Facebook is a tool. Use it (or don't) in whatever way it works for you. And if pics of someone's dinner bug you, just scroll past them (like I do when y'all post pics of your studios or latest guitars!)
Absolutely correct. The only reason that I belong to Facebook is to reconnect with friends and acquaintances from High School, College, Medical School, and Graduate School. If they start saying things that get on my nerves, it possible to modify what hits my wall without actually unfriending them. There is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of misuse of social media but it also serves a wonderful purpose and I’m not going to allow those who misuse it to ruin it for me when there are so many ways to manage around them.
Back in the Pre Internet days, I was working on an immunological research problem that required me to become no only knowledgeable but proficient in a lab technique called a Jerne Assay. I had access to, and was learning to use some pre internet tools that allowed me to communicate in real time with the actual inventor of the assay, who not only taught me the ins and outs of running the assays but shared with me a number of papers that had not yet cleared the publication procedures, but saved me many hours of fruitless lab time and showed me several paths to the proofs that I was looking for in my personal research that I hadn’t even thought of. It was kind of a unique thrill when I was challenged by my research oversite committee on several things in my design when instead of citing a particular journal article, I was able to say ‘Personal communication with the author” and be able to present a printout of a discusssion I had with the leading authority in the world on the subject. After that, I would talk everyone to death on how wonderful and revolutionary it would be when we all had immediate access to ideas.
I never perceived what all of the un filtered information hitting us would do to science and a lot of that youthful excitement has been replace3d with dread.