What Is the Fun in Being a Facebook Lurker?

I post once in a blue moon. I suppose it is strange but I just don't take my life seriously enough to think that everyone wants to know my every move.

The other thing is I have coworkers as friends so there goes my biggest stress, my boss. Although they would all agree with my opinion of her just not something you want to have out there where someone could read over their shoulder, ya know?

I guess I post what is most important to me which isn't very much. I am content to laugh at others, like stuff, and post once a month so everyone knows I am still alive. :)

I do not get it either.. It is like going to a party, but standing outside in the bushes looking in.

Be a part of life, not just an observer.

Or do not attend and give people their privacy.

I lurk here, on Mamapedia :-).
I almost never post, but read regularly.
And I do have a FB account, but don't even remember last time I logged in.
I do not find it a highest priority to post every 30 minutes.
Honestly, what I don't get, is why some people have a need to share their breakfast menu or that they have 'red flip-flops today and had black ones yesterday'.
I guess, to each their own....

i lurk because i have self esteem issues and can't find anything positive to say about my own self/situation. I mean if you want to know i had a soft pretzel for lunch and that it wasn't very good and now my mouth tastes like some weird garlic spice and i think i need to go brush but i don't want to get up off the couch right now-we'll then i guess i could post that and not be lurking,

As for commenting on other peoples posts, if it would be something some one might call and tell me about i might comment, but if it is something they wouldn't normally inform me of then i don't. Sort of if a friend posts about her kids bday i might comment, but if she posts about a family reunion for people i've never met, then i wouldn't. if that makes sense.

I think alot of other people have said it much better than my lame attempt. maybe it comes down to not wanting attention even the attention of commenting on others fun.

They like to keep up with their friends and acquaintances, but they themselves are private people. They don't update their status much for the same reason they don't offer a lot of detail into their lives when talking to acquaintances. Some people are self revealing and others private. I think its the private types that end up lurking.

I confess, I'm a lurker. I used to be very active on Facebook, but several things turned me off from being so active. There were some legitimate safety/privacy concerns that popped up about three years ago. There was no good way to protect my family just by tweaking privacy settings due to the interconnectedness of everyone/everything on there. That was probably the biggest issue. Then there was the inevitable drama, and after a completely innocent post on my part turned into a bashing contest between a good friend and a cousin of mine, it took a lot of the fun out of posting things. I don't like drama, and I don't like being caught in the middle of a feud between a friend I love and family I tolerate :D. And then came the point where everything I thought about posting was so cliche and annoying even to me, I decided to self-censor, and ever since then, I just don't do much on there.

However, I enjoy reading what everyone else is doing, especially since we've moved and can't keep up with people quite as well. While I don't do a lot of public stuff on there, I frequently exchange private messages with friends on there, and since a lot of people now use that instead of regular email, that's just what works for me.

As far as the comment about letting people have their privacy by not lurking, if someone has invited me to be their friend or has accepted my friend invitation, I don't consider it an invasion of their privacy to catch up with them even if I'm not commenting on every single thing they have to say. It's all part and parcel of the Facebook experience that anyone you've allowed in could be reading what you have to say.

I wouldn't say I am a lurker. I have a page but I don't post much because I am busy with other things in my life that take up a lot of time.

When I see a family member that has done something I will usually comment on it. But I don't initiate much in what I am up to for the day or week. In the early days people used to read who they knew and would go and break into their homes because they told the world they would be away from x to z.

I like keep a part of me private from the world. I guess that is old school and the old ways. Mamapedia(source) keeps me busy enough at work as it is.

The other S.

My name is J. and I'm a lurker.. (everyone now..) "Hi J."
I'm on the fence about facebook. I have even went as far as to 'check in' remotely, but then at the last minute I delete it, not wanting everyone knowing my business. I know, silly.
I check facebook a lot during the day, just to be nosey more than anything else.

To me, lurkers are just bored or nosy. They want to know what is going on in everyone else's lives, but either don't have much to share, or don't care to share their own experiences.

A lot of my high school friends are currently SAHMs, or work evening shifts at hospitals, or are photographers who are on the computer constantly M-F. We have a TON of fun sharing stories, pictures, articles, and shocking each other with blast-from-the-past pictures. I'm 400 miles away from my family (with the exception of my sister and hubby's cousins). If it weren't for FB, I would feel totally disconnected from my extended framily.

ETA: My husband's friend/colleague & his wife once commented to him about how much I use FB. Well, at least I am interacting with people on it--not just posting pics of exotic vacations, or checking in at every high-end restaurant in the Chicago area. Grrr! I don't see FB as a forum to brag, I use it for my friends and family. Guess who is no longer my FB friend ;)

Not sure what some of you "don't get" about lurking?
I read the posts of the people that show up on my feed, but don't feel the need to make a comment. Enough said. Same way I might sit at a group of 10 women and if one of them shares a story that I don't have a particularly poignant comment on, I sit back and listen.
There you go: lurking is just virtual listening. :) Don't always feel the need to open my mouth and add to the comments. But it IS fun (and funny) to see what other people think I might want to know about their life.

Likewise, What you might consider my "boring life" (aka the reason I don't post), might actually be quite fulfilling for me. So, perhaps to some of you who feel lurkers are boring or nosy, maybe "we" who lurk just don't want your judgement cast down on us. So, we're boring if we don't post, but what are we if we do? You see, if we don't post, you don't get to pass your judgement on us out loud.

My dad is a lurker. He said you get the fun of facebook without repercussions. You don't have to worry about what you wrote or who you offended. And he has mentioned more than once that it's kind of like socially acceptable eavesdropping.

I might as well delete my Facebook account.
I use to lurk to see what it was all about.
It was mostly at 2 extremes - boring/irrelevant and flaming/blathering/nonsense.
I found a few high school friends I'd lost track of, and then I totally lost respect for them.
Really knowing their viewpoints on some topics just swept away some illusions I had about them and it turns out they are some very narrow thinking extremely bigoted people - I don't even like them anymore.
Not my idea of fun.

Never confuse Facebook or any social media with "Life" - it's not - not even close.

I don't want my company finding me - and HR is all over it.
It's none of my works business knowing what a basket case my sister or any other family member is.
I keep my personal life and professional life quite separate.

And even with the security locked down to the max - my husband was surprised when someone found him through me by my being friends with my husband.
He didn't like that at all and he's considering deleting his account too.

My mom and MIL are "lurkers", and mostly it is because A: they are pretty slow to learn the whole FB and computer thing- they are still figuring out how to get photos off their memory cards and have no idea how to upload them, etc. I guess they could figure it out if it was important to them, but it isn't. B. They are both the types that HATE any attention on themselves. They are happy to see what everyone else is doing, but they do not want the spotlight, ever. They are like this in real life, not just via internet.

Ya, I want to know that too. And we are FB friends and I don't get people either that have profiles, but don't do anything. I *know* there are lurkers out there...it kind of is weird to me too. I'm replying without looking at your 6 prior responses so maybe I should see what they say. I know I have the *usual* people that always like or reply on my posts, then out of the blue I will see a like from someone who I NEVER hear from, which makes me think, weird, are they just on here once every few months, or all the time, and they just happen to like my post? Weird. I dont know but I'm going to see if any of the lurker have replied to you...then I'm going to go lurk on your page and see what you have been up to...LOL! =)

I wish I had an answer!
Lurkers?
Stalkers?
No clue.
Sorry.

I generally only post if I'm doing something of interest, but I am on throughout the day. I check daily what my kids have been "liking" that day and I get alerts if they post or are tagged in any photos (they are with their dad for the summer). When my kids are with me, I post more often. Primarily because they ask me to take a picture and tag them in it.
My son NEVER posts anything. He is a total lurker!
I'll probably update my status this weekend since we'll be out with friends and such, but not sure I have anything too interesting going on before that...

My sister has FB only for contacting people that refuse to use email anymore. She's not an internet person (I might get a response to an email 3 days to a week later and I just plan for it). What you call a lurker may simply be someone who doesn't feel to blab a whole lot or post a lot of things. It's just occasional use of a tool you prefer to use differently.

FYI - some of those that are lurking are law enforcement and prospective employers. People need to sensor themselves!

.

I'm not sure what a lurker is, so I may be answering the wrong question here! But when I joined FB - to my children's embarrassment - they cautioned me right away to be careful of what I write. To me, FB is like a big party. It can be fun to see everyone you know, but you must realize that *anything* you say/write will be "heard" or "overheard." So I'm careful. But I do post and share - sometimes quite a lot.

If a lurker is someone who just reads other people's posts without writing oneself, that's what I am, mostly, at the moment. Part of it is because there were major events happening in my area not long ago, and I was on FB posting updates several times a day in order to keep former residents in the loop about what was happening. It took a lot of time and energy, and I'm tired! So I'm backing off for a while and just enjoying others' posts. You can't be at a party all the time.

Some friends like to read posts (and "like" them, too) but not contribute much themselves. They say that if they want to respond to a friend's post, they do it by private message or e-mail, because there is more privacy that way. Other folks love to share their lives with everyone every ten minutes! As our grandparents and great-grandparents used to say, it takes all kinds of people to make up a world.

How does one become a facebook lurker?

Do you set up a different account or something and then post anonymously to people's pictures?

My ex called me one day and asked me what I thought about a picture he had just posted. I told him I was ironing for a customer and wasn't on, could I call him back once I did get on. He told me I was showing on the chat column as being online. I just had not signed out. It shows me on all day most of the time but I'm not really on.

Right now, besides this tab with mamapedia open, I have Gardens of Time open in one tab, FarmTown open in another with someone harvesting my farms., and my wall is open on another tab. I am on the computer but not actually doing anything on FB.

I don't consider it lurking. For me it is the only way to get status on some people's lives. I used to have a wide circle of friends, but now am a working mom, so see them infrequently (also we scattered around the country). I will very rarely post something myself because I don't see any reason to put the details of my life on line, but have figured out how to get an email when certain people update their posts. I miss when we used to send emails to a group, which was somewhat more personal. And I hate having to sift through the 45 "I like this photo" posts to get to the one "how my brain tumor treatment is going" post, but that is what I use facebook to do.