Do you use Facebook? Do you like it? Do you worry at all about privacy, advertising, tracking, wasting time with it?

I've successfully (kind of militantly!) avoided it until now.

But, there's a really cool class coming up on personality stuff, run by people that I absolutely love and respect and think I'd learn a lot from.

And, part of the class is a Facebook community where people interact, post questions, make announcements, etc.

I was able to ask if you can do the class without Facebook, and the answer was "sure... some people do... but... you miss a lot of the community."

The woman teaching mentioned that she hates it too, but hasn't been able to find anything else that really works as well for them. She also said it's fine to set up a fake profile to participate (though I thought FB was working to identify/crackdown on those).

I've run into this in a couple other situations too, where I end up missing out on staying connected with a community because everyone else is on FB, and I'm not.

So - I'm curious what your experiences have been. If you have set up a fake alter-ego to be on FB, if you've successfully limited your time on there to participate in specific groups, how you avoid the drama and the time-suck, and how you protect your privacy, if that's an issue for you.

Thanks! The class looks like so much fun, and I really need something fun in my life right now... b/c - you know, everything is kind of blah. So I'm trying to really give this some thought to see if I could make it work.