SUNSHINENJ: Facebook don'ts

Don’t you just love finding your Facebook mailbox flooded with suggestions on what to do with your status? Here's my suggestion: "What NOT to do on Facebook."

Joyce Morin Schultz

The whole Breast Cancer Awareness thing was cool and was fun -- it even made the news -- but now people are getting a little carried away. The best is when people start replying to those emails….now I’m tortured with reading all THAT crap, too. Like, do they not see the only option is "REPLY ALL"? Hellooooooooo!!!!!!!

While I'm at it, I’m not sure how people from Italy, India and England found me, especially since I have relatives in Italy, Croatia and Australia who couldn't find me with a phone book and a GPS.

You’re on the other side of the freakin’ world, dude! This is going to benefit me how?

And by the way: If you’re into sheep... well, different strokes for different folks. I respect all you virtual farmers. But really: Must you flood my home page with all your Farmville, YoVille, HoVille updates? I know, I know…I can block the application…. OK, fine. You win.

I love FB chat. I love it so much, in fact, I got the app for my BlackBerry. Know why? Because I love having five conversations going at once. I Love having chat windows overlapping each other. I love being so confused that I'm answering one person's question that's meant for someone else, or divulging personal information to one of these foreign strangers -- or, better yet, inviting someone I really don’t care for much to hang out with me and my friends.

Know what works? BRB. And just so you know: You really don’t need to IM me a millisecond after I accidentally hit my mouse and go from idle to active. That just gets you shifted to another list -- the one for which I don’t open the chat. :) Miss me?

The only thing I love as much as FB chat is changing my status message.

I was always pretty careful about what I wrote until FB gave us the “per status” privacy setting! Woo-hoo!

So, if I find or come up with something that will draw comments that can be construed as crossing the line, I am careful to allow access only to my special list of nutjob friends.

You never know who can be offended by your status or misinterpret the comments, so it’s better to make separate friend lists. Perception means everything, especially with your co-workers. Oh, and coming from someone who is working on her truck driver mouth, I never drop the F-bomb when commenting on another status. And I’ll delete comments made on my threads with that lovely four-letter word.

Finally: defriending (or “unfriending,” according to the FB dictionary) is serious shit. Unless someone is annoying, harassing or bothering you, there’s really no need to unfriend them. I mean, really, your friend list is not in a recession, so why downsize?

Unfriend someone and watch the drama that comes along with it. And beware of your medicated friends; they’ll make you feel like you’re in a horror movie. People are touchy, they get offended easily -- and besides, this IS a social networking site.

You never know who'll be able to help you down the road.

Joyce Morin Schultz is an escaped mental patient disguised as a project associate at an accounting firm in New Jersey. She lives with her three sons in Ridgefield. At her request, we've excluded her e-mail address.

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Gina Gaffney said:

	... Ms. Morin Schultz is one funny lady with a great heart. This comes from someone who's privileged (I think) to be on her nutjob list and who probably post way too many Farmville updates. Thanks for a great read, Joycie!
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