I group my friends and that seems to keep the newsfeed in check. Although, I have to keep my "stepmom" in the family group 'cause I'm paranoid she'd find out she wasn't there if I removed her, but that seems to lead to her wall and game updates flooding my newsfeed. Oh well, it's kind of cute in a way. She'll turn 61 in a couple of months, so age is no indicator of FB activity... As for the etiquette; I haven't gotten in trouble so far over ignoring people's posts. I rarely comment on anything and I don't unfriend people, I just don't accept the requests of people I don't want to FBe-friend. I don't really use FB for anything else except to keep in touch with two hobby groups, my mom, a few friends who live abroad, and events (like gigs, parties...) So I really have no idea about the etiquette... Oh, one thing I do: if somebody comments on my update and I can't be arsed to reply or can't come up with anything, I 'like' the comment just to kind of acknowledge it.
Aye, I agree but it's harder to eliminate surprise's influence in IRL. Online, everyone has time to think.
Yeah, I think I'll refrain from trying to define the parameters of reality tonight, I'm way too tired for that! Perhaps using that term is a poor choice for what I'm trying to say; it's not so much the 'reality' or lack thereof of online interaction but more the structure of it. Social media consists of naught but a series of rhetoric; tweets, status updates, YouTube vlogs, it's a massive marketplace of people offering isolated, fragmented opinions on whatever end of stuff they want to, followed by a similar process of counter-offering by others. I suppose, in that, social is the right word because it's completely restricted by the boundaries of society-- i.e. every thought must end with 'upload', 'post' or 'reply' and that rule may not be broken. The only other option is to say nothing. There's no chemistry, no chance for a reaction of two differing elements, there's just isolation. Unless you use something like Skype, where you can actually speak organically with another person, I don't see there being any real chance of making a true friend. I just think we need to discover people's flaws and decide they don't matter to be true friends. The worth of making that decision is invaluable. I guess that's my real gripe with it, not so much how real or not either is.
I only add real-life friends and a few obligatory relatives on Facebook. Still, there's only so much political ranting, quotations, pet and baby photos, and above all pregnancy-related selfies I can stomach. It's just a couple of repeat offenders, really, so I just limit the amount I get to see on my newsfeed and that's all ok. I think it was a bit different in the days when internet messageboards were more the rage. Case in point, I met perhaps my closest friend via a music website, back in the day when there was no Facebook or Twitter et al. We spoke online for years before even meeting in person around eight years ago. I was maid of honour at her wedding not too long ago.. I see your point about anonymity and isolation on the internet though. Very valid. I can't get into Twitter, no matter how much I try.
Aye, I have to admit I know of many examples of where social media has been the medium to the best thing to ever happen for some. My closest friend was stuck in an apathetic rut in his life, signed up for Neoseeker to pass the hours and ended up meeting a girl named Jeannie, who lives in Brisbane, the other side of the world to us (North England)-- they spent every night on Skype for 10 months whilst he saved up the money and got a visa. He went over there last August to finally meet her and has never been happier. They're engaged now. Perhaps my view is more skewed towards my own circumstances, rather than completely objective but still, I think a lot of the growth that we used to experience in life, day-to-day. We strengthen through conflict and being taken beyond our comfort zones and we wont do that online where we pick our circles.
To which point? The one I'm making is that there are people out there who don't see it that way. I believe it functions as a complete substitute for socialising in person, to the point of almost exclusive isolation outside of work and if you believe, as I do, that such interaction isn't possible to match the fluency and immediacy of socialising in person, then I think it limits our ability to grow as human beings. Quite honestly, I think I was just born in the wrong generation! I romanticise about the times when a group of young friends had to save up all their money to go and buy one Beatles record and play it at one of their houses on a second hand record player that their gran gave them. Things like that just had so much more value back then. Now it's all right there on the web and amounts to very little.
Lesson one for GingerCoffee, not sure why I didn't already notice or pay attention. I sign up for Pinterest. I want start my own page of images that I'm using as prompts to describe my future world. It asks if I want to sign up with email or FaceBook. I say FaceBook, why not. I never post there but I have a page. I answer two questions, do I care if they look at my profile data, OK and will I let them post on my page, I decline that. That's it, done, "Hello Ginger, welcome to Pinterest." No passwords, no nothing, the computer knows it's my FB account. And people think the NSA is worrisome. Edited to add: Does Pinterest really think I need them to tell me, "nicely done" because I created a file and began pinning images?
Lesson two, don't use your real name on FaceBook. So much for privacy. I have been defeated. The war is lost.
You know what, you're exactly right. It is uncritical. It does lack reasoning. Most genuine human interaction does. It's not pristine or perfect, it doesn't adhere to standards of logistics because it's driven by emotion, reactions we can't control-- which means it's chaotic. If you feel that's worthy of ridicule then that's fine, feel free to take the next post to offer a bulletpoint by bulletpoint review of exactly why. Just know that if you do, it'll reaffirm my beliefs about the negatives that come with interaction in this way. This reply is already too immaculate, were we having this conversation in person, you'd have interrupted me by now to tell me why I'm wrong and heck, who knows, I might have learned something. I doubt you'd have "L'dOL" either.
I find Wordpress very frustrating, like paste. Reading 100 articles, it does not nourish [put the computer down man, read a book] - it has the 'probloggers' who write a million apple pies, religious fanatics, 100s of 'how to write' sites seemingly copied from the template called 'make your own how to write site.' I need to overcome my Twitterism, tho', s'pose - just makes me think of guys staring into little handheld mirrors, men in v-neck jumpers with shiny teeth and hard-ons.
I've never disputed any of that. I already provided an example earlier in the thread about how it connected my best friend with his fiancé. What they did, however, was use webcams and Skype. They had live, verbal and visual conversations and that's why their affection grew. I've never once disputed the practicality of social media. What I have said is that it does not substitute for interpersonal communication, nor could it ever and that I believe there are people-- and a lot of them-- whom use it for exactly that. Nobody is denying its value as a means of networking.
Not to mention distracting writers from their projects continually and facilitating procrastination for those that wonder why they can't seem to 'get the damn thing finished.'
Are you being sarcastic, like, yeah, blame the social media, but really we simply have got no backbones, and if there were no interwebz, we'd be procrasting in front of TV or something else? 'Cause it's not distracting in and of itself, unless you let yourself be distracted... Unless we're talking about lolcats. There's no resisting them cutesy kitties!
Well, yes. I'm British. Sarcasm is an inherent national ideology. We do it best, i find. It doesn't necessarily come across as well in the written form, admittedly. What are you doing socially networking on the wide eyed web anyway? That meisterwerk won't write itself.
@jannert this is why I hit the delete-account key for FB. The amount of dreck I had to wade through was such a waste of time. I know there's filters and ways to streamline all this, but it's not worth it. Rant coming. I just don't care if my old best friend from high school has just fed someone else's cows on some idiotic internet game. How worthless do these people think my time is? Both the morons who made it possible to report such useless events and the dim wit I used to call my best friend. Most of what's reported could be summed up in a simple statement. I have fuck all day except clog your mailbox with worthless tidbits of inane and useless information. Being a social media recluse has its advantages.
I hereby solemnly swear this to be a true story. I am a photographer. One day a model contacted me to tell me that his picture, one of the ones we took during a shoot that I commissioned, which I put on a professional stock image site was then stolen, and was being used on Facebook as someone's profile image. Yes, there is some ugly schmuck, with penis envy, who decided he could get more friends if he had the look of a professional model. Seriously, I can only say get a life. P.S. Although there is a distinct visual metaphor, I don't look like a well used but sharp pencil.
Oh, dear. Mind you, I think anybody who actually KNOWS the guy wouldn't fall for it? I think there are two planets here. Those of us who actually 'know' our Facebook friends - and those who don't. Strange days...
