@jbaldy22 Please re-read my later comment about the broadly chareidi nature of commenters, I’m not preventing you commenting merely advising that it should be an exercise in futility if we still have a broadly chareidi user base.
I’ve been on CR for over 5 years but I don’t generally comment. The reason is that I find the views overall in line with chareidi ideology and many of the debates with the various MO (etc.) posters reasonable and healthy and don’t need my input (and I don’t usually have the time). I also don’t like preaching.
In this case, it bothered me enough that there was no commenter willing to spell out the likely effects of Facebook use, that I joined in.
It’s actually a tough argument to make, like many takonos that restrict our freedom of modern technology it’s a battle against the tide. You’re correct that you can’t just compare it to nightclub or suchlike, and leave it at that. FB is more complex and more insidious than that, but it behoves us all to actually understand what it.
The simplest legitimate comparison is to the unfiltered internet itself. Incredible useful, incredibly dangerous.
If there was some way of filtering Facebook so that it could be used without significant risk, I would likely agree with you. There isn’t, precisely because FB is all about encouraging you to interact with anyone who is some way related and it’s almost impossible for your “social graph” not to include people that you shouldn’t be freely socialising with, and for FB to encourage you to interact with them.
You may use it for now without ill-effect, but without realising what FB really is. The social pleasure and convenience it provides you is blinding you to the huge inherent risks, and that you apparently have yet to encounter the more insidious side of FB. I hope I made this point clearly enough in my earlier posts above (and in a follow-up) that I don’t have to belabour the point.
I’m not actually getting involved the point of this thread, which is whether FB causes increases in divorce or not, merely countering your assertion that FB is ok.
Your “sizeable portion of CR” is a few commenters on this rather low-profile thread. I sincerely hope they are convinced FB is a bad thing for us, and that public awareness campaigns will educate the wider kehillah.
Also, haifagirl and Health, please leave it alone. This type of nitpicking has destroyed many a informative thread.
P.S. What’s interesting is that the “addictive” nature of any social community (Facebook, CR) means that I have begun to comment more frequently despite resisting doing so for a long period!