And to add @sarinka Laura is American by the way...not sure why you thought she was Canadian. Have been watching her for years. But goodness me all the negativity about social platforms, I haven't bothered with FB but Twitter and Instagram on the whole have been a brilliant way to find like minded people you would never come across day to day life. Sometimes those platforms are what you make of them, like anything else in life.
I use Facebook for book clubs, knitting sites and the Cornish nostalgia site. The local help and selling sites are good, it’s helped a lot of people through this crisis, people selling stuff just to put food on the table, not much work here at the best of times and now almost everyone is out of a job.
Ive only been using for about 2 years and can’t see as its that bad.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I see three major issues with Facebook and similar. First there is the ‘Big Brother’ issue. Our lives are being tracked, “they” can snoop on our activities. I’m not bothered in the slightest; whoever tracks me is in for disappointment.
Another issue is that it is a massive time waster. I spend far too much time looking at frivolous stuff unable to shake off that work ethic that nags in my mind despite being retired and free to waste as much time as I want. For some, as WonkyWomble says, this can tip into self obsession but I have no intention of avoiding things I enjoy and can handle because others have been sucked down by them.
What I am truly concerned about is social media’s capacity for disseminating lies and misinformation. Anti-vaxxers, QAnon conspiracy theorists and all other crackpot promulgators of nonsense can lure in the weak minded. Too late and too slowly the platform owners are now facing up to their responsibility.
Set against all this is the immense satisfaction social media affords. It allows us to stay in touch so easily and to expand our horizons. Just two contrasting examples: without social media how much money would Major Tom have raised? More like £300 not £30,000,000 I’d say. And more personally, last week I was very worried about an Italian friend suffering from Covid. Another friend of this person, an Australian, was equally worried. Through social media we managed to contact each other to share our concerns and, eventually, make contact with Beppe who is now making a slow recovery.
Precisely @pansyface ... for instance, the OP on here was asking us (people he knows nothing about) to masquerade as ‘experts’ (unpaid I note) .... I have a suspicion that there was an attempt to appeal to our collective vanities so that we could be exploited to make money for someone else’s website ... or perhaps I’m being overly suspicious? 🤨
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I don’t see any Trump/COVID or whatever the others mentioned were. I talk to my cousins by video and messages, no way could I phone Australia. You don’t have to see anything you don’t want. It is t thrust upon you as some people may think. It took me a long time to come to it, firstly for my daughter who was in America and just wanted to send one lot of photos so all her friends and family could see them, then I discovered other interests like the book clubs.
Everyone is tracked whatever site they’re on, I only need to log in here and see what people have asked about before I ever see the posts.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
FB can, like any technology, be used for good or bad. I use it for chatting with Possum as phone calls from Belgium to France would work out prohibitively expensive. It also allows me to keep in touch with what old friends and younger rellies are doing. OH uses Whatsapp for a weekly family chat with his brother and sister in different parts of the UK. Again free and easy to use.
It can of course be used for dissemination of propaganda, untruths and general stupidities but so can old-fashioned newspapers - just look at the Murdoch stable of papers and thank goodness Trump doesn't own CNN or similar.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
All these anxieties about social media were also expressed about telephones, radio and television when they were first invented. People thought "they" could spy on you through them: "If I can see people on my television, they must be able to see me." And back in the early '70's or thereabouts, one of the pioneers of computers, I forget who, said he could think of no earthly reason why anyone would want to have a computer in their home.
Surely if someone makes an informed and considered choice not to use a certain piece of technology, for whatever reason, that decision should be respected and not derided? Not everyone’s experiences of various aspects of life are the same ... We’ve had computers in our home since the 80s and I use all sorts of technology, software and platforms.
However, for various reasons, I have chosen not to use Fbook at this time, and I do not feel that it would add to my life at present.
@WonkyWomble ‘s lovely husband is a highly skilled IT technician and Wonky could not, in any way, be considered a technophobe. However, because she has knowledge of the deleterious impact Fbook had had on the lives of some acquaintances she too has chosen not to use that particular platform at present.
😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Unfortunately when new things are developed we cannot predict the positive and negative effects until they have occurred. By then it is to late to implement the required safeguards in place. This results in the initial people that are exposed to the new technology are effectively guinea pigs.
Posts
Ive only been using for about 2 years and can’t see as its that bad.
Another issue is that it is a massive time waster. I spend far too much time looking at frivolous stuff unable to shake off that work ethic that nags in my mind despite being retired and free to waste as much time as I want. For some, as WonkyWomble says, this can tip into self obsession but I have no intention of avoiding things I enjoy and can handle because others have been sucked down by them.
What I am truly concerned about is social media’s capacity for disseminating lies and misinformation. Anti-vaxxers, QAnon conspiracy theorists and all other crackpot promulgators of nonsense can lure in the weak minded. Too late and too slowly the platform owners are now facing up to their responsibility.
Set against all this is the immense satisfaction social media affords. It allows us to stay in touch so easily and to expand our horizons. Just two contrasting examples: without social media how much money would Major Tom have raised? More like £300 not £30,000,000 I’d say. And more personally, last week I was very worried about an Italian friend suffering from Covid. Another friend of this person, an Australian, was equally worried. Through social media we managed to contact each other to share our concerns and, eventually, make contact with Beppe who is now making a slow recovery.
On balance I am in favour of Facebook.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I talk to my cousins by video and messages, no way could I phone Australia.
You don’t have to see anything you don’t want. It is t thrust upon you as some people may think.
It took me a long time to come to it, firstly for my daughter who was in America and just wanted to send one lot of photos so all her friends and family could see them, then I discovered other interests like the book clubs.
Everyone is tracked whatever site they’re on, I only need to log in here and see what people have asked about before I ever see the posts.
I note the Mods removed the OP’s link to his website pretty smartish 👍
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It can of course be used for dissemination of propaganda, untruths and general stupidities but so can old-fashioned newspapers - just look at the Murdoch stable of papers and thank goodness Trump doesn't own CNN or similar.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.