with the over all thing. Though i have seen my siblings log on to their account. They actually enjoy the site because of the games. The buying friends stuff and the latest craze on the people they know. It would depend on what you think the site would affect you so it doesn't mean that all people who joined the site will have a lower self-esteem.

I totally agree with you. I was thinking, I might be the only human alive who doesn't have a facebook account. I have friendster and it's running almost 10 years now. But hey, I got only 80 friends within 10 years. I don't visit it that much and seldom invites/adds friends. Those 80 friends on my list, I can say, are those whom I can run into whenever I have problems. You see, I still and will always believe in personal level of communication. It's still different when you have your friends touch and hug you. Or friends you can call to have coffee on a friday night. You got hundreds of friends in your account, but are they around when you need help and presence or if when you get sick??? I really don't think so.

I have never been an ardent fan of facebook. It is more of a reunion site for long lost friends and relatives to meet. There is nothing interesting in facebook except probably for the farmtown which am addicted to. Comparatively mylot still is the best that have much to read and learn. Facebook is more open and what ever you write on the walls are shared with everyone in your list while in mylot anonymity is assured. My time in mylot is well spent by the active interactions with people from all walks of life while being paid for the same. Isn't that great?

Hi Misty', I use facebook but normally just for the games but through my friends I have received some lovely friends through them, mylot though is the first discussion site I came on and got instantly hooked lol so have been here for over a year now and will be here for much much longer, I tresure my friends here and the fact that it has also been lovely to actually meet a couple of mylotters too, so it does become an online/offline frieendship here too...hugs LoLo

i've been a memeber for a while, i'm friends with people i was at school with. but don't talk to them, only a few of them are worth the effort. i've got other added i've known for a a while, plus my cousins i talk to them more and my best mate. don't even really bother with the games.

Well look at it as a positive of your life. After so many years, you can tell them i am here right now doing these things and i am happy. You don't nee to compare yourself to them because as we grow mature and old we come to a certain point of our lives that with what we are doing at present we are happy. I hope you are happy now.

All online community type sites generally have a large element of popularity contest. However that's not all it's about either. Some use it as a quick and easy way to allow friends and family to see what's going on in their world. One of my extended family has a facebook page where he updates a few times a year about things going on in his life. Anyone in the family can log in and see some pictures and stories about him and his family and wife and kids, and blaw blaw blaw. Like most social sites, Facebook is what you make it out to be. If it becomes a popularity contest, where you are trying to get more friends in order to say you have more friends, then that is exactly what it is to you. Self-esteem, is more about you, than it is about what you do or others you are around. If you allow other to determine your self esteem by comparing yourself to them, then you'll always have bad self-esteem because there will always be someone smarter, someone taller, someone stronger, someone more skilled, someone with more friends, someone with better looks, and so on. Here's my tip. Learn to accept who you are, and work at the things you are not good at, master the things are you are good at, and do the best you can in either case. Never compare yourself to anyone.

Hi MistyWood. somehow I never quite liked Facebook although I did become a member. To me it seems rather mercenery and like you say a popularity contest each trying for first place and see who does better than the other. All those pictures of people trying to show off and not really sincere. Everyone seems to think its the done thing to be on facebook but theres no real warmth or friendliness there unlike here at mylot. I could just go on and on for hours on mylot and still not get bored and it has nothing to do with earning either. I agree with you MistyWood, you hit the nail on the head when you say its more like a popularity contest.

Facebook is only a popularity contest if you look at it that way. To me, it's just a social networking site that lots of people use. I don't have contests with anyone else to see who has more friends or anything like that. I think that's stupid.

I've had facebook for a couple of years. I personally don't look at it as a popularity contest. I use facebook to keep in touch with my friends from home and high school. Plus now all of my college friends are starting to move away, so I look at it as a great way to keep up with everyone that I cared about. I only add people that I know and liked.

Wow. Sounds like those people need to grow up. Wasn't aware of that on Facebook but I've only recently made my account on there. I only have 3 people on my list and those are my brothers and step sister. Every so often a face from the old jr high or high school days will pop up on my recommended board because of siblings that were good friends with them but I wasn't so I just ignore.

I joined not too long ago. It is like a high school reunion i was able to reconnect with old riends i hadn't seen or heard from inyears, so i think it is cool. I don't add the ones i didn't talk to just the ones that i knew and knew and spoke to me. Bullies i really didn't have any but i did have people who would ignore me or not really speak to me much who now all of a sudden want to become my friend. I don't spend much time on it though and when i am on it i usually just look at their pictures may send someone a message and that is it.