Facebook is notorious for making those connections impossible when they are truly needed most. It's a marketing tool with aggressive filtering, not a family message board.

Agreed. I wish that I could get my family and close friends to join a Mattermost server I host, but so far, FB has a stranglehold on everyone it seems.

XMPP had federation. Sadly it didn't last long at the big providers.

Unfortunately, it's both. Wal-Mart is a good comparison--their policies are awful and they blight the communities around them, but they provide real value to individual users. It's how they maintain their hold.

Use whatever app or medium you choose, my advice was simply that sending directly to specific people is a better than flooding your IG or FB with photos of junior every day.

90% of my Instagram content is my kid. Though I use it as a way to record highlights for me and my wife, rather than for outside consumption.

I'm not sure why. My sister has an Instagram where she takes a couple of pictures of her kids a day, and has for the past five or six years, and I quite enjoy it. I know many of my family members do too. I visit a URL that just shows me her posts once a week or so, and just scroll to see what my niece and nephew have been up to.

How often do you call or visit your sister? Or your nephews? Just saying that I think we lost something when we could just become low-effort voyeurs.

How is emailing photos to specific people materially different than posting photos to a Facebook account followed by the same people? (Particularly if the account is otherwise private.)

How many people really care? Seriously? I love my kids as much as the next guy, but unless you are talking about a small group of people, yeah, in my opinion that amounts to narcissistic oversharing. I mean if you catch something hilarious, sure, share it. But it seems to me that those kind of posts should be few and far between. We've entered an age where voyuerism == friendship. No one really cares. Do you care about some high school pal's post of their kids activities?

I personally think there is a significant difference. The birthday messages I get on FB are worthless, but if someone sends me an email or a card that is worth something.

The connection via Facebook is so trivial and transient but it is better than no connection to people I'd have no contact with otherwise.

The people I email photos too will probably look at them a few times and may want to print them and will send an email response. Via FB it's all seen and then forgotten in 30s

I actually enjoy all the birthday messages I get on FB. Not because they say happy birthday, but because I actually respond to every single one of them, and catch up with people who actually made the slightest effort to wish me a happy birthday.

Fair point, I enjoy them too. But the amount of thought it takes to say Happy Birthday via Facebook is so trivial. FB reminds you, puts it at the top of your feed and reminds you the day after.

For me to send a birthday card to my friends I have a reminder that goes off a week before their birthday so that I find the time to go out get a relevant card. Then writing something of purpose inside the card and sending it with enough time to get there. So it's a week's worth of remembering their birthday vs the 30s that occurs in FB before reading all the other news.

So not worthless, but certainly worth less, to almost zero.

Yes,I have three kids, and I'm rarely on Facebook because I find it a toxic place.

But I was recently at a wedding, and was prompted to post a few photos up (more to share the photos with the bride/groom in a way that can also be seen by their friends too). It surprised me the number of messages I got saying how people loved seeing pictures of the kids and how they'd grown etc etc.

I don't have time to keep up with a lot of these old friends (many live far away) so I count this as a positive interaction on facebook.