I friended and unfriended in one day. Was alarmed at all the posts on Facebook concerning mostly negative stuff. Was appalled by all the crowd reports and portage fiascoes. The irresponsibility of some people made me cringe and I had to turn off the computer. After reading some of these posts why would anyone go to the Boundary Waters? Reads like an amusement park for stupid people. I've been coming to the border country since 1974 and a lot has changed. The biggest change to the BWCA is the access to the internet. Facebook, snapchat, selfies, drones, etc. It breaks my heart to read some of these posts. This (BWCA) website is the best. Keep up the good work in keeping us informed.

Completely agree - I no longer have anything to do with Facebook or other social media.

Never have been on Facebook, and never will. Everyone I know that is on it is ticked off at something someone said or photo posted. My wife shows me all I need to know about stupid stuff on Facebook on her FB account.

Plus, the Russians are putting all their fake news stuff there. I can easily get that elsewhere on TV.

Just kidding. No interest in Facebook or any clones thereof.

Tomster

I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.

Mike

MikeinMpls: "I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.


Mike"

I gained 1.5-2.0 hours of reading time per day by dropping FecalBook 4+ years ago! Time suck, indeed.

TZ

TrailZen: "

MikeinMpls: "I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.

Mike"

I gained 1.5-2.0 hours of reading time per day by dropping FecalBook 4+ years ago! Time suck, indeed.

TZ"

I have a job that requires occasional court testimony. Facebook is considered discoverable in court, so opposing counsel could find a Facebook page and impeach me (i.e. ask me all kinds of questions to weaken my credibility) based on what is on my page, who posted it, who I follow, and who follows me. I don't need that. Anyone who wants to reach me knows how to...and those I want to contact, the same.

Mike

MikeinMpls: "I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.


Mike"

Never had it and never gonna get it. Time suck for sure. Don't need to know everything about everyone 24/7.

PeaceFrog: "

MikeinMpls: "I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.

Mike"

Never had it and never gonna get it. Time suck for sure. Don't need to know everything about everyone 24/7."

You mean you DON'T need to know when your high school classmate goes vegan or when one of the Kardashians gets their hair cut (with cute bangs of course)? Why don't you just volunatrily live in the woods or something? (Thats acutally quite appealing.)

All in pure fun

Mike

MikeinMpls: "

PeaceFrog: "

MikeinMpls: "I am so glad I am way behind the Facebook curve. I can't get my regular work done the way it is...Facebook sounds like it has the potential to be a huge time suck.

Mike"

Never had it and never gonna get it. Time suck for sure. Don't need to know everything about everyone 24/7."

You mean you DON'T need to know when your high school classmate goes vegan or when one of the Kardashians gets their hair cut (with cute bangs of course)? Why don't you just volunatrily live in the woods or something? (Thats acutally quite appealing.)

All in pure fun.

Mike"

Right on. I'm with you Mike. See you in the woods.

I find Facebook to be a wonderful resource. I stay in touch with friends from far away and others from long ago. Some of my friends have gone off the deep end with fake news, I just observe. I am in touch with some of my students from the past... my little Grade 7s of a few years ago are now having babies of their own.

As for mis-information, it's everywhere, even on this so called blessed site. When an ad appears on my Facebook I just tag it as sexually inappropriate and let Facebook's censors work it out. I do that with all ads.

Like many things in life you take the good with the bad... I find more good than bad.

goatroti: "I find Facebook to be a wonderful resource. I stay in touch with friends from far away and others from long ago. Some of my friends have gone off the deep end with fake news, I just observe. I am in touch with some of my students from the past... my little Grade 7s of a few years ago are now having babies of their own.

As for mis-information, it's everywhere, even on this so called blessed site. When an ad appears on my Facebook I just tag it as sexually inappropriate and let Facebook's censors work it out. I do that with all ads.

Like many things in life you take the good with the bad... I find more good than bad. "

Agreed. The criticisms are pretty juvenile.

The stock Facebook experience sucks, real hard. But as others have noted, there are indeed good things about FB.

The real problem is that FB does not provide adequate controls so you can customize it to filter out the crap you don't want to see.

There is a piece of software called FB Purity, an extension you load into your web browser, that gives you the controls that FB should have given you. It's shareware, free to download and use -- pay if you like it and want to support the developer.

It works great. You can filter by type of post, type of image, keywords, etc., and you can even completely turn off things like the (biased) FB News pane. I'm not associated with this software or its developer in any way, other than being a happy user. I'm just glad it's available, otherwise I couldn't stomach using FB.

It runs on most web browsers for PC's, Mac's, Linux, etc., however it does not run on mobile platforms (tablets or phones). Therefore I only use FB on my computer and not on my phone.

outsidethebox: "

goatroti: "I find Facebook to be a wonderful resource. I stay in touch with friends from far away and others from long ago. Some of my friends have gone off the deep end with fake news, I just observe. I am in touch with some of my students from the past... my little Grade 7s of a few years ago are now having babies of their own.

As for mis-information, it's everywhere, even on this so called blessed site. When an ad appears on my Facebook I just tag it as sexually inappropriate and let Facebook's censors work it out. I do that with all ads.

Like many things in life you take the good with the bad... I find more good than bad. "

Agreed. The criticisms are pretty juvenile. "

Yea I have to agree with he last 2 posts. I know you can go down the rabbit hole real easy on FB but for me I really like keeping up and connecting with people. I have a large family and seeing all the sports and fun activities my nieces and nephews are doing gives me ideas for my kids and is fun to see.

I am not saying previous posts are wrong—-many of the political posts on both sides have been tracked back to Russian hackers to sow dissent. But I can ignore stuff pretty easily too.

I will Totally disagree with you on this one. I just pulled up the first 50 posts as an example I could have looked deeper. There was zero negative posts in a single one. I think you might have stumbled on one or two bad threads. I look on that page daily and I get a different view. As a whole it’s a good page to learn from. Different people from here but same topics.

Facebook- utter waste of time and destructive to society at large. This is irrefutable. Whatever good rendered from Facebook is not worth the cost to society and the world at large. The goal of the company is to keep you on the site (and supplying it with free data) for as long as possible. Conflict increases engagement which increases time on the site. The algorithm encourages conflict. As for those who say "it lets me keep in touch with..." Consider putting the phrase "Look Mommy!" in front of every post you read or write. Sad and pitiful pleas for attention and validation. A narcissistic stew of lost souls.

I have become so very disinterested in Facebook that I am not even going to read everyone’s post about it. I’m unfriending this thread.

There are several Facebook pages dedicated to this forum. There was a period of time where a few negative people were trolling the pages, but I think they are gone. However you feel about Facebook, the BWCA pages usually have good questions and good photos that people share.

Just like here, you scroll past the stuff you don’t want to read. There is good and bad in most things. Political stuff is never good... even if it starts out ok, it deteriorates quickly.

nctry: "Just like here, you scroll past the stuff you don’t want to read. There is good and bad in most things. Political stuff is never good... even if it starts out ok, it deteriorates quickly. "

THIS!

I read a story last week on the facebook page about a father/daughter relationship which was one of the best things I have read anywhere online in a very long time.

I always saw Facebook as the gateway to becoming the human characters in the movie Wallee.

When I watch my adult children lay on the couch with their phone a foot from their face, drinking from a straw in their Camelback bottle, I can see I may have been correct.

For those who would like a good read on the effects of techo-crap, a good prescient book is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. I believe it was written in the 1950s.

Get outside, it is good for you. We all know that.