To wonder if my kids are missing out because i am not on Facebook?

[bluetrampolines]

With it being Halloween I realise lots of the camaraderie looms through Facebook. I cant stand facebook. I find it stressful. All those people from so long ago finding you and all the opinions and gossip. But should I suck it up for the sake of my kids being included?

The thing with Facebook is that it has many different functions. Most people obviously know about the part where you 'friend' people and see the things they post up about their life/stupid memes and they see what you post up. The side of it that's lesser known, even to a lot of users, is the community side of it. There are community groups, special interest groups, local groups, business pages, etc. And because of the age profile of facebook, an enormous amount of groups are aimed at parents of young children. I wouldn't have the slightest clue about a fraction of the activities that make up my and DS's lives if it wasn't for these groups and pages.

Most of my current friends were met when I went to special interest group I found on Facebook. The school DS goes to was founded by a disparate group of people who could organise through Facebook. We're about to go to an activity in a minute that I discovered on Facebook. Yesterday we attended two activities that I discovered on Facebook. Later we'll be meeting friends that I probably wouldn't have met if not for Facebook. My local neighbourhood groups post up important notices on Facebook. I'm a scout leader and we organise nearly everything on Facebook. It makes everything a bit easier in terms of communicating and yes, people who aren't on it almost certainly miss out.

In terms of your privacy, you could always join up with an altered version of your name (in Ireland it's common to use the Irish version), a generic photo of a pot plant and just not friend anyone. But search for local groups and join those. Search for your neighbourhood/town/city/etc with keywords like kids/parents/Christmas/Halloween/etc. That way you can access the local groups and announcements but not share anything about your life.

When I started to find facebook too stressful and draining, I hid all my 'friends' so I wasn't seeing all the narcissistic, inane stuff and all I see now are posts from groups or pages I'm interested in. Great for events for kids etc!

I've created a fake profile with nothing on for all my "mum" stuff (play groups etc)

Oh right. Thank you for your excellent posts. So this fake name thing, any tips? And is it possible that no one really knows who you are on it. The following/unfollowing/liking thing makes me wince. And that essentially all of your world's collide.

Yes do a fake profile. You will still get friend suggestions, based on groups that you 'like' and so on, but just ignore them. I did one for DH, because he hates social media but wanted to keep an eye on our town page and our eldests football page.

So, say I like Brownies. I'd then get friend suggestions based on the local Brownie group?

I have a friend who has a facebook account purely for the local parenting pages, she has no friends and never posts anything but can message people and comment on group pages about school events etc and this is all she uses it for.

So, say I like Brownies. I'd then get friend suggestions based on the local Brownie group? No, it's more that you'd get "friend" suggestions on the basis of things you interacted with. So you wouldn't get friends suggested from the local Brownie group unless you started following their facebook page and "liking" things on it. Friend suggestions are different from Friend requests - they're just basically a row of "adverts" which you can completely ignore.

You can shut down your access quite heavily. Only Friends of my Friends can send me a Friend request (so no people from my past), and I turn down requests unless I know them in real life and would like to add them to my group. Only Friends can see my posts, the (scanty) information in my profile, my Friends list, and my profile won't come up on google. All this is in "privacy" on the settings menu. And remember you don't have to fill in all the questions about "place of work" "education" "date of birth", or you can lie.

I use facebook for community groups to know what's happening in our area, groups and pages relating to my interests, so I see events without having to trawl through web pages, and also for private specialist groups on a couple of topics that I am studying - these groups also have national experts on them (the writers of the text books), and learning would be so much more difficult without them.

If your are Katie Anne Brown you can show your name a song Anne Kate

Teachers politicians and famous celebs do this!!!

Join the brownies local news buy and sell sites kids activities school friends or parent pages etc and you will be fully informed

Ignore friend requests if you like!

Oh and a bit of advice! Set up a separate gmail account just for FB so it won't ping all your contacts!!!

I’m the same and I can’t deal with WhatsApp either. The inane chatter. I know we’ve missed out, but I have enough to deal with without trawling through messages and status updates. Life is already very distracting. I did try to have an account for a group but people found me, I think email addresses are linked. Perhaps set up a new email too if you try a friend free account.

Tulips and Beast

Now I see. So. I need a new email account and a new pretend name.

Now, do I tell people about my Facebook address? How does that work? Say one of my kids was in Brownies would everyone then not find out my new fake name?