A chance comment by Rosie Sherry on Twitter caused me to think about the differences between the two. Her point was that it’s easier to keep up with people in Facebook – which I’d agree with, but, I see that as a benefit of having two accounts.
When I first used Facebook, I couldn’t quite see the point. I so wish I’d taken screen shots! At the time, you had to have a University email address, and were automatically a part of the University Network. There were 4 of us from University of Portsmouth. And I didn’t know the other 3. I didn’t see the point. So, I let it drift for a long time. Eventually, I decided that I needed to understand it, but primarily from a work point of view. So, I reactivated the account, started to add work colleagues, join work related groups. Then my friends / family started to find me. I realised it was much better for that! I can control who can see my updates (they’re all set to friends only, and I have a list of people who only get to see limited information [aka, nothing!]). I have to accept friends. I’m now starting to periodically remove those I just know through work, have never met etc. I’m just leaving in people I know well & socially via work, and those I see as ‘friends’ (e.g. I would invite them round to my house).
Twitter also took me time to see the potential; yes, it’s much harder to have a conversation; it’s do-able, but there are countless (well, quite a lot, I suspect I can count that far in the case of my readership) readers, it’s a dip-in/dip-out medium. There are some advantages – you get to see the most recent updates, unlike Facebook, which has a can have a habit of deciding what it thinks is important, it’s quick. But, for really having indepth conversations, it’s limited, unless you’re blessed with brevity. Which I’m not.
I feel I need them both.
My main issue is not being able to keep up with people. And yes, that is part of the *character* of Twitter, but it annoys me because I do want to keep up with people and what they are up to.
I feel I miss out on casual/simple opportunities with Twitter that I wouldn’t miss with my FB ‘friends’.
I do use lists, but find I can’t even keep up with those – checking for Tweets and maintaing the list.
They are different networks, FB is generally more personal. My FB friends list has more or less remained static for the past couple of years – probably because people don’t want to or are too scared to request friendships. I know I rarely add people as FB as I don’t know how personal people want to keep it. Instead I post to places like Twitter saying that I do want to be *FB friends* (horrible term, I know!)