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jonsblond's avatar

For those of you that like to keep your family life separate from your internet life, how do you do it?

Asked by jonsblond (44260points) November 22nd, 2009

Fluther is mine! I do not want my mom, dad or sisters to find it and find out every little detail about my life. This is my dirty little secret. ;)

I recently joined Facebook and have included many friends from grade school, high school and Fluther. I was hoping to keep it that way until one of my sisters found me on Facebook. I have no problem with this sister knowing my business, but she is friends with my other sisters and mom on Facebook and now they all want to be my friend. My mom keeps encouraging me to add all of these relatives that I hardly even know. They could easily find me on Fluther from Facebook and I do not want this to happen!

How do I tell my mom that I don’t want to be her “friend” on Facebook when my sister is willing to be her friend? I feel like the bad daughter. Any advice? Do I just give in?

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52 Answers

chyna's avatar

Can you have 2 facebook accounts? One for family only and the other one for everyone else?

filmfann's avatar

passwords!

gailcalled's avatar

Speak only Finnish in cyberspace. That will show your mom and sisters what’s what.

jonsblond's avatar

@chyna I’ve thought of that possibilty. My family would wonder what happened to all of my friends. :P

@gailcalled Minä rakastan sinua!

PretentiousArtist's avatar

Hey, you tell me

filmfann's avatar

I am a little surprised you care what anyone else in your family thinks.
Tell your family no. This is your social life, and not your families business.

gailcalled's avatar

@jonsblond: Mitä älykästä vastausta.

avvooooooo's avatar

You can play with your privacy settings. My mother is my friend on fb, but is not allowed to see pretty much all of my information. No wall, no friends list, nothing. You can do it by groups or by individuals. So you can theoretically create a list of “relatives” that you restrict access to. And when you add a person, put them in that group and they’re restricted too.

J0E's avatar

I block them before they find me.

Tink's avatar

None of my family and only a very few friends know about Fluther. No I don’t plan on telling them. Fluther is my getaway from everyone. Only for my eyes!

ninjacolin's avatar

should they be separate?

SeventhSense's avatar

I found the simple solution: delete Facebook account. Use phone or e-mail to contact me.

wundayatta's avatar

I don’t talk about fluther. I don’t tell anyone about it. I don’t tell them my name here, even if they did manage to find it on their own. Fluther is mine!!!

PretentiousArtist's avatar

I talk about fluther to my family. I would share some anecdotes of what happened on fluther with my mom, and we’ll laugh and make fun of certain users.

jonsblond's avatar

@ninjacolin Good question. There are many things that I have said on Fluther that would upset my mother if she read them. My mom has dealt with enough BS throughout her life, I’d rather she didn’t worry about me. I am also a very private person. Fluther gives me an outlet to share things I normally wouldn’t with family.

ninjacolin's avatar

somehow you made we wonder if there should ever be a case where we can’t say what we want to say infront of someone. like, even the bad things we have to say about our boss for example.. why shouldn’t our boss be able to understand our opinion of him/her?

why shouldn’t your mom understand that you speak the way you speak or that you would like to speak the way you speak.. or why shouldn’t she know that you’ve said what you’ve said?

sorry for the question within a question.. but now i’m wondering. i mean, obviously people get upset about this kinda stuff but.. should they? should we be expected to have to hide things from them or should we expect them to just have to deal with our realities?

if you can believe it.. i still haven’t asked the question i’m really thinking of because i don’t know how to phrase it!

SeventhSense's avatar

The first rule of Fluther is we don’t talk about Fluther.

filmfann's avatar

@daloon What if one of your family recognizes your, um, avitar?

ninjacolin's avatar

no one will ever recognize the ass map!

candylady's avatar

My husband is on facebook and so is all my family. I have an account but never ever use it. Why, because I feel stalked on it. My husband is always sending me invitations to play useless games and so is my family. My husband belongs to a site and talks to people around the world all day long – and I get to hear about it over dinner. Enough – do I care what some person in California is feeding her family for dinner? People share way too much info on line. I would rather read a book than spend time on Facebook. If I wanted these people as friends, I would pick up a phone. If I don’t talk to you anymore, it’s because we have nothing in common to talk “Live” about. My frineds are my friends… the ones I want to spend quality time with. Not someone I went to high school with and haven’t seen in years.

wundayatta's avatar

@filmfann They have no idea what my avatar is. I only use it here and Facebook. Tried to use it on Askville, but they shot it down.

filmfann's avatar

@daloon! LOL! Askville! That’s perfect!

jonsblond's avatar

@ninjacolin You make an excellent point and I do agree with you. If you knew my mom, you would understand where I was coming from. She is very emotional, takes everything personally and is easily offended. I’m trying to not follow in her footsteps but it looks like I am since I am worried about what she thinks of me. vicious circle :P

filmfann's avatar

@jonsblond My Mom was that way too. I always tried not to give her anything to worry about. Maybe it would be best if you just created a second fb page for family.

PS I am kinda surprised your avitar isn’t Simka from Taxi.

filmfann's avatar

@candylady Welcome to Fluther. Lurve.

candylady's avatar

I think there is no privacy on facebook. You need to keep your private life private, especially in some jobs. Many teenagers don’t realize they show too much on their facebook accounts – too much info that really no one needs to know. Any prospective boss, mother in law, college recruiter can find you unless you have proper privacy settings.
Why people feel the need to show themselves drunk on the net, et al is a mystery to me. If you don’t want your mother to read your facebook account set up a new one under a different name and don’t invite her to join. I would never dream of reading either of my kids accounts and my sisters keep me informed of all the creepy characters my hubby has as friends on facebook. The last time I logged in their were people looking me up who were parents in the school I work at – who wastes their time with that? And really why would I want to waste my time with them

jonsblond's avatar

@filmfann I’ve searched for Simka pics. There aren’t many good ones. :(

candylady's avatar

The joy of sites like these compared to grrrrr facebook is you can use an avatar and remain anonymus. Sorry for the cranky comments above but facebook really creeps me out. The last time I was on there I seriously wanted to cancel out the account. You can have lively discussions with people on sites like this. People on facebook or too clingy and spend way too much time playing games. It’s creepy

wilma's avatar

I agree with @candylady , too much information. I don’t have time for all of that.
My internet life is pretty much separate from my home and family life.
Not because I’m hiding anything from them, but because it’s none of their beeswax.

Facade's avatar

You don’t have to do it because your sister did or for any other reason. Say no if you don’t want to.

casheroo's avatar

Since adding more family, the way I Facebook has changed a lot. I’m not ashamed of any views I have, and still voice them. But, I do curse a lot less, and I’m more aware of the photos I upload…even pregnancy belly shots; I don’t add any of me in my underwear since it’s weird to know my family will see…but oddly, I have no issue with friends or strangers seeing them lol.
I think it’s healthy to keep things separate. I keep Fluther to myself (well, my husband knows…I also mention it to some friends but don’t tell them my screenname. They could easily figure it out though)

So, I guess my suggestion is to keep Fluther off Facebook, and add your mother. That’s all I’ve got. probably not what the people who made Fluther want to hear lol

jonsblond's avatar

@casheroo I know! I’m a big supporter of Fluther and suggest it to all of my friends. Just not to my family.I am proud to say that we have had several friends join thanks to our cheerleading. :)

DominicX's avatar

I don’t keep my family separate from Facebook. I’m friends with my mom and all my siblings and even a few other relatives. I don’t care if they see anything on Facebook. In general, I doubt they’re terribly interested. And they should never be “shocked” by anything they see on there because I am being 100% myself on there and they’re going to have to deal with it. (No one’s ever been shocked, I’m just saying if). I don’t hide anything.

Fluther on the other hand is mine. And the way I keep it away from my family is I simply don’t tell them about it. I mean, my parents were curious at one point and wanted to know what I do online, so I briefly described this site and showed them the main page, but neither one of them were interested in joining and I didn’t say much about it. They were never the type of parents who checked my history and insisted I tell them all my passwords. They let me do my own thing with my own computer.

As for your situation, I don’t think you should give in if you don’t want to. Just be honest that you don’t want to add her. I kind of agree with @filmfann.

wundayatta's avatar

People talk about opinions on FB??? As far as I can tell, they share a tiny bit of information, a lot of pictures, and chat. The rest of it is these silly, useless games. I understand that Farmville (sp?) is one of the most popular games ever. WTF?

I must be doing something wrong (typical). I just don’t get Facebook’s form of social interaction.

candylady's avatar

Sorry Facebook is creepy. All those stupid games and people sending you hearts and flowers. Its sappy!!! People want to be friends with you because you have one person in common. Who has time for this? My friend keeps track of her stepkids on facebook, because they are stupid and post drunken pictures of themselves and brag about who they are sleeping with? WTF! That is just nuts

avvooooooo's avatar

@candylady We get it. You think facebook is creepy, stalker fodder, full of stupid games and a waste of time. Thanks for expressing your opinion. But we get it. There’s no need to say it over and over and over.

jonsblond's avatar

@daloon I think my sisters make a good example of the different types of users of Facebook.

Sister #1 Posts pictures of family and vacations. Keeps in contact with friends.

Sister #2 The social butterfly/flight attendant. Posts pictures of travels and asks fellow employees to switch swifts.

Sister#3 :Is all about Mafia Wars.

Sister #4 clueless me, finding my way

casheroo's avatar

@daloon Don’t make me start sending you Farmville gifts :P

SeventhSense's avatar

@daloon
I must be doing something wrong (typical). I just don’t get Facebook’s form of social interaction.
I know. Don’t even get me started on Twitter. Is the nation retarded?

wundayatta's avatar

@casheroo I’ve probably got it blocked, anyway. I block all that stuff that does nothing for me.

NewZen's avatar

@SeventhSense I’m with you on that!

SeventhSense's avatar

@NewZen

Shall we tweet it? ~_~

augustlan's avatar

I know that at least one Fluther member has a FB account pretty much just for other Fluther members. We used to be on his regular account, and I think he de-friended us from there and came back with a new account in his Fluther name.

Psychedelic_Zebra's avatar

The easy way to solve this is to follow in the footsteps of @SeventhSense, @NewZen and myself. Delete your FB account, relegate the word twitter back to what birds do, and don’t tell anyone about Fluther. Fluther is a secret place, and if you tell too many people about it, the CIA will…

NewZen's avatar

@SeventhSense Yes. Tweet tweet. On a (semi) serious note, I recently received a book from the zebra which I am reading (Sorry love, I read slow).

I was sitting and reading it (on the beach) the other day – couldn’t stop smiling at the thought that this little novel had travelled 5000 miles all the way to me – and it gave such special energy and meaning to every word I read (savoured).

Snail mail (and zebster): oh how I love thee.

Psychedelic_Zebra's avatar

Reading slow is best with a John Varley novel, his every word is magic and music to the soul. On the beach? I’m so jealous.

NewZen's avatar

Wish you could be here zeb.

jeanna's avatar

Only person in my day-to-day life that I see that knows of fluther is my boyfriend; he’s on here also and we live together. No one else knows and I haven’t (won’t) be a part of the fluther group on facebook. While I don’t hide much about myself, there are (mainly one thing) things my family doesn’t know and I’d like to keep it that way, until I am comfortable enough to divulge. I do have my family on my facebook and that doesn’t bother me at all. They do ask me about some things, and some friends, but they don’t really see anything they don’t expect. I am the black sheep.

SeventhSense's avatar

@kevbo
I have no interest in the content but that’s a well designed site

NewZen's avatar

@kevbo Great link and article. Good show!

jonsblond's avatar

Wow! Thank you @kevbo. This is very helpful!

@avvooooooo Thanks for the pm and the offer to help me. =)

@jeanna I have the same issue as you. I really don’t have anything to hide, but there are a few things that my mom doesn’t know and I’d like to keep it that way. She told me the other day how much she loves Facebook and she is on it every day to see what my sister is up to. If I friend my mom she’ll be checking in on me daily. I love her but that seems a bit much.

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