Your presence on social media

CallMeKate said:
True facts. I can honestly say that most of my dearest and lasting friends have been from either my old pen palling days or online, some from way back in the BBS days. Death just took my longest lasting pen pal friendship from me last year (we later moved to email.) We started writing around 1980.

Other side of the fence... I had three very close friends in high school. Still connected to all three on Facebook, but no interaction whatsoever. I'm a chatterbox... pure and simple. I hesitate PMing anyone here because I sure don't want to appear pushy... not everyone likes to chatter like I do. :giggle:
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It is very hard when an online friend dies. I have had that happen several times and it has meant private grief for all that we shared. It leaves a silent gap in your life.
 

Naturally said:
I deleted my FB account about 10yrs ago.
I was getting tons of spam email at an email address that I only used for FB.
So I knew that NOTHING on FB was secure even though my strong account password was not compromised.

Now I even use a browser add-on that blocks any attempts for FB tracking or saving of FB third party cookies.
You'd be surprised the number of sites that have nothing to do with FB, yet FB tracks your browsing habits.

After all, FB is free, so WE are the product.

I don't miss FB at all, although I had "FB withdrawal" for a day or two.
So glad I deleted my FB account. There are other ways to stay in touch with people important to ourselves.
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I must agree, I now post nothing on my FB page and I have not missed it at all. I just private message those who still matter to me and vice versa. The rest don't figure in my life.
 
Maybe someone here can help; I recently reopened my FB account for its marketplace and advertisement of items to sale. I am being flooded by friend suggestions of people I don’t know. How can I stop this influx of strangers knocking at my door?
 
officerripley said:
Social media can be helpful for some people; sometimes due to various reasons, a person's online friends may be the only friends they have/are able to have. Then again, sometimes one might get a false sense of friendship from online contacts: I was beginning to wonder about such contacts on a site other than this one. So out of curiosity, I either replied to a thread (or started a new one, can't remember which) with gibberish (a string of keyboard characters that made no sense) to see if anyone in that group would contact me ("Are you ok?", etc.).

There were a few replies to the thread about "Huh. Wonder what she means. Oh, well." Not one person DM'd me or even posted a reply to the thread asking me what was going on. So I dropped out of that group; the content was only mildly interesting to me anyway and obviously the others in it didn't consider me an online friend, so why bother? I decided to spend more of my time here on SF.
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Sounds like a good idea.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Maybe someone here can help; I recently reopened my FB account for its marketplace and advertisement of items to sale. I am being flooded by friend suggestions of people I don’t know. How can I stop this influx of strangers knocking at my door?
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When I checked out social media sites I was surprised, impressed even, to find well over fifty, from Facebook to Snapchat, there's loads of them. Being free at the point of delivery, they have to make money somehow, so advertising is where their revenue comes from.

Social media is not for me and you will likely be shocked by my advice. Had I strangers knocking at the door, I would simply tell them, in a well known Anglo-Saxon term, to go away and multiply. In other words **** off!
 
Facebook is that one place you get to meet everyone you've purposely ignored your whole life.

And Twitter is the same 800 or so losers living in their parent's basements...projecting and feeding off each other's stupidity.
 
Born_To_Lose said:
I had to sit and listen to almost 2 hours of a dissertation that I couldn't care less about.
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I took a trip once as a young man and took loads of photos back in the early 1970's. I showed family and friends the story albums I created of my trip. They too were bored by it all and very disinterested. So, if face to face sharing puts off people why does anyone think Facebook or other similar sites offer any better experience when sharing? Actually, it does not. The only people on Facebook interested in what you are sharing is you. And, the only interaction is 'if I like yours you have to like mine' or 'if I leave a comment you are supposed to leave a comment on mine'. Not really friendship at all.
 
I never belonged to facebook, twitter or any of those other social media sites, only small forums like this one. I was always a bit private and don't share any really personal information about myself or my family.
 
officerripley said:
Social media can be helpful for some people; sometimes due to various reasons, a person's online friends may be the only friends they have/are able to have. Then again, sometimes one might get a false sense of friendship from online contacts: I was beginning to wonder about such contacts on a site other than this one. So out of curiosity, I either replied to a thread (or started a new one, can't remember which) with gibberish (a string of keyboard characters that made no sense) to see if anyone in that group would contact me ("Are you ok?", etc.).

There were a few replies to the thread about "Huh. Wonder what she means. Oh, well." Not one person DM'd me or even posted a reply to the thread asking me what was going on. So I dropped out of that group; the content was only mildly interesting to me anyway and obviously the others in it didn't consider me an online friend, so why bother? I decided to spend more of my time here on SF.
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Yep, stick with us Ripley.:)
 
I've voiced my opinion about Social Media elsewhere, but suffice to say I don't use Facebook, Tic Toc, X, etc.

Is Social Media evil? Well, yes and no. Yes because of a lack of regulation, responsibility, a moral code and ethics. But no in the sense that it's all driven by the people using it.

If you look at Social Media as an experiment, then there has been some interesting findings. Firstly, a lot of people don't value their privacy to any great extent. They'll complain about ID cards, or voter registrations, but think nothing of giving details of their birthday, location, what they ate today, who they met, where they work and so on.

It has also led to a lot of narcissism, which is actually thought of as a good thing. From people who want to throw out their opinion in absolute terms, to getting their followers to do as they do, the rise of the "influencer", and so on. This has watered down the term "expert", considerably. It has also accelerated the concept of The Cult of Personality, which I think is extremely dangerous. Lastly, it sells itself as a reliable source of news - which it's most certainly not.

I've got some close friends, life long friends, and I really don't need to know what they ate this morning, or where they're going. Social Media is a time sink, countless hours are wasted on accumulating knowledge that is of no real use. The average Gen X person spends 2 hours every day on Social Media. Women spend more time than men. Apparently 75% of Gen X's are reached via Facebook every day. That's a LOT of time.
 
I have about 130 Friends on FB. Most are relatives or high school classmates or former coworkers. Plus at least a dozen folks who are friends from later in life. I know them all IRL. I don't post a lot on FB, and sure, I have a couple of cousins that post and post and post. Pictures of the grandson's wedding in Aruba, pictures of the granddaughter playing college volley ball, pictures of the sun coming up. God love her, i just skip those. I recently posted a picture of a family reunion taken in 1942. Over 3 dozen people replied, some of whom were identifying folks in the photo. A lot of my cousins are too young to remember our grandfather, for example.

Like anything else in life, all social media, like this website, is what you make of it.
 
VaughanJB said:
I've voiced my opinion about Social Media elsewhere, but suffice to say I don't use Facebook, Tic Toc, X, etc.

Is Social Media evil? Well, yes and no. Yes because of a lack of regulation, responsibility, a moral code and ethics. But no in the sense that it's all driven by the people using it.

If you look at Social Media as an experiment, then there has been some interesting findings. Firstly, a lot of people don't value their privacy to any great extent. They'll complain about ID cards, or voter registrations, but think nothing of giving details of their birthday, location, what they ate today, who they met, where they work and so on.

It has also led to a lot of narcissism, which is actually thought of as a good thing. From people who want to throw out their opinion in absolute terms, to getting their followers to do as they do, the rise of the "influencer", and so on. This has watered down the term "expert", considerably. It has also accelerated the concept of The Cult of Personality, which I think is extremely dangerous. Lastly, it sells itself as a reliable source of news - which it's most certainly not.

I've got some close friends, life long friends, and I really don't need to know what they ate this morning, or where they're going. Social Media is a time sink, countless hours are wasted on accumulating knowledge that is of no real use. The average Gen X person spends 2 hours every day on Social Media. Women spend more time than men. Apparently 75% of Gen X's are reached via Facebook every day. That's a LOT of time.
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I've got family and friends that, other than social media, I wouldn't ever know how they are. I even hear about fellow classmates, friends, etc. All on FB, not any other stuff.
 
fancicoffee13 said:
I've got family and friends that, other than social media, I wouldn't ever know how they are. I even hear about fellow classmates, friends, etc. All on FB, not any other stuff.
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If you enjoy it, that's good. Me? If there's a relative I never hear from, then that's fine by me. No need to find them on Facebook. If they wanted me to know how they were, we'd be in contact. As for classmates, etc. I'm not sure why - other than idle curiosity - I'd care to know where they are. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
 
VaughanJB said:
If you enjoy it, that's good. Me? If there's a relative I never hear from, then that's fine by me. No need to find them on Facebook. If they wanted me to know how they were, we'd be in contact. As for classmates, etc. I'm not sure why - other than idle curiosity - I'd care to know where they are. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
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Yes it is. Some do a lot more than others. Perspective.
 

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