Facebook

Joseph, my children (teens)do not require a facebook account.

We allowed them to have it because we are very involved parents who are able to monitor who our kids communicate with, for how long and what the conversations are generally about.

As far as the danger, there is danger is just about everything, including water, food, walking to school/shul. I don’t weigh out their foods, I don’t monitor so closely how much they dring during the day and I don’t check their bowel movements. Standing in line at the grocery store to look at magazine covers can also be seen as dangerous. My job as a responsible involved parent is to educate my children as to what is appropriate and what is not. Thus comes the act of communicating with my kids. This teaches them to make good / appropriate choices. What to do while standing in line at the store instead of gauking at the mag. covers – what to say and who to say it to on facebook, its all about helping our kids “do the right things” in different situations.

Such is the way on this site, but that really is a genius line about “toiveling with a sheretz in your hand.”

I like!

I suggest you go to torahanytime.com and download the following speech by Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein

01/01/08 Parashat Va’era – The Truth About Facebook, Myspace, and New Year’s Eve

I listened to this speech. It was most unconvincing. Rabbi Wallerstein’s main point (in the section of the speech where he discussed Facebook) was that Facebook is bad because someone advertised a “Jewish” New Year’s Eve party. Somehow, because of that, the entire enterprise is a bad idea. Based on that reasoning, telephones are bad too because people can use them to invite them to parties…

The Wolf

“genius line about “toiveling with a sheretz in your hand.”

This is an extremely famous line used many times in Yiddishkeit. A lot of Mikvo’os have it stuck up on the wall stating that if you don’t pay it’s as if your toiveling whilst holding a sheretz…

nameless, (sorry i’m so late, but B”H i live in E”Y and i miss out on everything while i’m sleeping 🙂

“I have a friend who told me that whenever they speak a shidduch for her son, she checks to see if the girl is on facebook. If she is, she WONT GO INTO IT!”

Ahh! Finally, someone who has some seichel in their head! tizku l’mitzvos!

Kitzur:

No it is laziness and narishkeit. Anyone who substitutes such a check rather than an actual, in-depth examination of the potential shidduch’s character and middos has missed the boat and is part of the shidduch problem, not the solution, much like someone who automatically eliminates a candidate because his/her mother stacks dishes.

True, there are many advantages of facebook, because I once had it. I was able to keep in touch with people, and I do kiruv so it was great to talk to the kids. Like thinkinghelps rabbi Wallerstein is very against facebook, and that speech was all about it, but alot of his other speeches he brings it up to try to get people to know. people become obsest and spend all day on it. when I go to college, during computer class I walk past the room and there is usually 4-5 people people on it, it becomes your idle that you cannot control. but the other thing i think is wrong, everything in life is wrong or right, you are supposed to think if you see hashems reflection in your action, meaning some of my friends have facebook to do kiruv like i mentioned, which is a very good thing, but good things cannot come out of something bad so hashem would not be there with the person. you are suppposed to elevate the physical, facebook i think is just all nothingness, alot of it, and meeting new people for the kids is really not a good thing. i think creating a private blog is a great way of keeping up, which is what my seminary has, or just the traditional emailing.

OMG! seriously,bored@work… how many times do people have to say this. Facebook is NOT for meeting NEW friends. That is MYSPACE. Please, do us all a favor and before you go on and on about something you really obviously have NO clue about – do your homework. This is what made me so nervous about my BY teachers… they would preach about something being wrong and at the same time sound so silly to me and my friends because they very obviously had no clue what they were talking about and just ended up sounding ridiculous.

Also, how shallow are you to think that EVERYTHING in life is wrong and right. There is so much grey involved in most decisions I make in my life. Wow, must be real easy to just see that oh, thats wrong and thats right. It must feel good to be in Gr. 1 again.

Uh…love2 hack …please do YOUR homework and read the posts b4 answering them. bored@work had Facebook at a point in her life so it would be common sense to assume she knows how it works…

Also,I’m very impressed that YOU don’t use facebook to meet new people. But I have some friends and relatives that have over 300 “friends” on facebook, and never met 80% of them.

I don’t really know how your friend has friends she doesnt even know on facebook. How did they find her? You can only become friends with someone if you search their exact name, put in a request to be their friend and then can be friends ONLY if the person agrees.

And, bored@work, I have some of those kind of friends on facebook too. As do alot of my friends- they’re def. not inappropriate types but people I might even not cross the street to say hello to (girls a couple of years older than me that I knew in high school…) Whats the problem?

I agree that some relationships that should not be happening are happening because its over the computer and easier BUT the kids that do these kind of things are just using facebook to do it (altho, facebook makes it kind of hard.) You have to realize that these kids would find a different way to do this anyhow. I have cousins who have inappropriate friends on facebook and guess what- its for the world to see because I can clearly see their friends list because I am friends with them. The kids that do this are the kids that are openly doing this anyway because facebook is not the most sneaky way to do these things.

luv2hack, it doesn’t sound like your very experienced using Facebook. In order to search for someone you DO NOT have to type in an exact name . If you type in a name a/t remotely similar can come up.( I don’t get it ….why would you type in a random person a coupla years older than you in h.s. if you wouldn’t even cross the Street to tell her hi???) Also if I have a friend I can look at her friends, click on one of them, and in turn look at their friends etcc….I put in a request to be their friend and why should they turn me away . My friend didn’t get her 332 friends by typing in exact names.

i used to have facebook and because of it a start talking to girls which is against halach i am a yeshiva bochur who would never think i will fall for it well after conveinceing from my freinds and them telling me that r’ zecria wallerstein holds it is absoultly not allowed and my own rabbi i deleted it yesterday and now i fell much better it can happen to anyone do not use facebook even to talk to friends of the same gender you will end up talking to the upset gender

thank you and do teshuva

avithedemon,

when you say the “upset gender,” do you mean the “opposite gender?”

after what avithedemon2 said I dont think I need to say anything more.

First of all I dont know how you can say you trust yourself if our reishonim tell us not to trust ourselves till the day we die. secondly there is something called extra geddarim, although a person may know they can trust themselves, extra fences around will not hurt. especially because chachomim say there is never enough fences for arayos.

“i’d say I’ve built a good couple of gederim with just that.”

Do not be overconfident that you have built “enough” gedarim.

I’m with luv2hack. There are ways to use Facebook inappropriataely, but there are ways to use EVERYTHING inappropriately. At some point you have to take personal responsibility and say “I can/cannot handle this.” Choose accordingly.

If facebook is bad for YOU, dont use it. If its not, go ahead and enjoy it.

Koobecaf si eht yaw ot og!

(Mod, my connection went down, so I’m not sure if this was posted or not. If it was, feel free to delete this.)

While I immensely respect the posters who saw that FB was giving them problems and so deleted theirs, the reality is that for them, that was a good thing.

“My side” of the argument has been trying to say this for the past two pages, but let me try to put it into perspective.

I’m a Yeshiva Bochur who learns morning and night and goes to college in the afternoon- this was with the full support of my Rebbeim, and NOT because I’m not capable of learning all day. (I’m not saying that to brag, just to make it clear that they didn’t feel that it would be a waste of time for me.)

I have a Facebook account. I use it to connect with many of my high-school friends who are now in E”Y, and as such would almost never have a chance of contacting them, and others whose updated phone numbers I was only able to get through FB itself. Yes, friends I talk to a lot are on my friends list too, but I usually talk to them.

The reality is this: FB by itself is parve, like everything else. You (and your friends) can post pictures- whether they’re good or bad depends on the person. My parents also have accounts, and they can see everything I post since they’re also my “friends.” You can post videos- good or bad depends on the person. You can update your “status”- a one-liner about what you’re doing, i.e. “Chaimss is on his way home for Shabbos.” Again, these can be perfectly fine, or they can be filled with nivel peh- Depending on who writes it.

I only join groups I actually care about, and I never invite friends that I don’t know personally. I have already received a few invites from people- all with Jewish-sounding names, I may add- and turned them down politely, explaining that I didn’t know them. I think it’s important to note- you have to confirm your friends, simply being added isn’t enough, it’s a two-sided street.

Now, I do believe that a shidduch, Yeshiva, etc. should check someone’s FB account, and here’s why. A lot of people who seem so fine in reality are different people online. They feel that the anonymity that the internet affords (even though people still know who you are, but it is (emphasis) online, so there’s still that fact) allows them to do certain things, so they may post pictures of things, or write things they’d never do in public. Most of friends are not this way, and have perfectly Kosher, clean FB pages that wouldn’t embarrass them even if their Rebbi saw it.

Enter Applications. These are online-based programs (nothing’s installed on your computer) which allow you to do different things, from comparing bowling scores to sending “postcards” and “bumper stickers.” Here’s where things usually get problematic on a person’s profile- again, depending on who they are, there are good stickers and bad stickers, but people can sometimes send you stickers, and then you have no idea how to take them off. There is a way, but I personally just removed those applications from my profile.

Is there a waste of time factor? Of course! But no more than on YWN- I probably waste the same amount of time on both sites. Time management is something everybody has to work on (or parents have to control) but that can’t be used as a reason to say something’s bad, just because it’s possible to waste time on it. In that vein, reading a book is bad too!

Is Facebook bad? Inherently no. If someone wants it to be? Yes. So as long as you don’t do something which could be dangerous, like adding random people or applications, it could be a great tool to keep in touch with people you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

P.S. I want to make it very clear where I stand. I can and will try to answer all genuine questions, arguments, etc. I will completely ignore any personal attacks.

Kitzur:

How is anything I said akin to “permitting McDonald’s?” Shame on you for such intellectual dishonesty.

When did I ever even say it was ok to have a mixed-gender friend on facebook? You have extrapolated a whole lot from my simple statement: just because some people do inappropriate things on facebook does not mean it is assur for all, or that all will do such things.

No, David, I suppose I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. I like your equation, I may have to use that sometime!

Kitzur: you say that friendly-like situations cannot be gender mixed.

What about young adults who are old enough to date and get married? Are they allowed coed situations? Because many of my really frum friends were dating at 18…are they allowed facebook?

I disagree that there should be no mixed socializing. What about tu b’av? Wasnt that a coed situation? Maybe some of the problems today are because we seperate genders so much.

illini, you are correct with your statement. I was just making a different point 🙂

Is it just me, or aren’t we “gender mixing,” here on YW?

Hmmm…