Have you heard of the term “Facebook fatigue”? If not, then you are probably a smart cookie for not being too intimately involved with Facebook. We have not only heard of this term, but are currently experiencing it. We have Facebook fatigue. We just got arrested by Facebook, and are contained for Seven days.

Facebook for most bloggers and online businesses is a must. It is, in our opinion, a necessary evil. Don’t get us wrong, we love the idea of social networking. Staying connected with friends and family is difficult when you live hundreds or thousands of miles away from them so we are very much aware of the benefits of social networking. But, it is difficult to keep up with the amount of changes taking place on Facebook. Unless you live and breathe Facebook, which some people do and we call them addicts, then it is quite difficult to keep up to date with this social network that changes its rules as fast as we can point and click.

We could talk about the plethora of changes, the privacy issues and all the general annoyances of Facebook, but those issues in and of themselves could serve as a month’s worth of articles. What has us particularly peeved at this time is that we were blocked from adding friends for seven days. We were put in jail for seven days for allegedly sending out too many friend requests.

We understand Facebook’s policy which reads:

“Sending repeated friend requests to people you don’t know personally is considered harassment, and it is against Facebook’s Community Standards.

Facebook also has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. If you received a warning for going too fast when adding friends, you will need to temporarily stop this activity to avoid hitting a block on your account.”

Let us repeat this one sentence again:

“sending repeated friend requests to people you don’t know personally is considered harassment…”

We are currently trying to combine our personal Facebook pages into one page so that we can eliminate our personal pages. We feel that on the personal level Facebook is not for us, but for myFudo it is a necessity. We have been inviting our friends to join us on our new Facebook page. Naturally, knowing that we cannot flood the system, we have been doing this in small increments.

However, Facebook sent us a message: “We received feedback that you were sending friend requests to people you didn’t know.” But we do know of them, they are in our industry, we have from 30-100 mutual friends suggested to us by Facebook. We have been using a feature that our social networking guru, Mark Zuckerberg, has implemented, a side bar suggesting mutual friends. We thought Facebook was a social networking site. The fact that we were banned for seven days completely defeats the purpose of social networking.

We are conscientious and respect others. Within the framework of a social network we would not call 20 open friend requests high activity. Facebook has a system in place that is, perhaps, flawed. All our friend requests were accepted. However, when the person accepts a friend request they must also answer the question: “Do you actually know this person?” If, despite accepting the request, the response is “no”, we believe a red flag goes up. Then, (we must say this again, despite the person having accepted our request) we get a message stating that “someone complained”. Perhaps someone answered incorrectly by accident. There is no way to retract the answer.

If a person accepted our request logic would dictate that, even if they didn’t know us, which they do, they are able to make their own decisions. We are not spamming people. We are moving our friends and mutual friends to our new page and we are using the Facebook tool to find other mutual friends.

In essence, we are networking in a very professional and controlled manner. And, yet, we were barred from adding friends for seven days. Zuckerberg has manipulated the site in a way that has users scrambling to keep up with numerous changes. Facebook, more importantly, has collected an unprecedented amount of data to include an unrivaled photo identification network. How is it, then, that Zuckerberg’s policies restrict us from doing exactly what Facebook is designed?

We are not thrilled with Facebook which is why we are trying to shut down our personal pages and simply use it for business. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones who find Facebook a bit trying. Reports went out in June 2011 that Facebook lost over 6 million users. An article dated June 20, 2011 on CNN Tech states: “there are also some recent signs of “Facebook fatigue.” There is only so much you can do to socialize online, especially after you’ve exhausted your friend list. Some people also complain they’re spending so much time on Facebook that they’re short-changing the rest of their lives.

Evidence suggests a small but increasing number of users — at least in North America, where Facebook use is especially saturated — may be shunning the site. The site lost more than 7 million active users in the United States and Canada last month, according to data from the blog Inside Facebook, although Facebook disputes those figures.”

Facebook may have lost users this past summer, but overall, the company actually saw a net gain in users due to countries like Brazil, Mexico, India and Argentina. Facebook’s statistics are still impressive:

More than 800 million active users
More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day
On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices

Why then, with these statistics, were we denied the ability to network by a social networking website? We are frustrated, yet, here we are in the same predicament as many running online businesses. We are slaves to social networking which means we need Facebook.

We will have to serve out our seven day sentence with no possibility for time off for good behavior. Then, we are back to networking. And, when we send a friend request to our husbands we can only hope that Facebook does not send us a message that says, “You are sending friend requests to people you do not know.”

Please join us Facebook jailbirds for a delicious meal of Salisbury steak, served with a little more panache than what we would find on the average prison tray. We’ve included a delicious macaroni and cheese recipe instead of the average mash potatoes.

Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Sauce (Michael Chiarello)

Ingredients

4 boneless steaks (about 4 ounces each)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, for dredging
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups beef stock
8 ounces white button mushrooms, quartered
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps quartered
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 onion, minced
1 carrot, diced
4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Use a jaccard steak tenderizing tool, or tenderize the steak yourself with a fork. Lay the meat out in front of you, pushing it flat with your hands or a meat mallet, and pull it gently apart with tines of the fork until the meat is slightly pulled apart and tender. Season with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. In a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil and brown steaks, in batches if necessary, on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Set aside, keep warm.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, reduce stock by half. Season mushrooms with salt and pepper, to taste. Sauté quartered mushrooms in the same pan as the meat, in the leftover olive oil, until very brown, about 5 minutes. Add butter, minced onion, carrot, thyme, and garlic. Cook until vegetables are caramelized, about 5 minutes, add balsamic vinegar and reduce for 1 to 2 minutes. Add broth, slide meat back into sauce, cover and bake until tender, about 1 hour.

Click here for our kick-ass Macaroni and Cheese recipe.