Social Media

[2prnot2p 1,066]

I've wanted to write about this for years, so I thought I'd do it now.  I have never engaged in any social media platforms.  I got involved with the web in 2000 and even then it seemed like a bad idea to me.  Everyone I knew went on and on about My Space.  Remember that site?  I think it's still around.  Anyway...

Eventually, I decided to try Facebook.  I registered and...lo and behold...everyone I knew appeared on my page as though I'd told them that I'd joined!  WTF!  I mean, people I'd never even emailed were there on the page of people I "might know."  OMG!  That was crazy to me.  How did they do that???  Scary!  I immediately deleted my account. 

No thanks to social media.  I think social media has led to the "look at me and what I did" society we now have.

Your thoughts?

Edited March 17, 2019 by 2prnot2p

[steve25805 126,023]

To be honest, I find that if you are master of it rather than slave to it, social media can be a great form of communication. It is also able to enable instantaneous no cost communication with anyone anywhere in the world, which makes it ideal for long distance communication and long distance friendships. It is possible to do that long distance by email of course but social media is much better for real time conversations.

Where social media becomes a problem is if it dominates your life and becomes your entire life. It is also all too potentially easy for playground bullies to use it to torment their victims even in their own homes. Also all kinds of questionable content lurks out there on social media, and this is potentially worrying. Ideally it would be better if younger children certainly did not have access to it.

So it has an upside and a downside. And whether it is a force for good or evil pretty much depends upon how you use it.

I tend to spend a lot of time on social media platforms immersed in politics debates and commentary, largely because this interests me and I enjoy doing it. But I can walk away when I want to.

There is something of a privacy trade off. Social media platforms are gathering a lot of information about me, my interests, and my friends and associates, and are very effective at targeting me with clickbait - often of a political nature - that they know I am likely to be interested in. They appear to make their money by targeting me with ads for things I might be interested in too, though this has to my recollection never worked in my case. Cannot remember ever purchasing anything advertised on Facebook for example. But this trade off is the price I pay for access to something I use and enjoy. Anyone willing to accept that price can gain a lot of pleasure from it. But for anyone who regards that price as too high, social media is perhaps best avoided because they will learn a lot about you if you use it.

[spywareonya 37,961]

3 hours ago, steve25805 said:

whether it is a force for good or evil pretty much depends upon how you use it

I cannot do anything beside agreeing with Steve

 

But if you ask ME, I see things more of the likes of this line of our pal

15 hours ago, 2prnot2p said:

I think social media has led to the "look at me and what I did" society we now have

and I cannot get past the grudge I have for this. Or better said, I think the downside is terribly stronger than the upside

Or even better said, we humans cannot control it enough

 

I am openly against social media, I must admit Steve is right, everything in existence is just a tool, and I know of people who make a good use of it, but the risk highlighted by 2prnot2p is real and excessive in my opinion

 

After a Whole life reflecting upon it, I came to the conclusion that in my opinion, we should refrain from what we cannot handle

There is also another side of me that thinks that we will never master something unless we try and accept a couple of scars in the process, BUT I think we should put risks and benefits on a scale, and in my opinion, social media's risks cannot be tipped by ANY benefit, unless we diminish the intensity of the risks through becoming better creatures (we humans I mean), we should stick to blogs for expressing our ideas, and avoid the social media universe, maybe leaving it to the few (like Steve) who can use them for good

 

I never was part of it and never will

I like secrecy, I miss the lifestyle of when I was younger when there wasn't cellphones (and personal cameras for photos were exceedingly rare) to shoot movies or take pics, no city cameras or cctv in shops, and nobody knew nothing of what was happening beside the important things of the world, told on newspaper

The sounds of crickets goin on endlessly interrupted by a couple of passing cars only among the Whole day, with the feeling of isolation providing an arousing and exciting sensation of "I can do what I want and nobody will ever know"

 

Was I ever to possess a device to nuke the world and bring it back to that at the cost of 7,9 billions dead, I would without thinking twice

The one we got today is not life

It's hysteria

EVERYBODY knows EVERYTHING

CONSTANTLY

This is hysterical

I HATE this

I hate it to the point of paranoia

Edited March 17, 2019 by spywareonya

[steve25805 126,023]

@spywareonya,I can understand the paranoia angle with social media learning ever more about those who use it. If the point is ever arrived at where this information starts being used negatively in a big way, it will become a problem, but thus far there has been no dynamic leading in that direction. They make their money by facilitating what interests us rather than by damaging us.

And the positives to social media I think you are under-estimating.

Take politics, for example. Here in the UK - before the coming of social media - to be an opinion former you had to be a wealthy oligarch owning a newspaper. So the opinions and bullshit we were constantly being fed was stuff helpful to wealthy oligarchs. We were all encouraged to think of the poor as feckless scroungers to diminish the public desire to spend rich people's taxes on them, for example. We were encouraged to blame those worse off than ourselves for society's ills, rather than the rich people actually in charge. Any emotive crap, true or false, that could be used to further the political and economic interests of the wealthy was shamelessly deployed.

But social media is democratising information. You don't need to be rich to run a website or participate on a Facebook politics forum. You don't have to get a letter published in the media to be heard. All you need is enough nous to be online or to run a website. Anyone with that nous with access to the internet can do it. So the internet is gradually eroding the wealthy oligarch's monopoly on opinion forming. On social media, though some of the stuff can be equally dubious in terms of honesty, all political perspectives are broadly equally represented. It is the voice of the people, not the wealthy oligarchs. The voice of the many, not the few.

And this is having it's effect as younger age groups turn away from newsprint propaganda and seek out a politics that speaks to them and their concerns on the internet. Info from right across the spectrum, provided by ordinary people, is far better than a tiny number of wealthy oligarchs telling us what to think in their own interests. This democratisation of information, giving voices to ordinary millions, is a massive positive being wrought by social media. And it is already starting to noticeably shift the political tectonic plates in the UK in the face of a hostile media kicking and screaming against it.

In the political sense, social media truly is providing power to the people to the detriment of a wealthy few previously accustomed to dictating the terms of debate in their own interests.

This is a massive benefit. The wealthy oligarchs will respond by mis-representing social media as a terrible evil. But this is only because they see it draining power from them.

[spywareonya 37,961]

7 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

And the positives to social media I think you are under-estimating

I quoted this but I mean all you wrote after until the end of the post

 

I understand and I do not wanna underestimate any of that

I indeed agree wholeheartedly

I have nothing bad to say about it, and that's all, only positive things

 

 

I just do not find myself at ease with one thing you wrote as it appears I failed at delivering my POV in a proper way

10 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

If the point is ever arrived at where this information starts being used negatively in a big way, it will become a problem, but thus far there has been no dynamic leading in that direction. They make their money by facilitating what interests us rather than by damaging us.

I meant something different

I meant

 

this

16 hours ago, 2prnot2p said:

I think social media has led to the "look at me and what I did" society we now have

destroying this

37 minutes ago, spywareonya said:

I like secrecy, I miss the lifestyle of when I was younger when there wasn't cellphones (and personal cameras for photos were exceedingly rare) to shoot movies or take pics, no city cameras or cctv in shops, and nobody knew nothing of what was happening beside the important things of the world, told on newspaper

The sounds of crickets goin on endlessly interrupted by a couple of passing cars only among the Whole day, with the feeling of isolation providing an arousing and exciting sensation of "I can do what I want and nobody will ever know"

 

 

and the last portion I self-quoted is, in my opinion, the only thing human souls need beside Art worthy of this title, future-tech Healthcare, and spaceships to Earthform planets and rule them. 

Beside these three things brought us by technology and culture, I think modernism is only ruining the dark, visceral attitude toward life we used to have when rules and morals could nothing against kinky actions performed in secrecy, or openly as nobody was around watching

[steve25805 126,023]

@spywareonya

I understand your regret at the loss of isolation.

I would advise doing what I do. My mobile phone is not internet enabled and I mostly keep it in the car purely in case I have a breakdown.

Other than that, when I go out - especially when relaxing someplace - I don't even carry it with me and am uncontactable. I have never supplied my workplace with my mobile number, just my landline.

It is possible in this age of technology to enjoy the seclusion of it's absence, just by not keeping the damned stuff with you when you want that seclusion.

If I am missing other points it is because it is late for me, and I am tired so apologies.

I need to go to bed now, lol. 

[steve25805 126,023]

@spywareonya, escaping CCTV and the risk of being filmed on someone else's phone is harder to avoid. Quiet secluded areas of nature are probably best. Cities, to be fair, have never been the best places to get away with stuff unseen. Curtain twitchers are abundant everywhere, lol. And they have existed for as long as there have been windows with curtains in them, lol.

[spywareonya 37,961]

14 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

@spywareonya

I understand your regret at the loss of isolation.

I would advise doing what I do. My mobile phone is not internet enabled and I mostly keep it in the car purely in case I have a breakdown.

Other than that, when I go out - especially when relaxing someplace - I don't even carry it with me and am uncontactable. I have never supplied my workplace with my mobile number, just my landline.

It is possible in this age of technology to enjoy the seclusion of it's absence, just by not keeping the damned stuff with you when you want that seclusion.

If I am missing other points it is because it is late for me, and I am tired so apologies.

I need to go to bed now, lol. 

 

9 minutes ago, steve25805 said:

@spywareonya, escaping CCTV and the risk of being filmed on someone else's phone is harder to avoid. Quiet secluded areas of nature are probably best. Cities, to be fair, have never been the best places to get away with stuff unseen. Curtain twitchers are abundant everywhere, lol. And they have existed for as long as there have been windows with curtains in them, lol.

You got it the right way, no missing anything

I think "isolation" made people more sexual and less afraid of getting spied on and morally accused

 

Anyway, we'll continue this afterward, good night!!

[speedy3471 10,655]

Iam not on any social media. Unless we count this website and a few others. 

If I go on holidays I will let the people that I want knowing in away, not post it all over Facebook.

[spywareonya 37,961]

11 hours ago, speedy3471 said:

Iam not on any social media. Unless we count this website and a few others. 

If I go on holidays I will let the people that I want knowing in away, not post it all over Facebook.

Absolutely agree!!!!

[speedy3471 10,655]

On 3/18/2019 at 7:15 AM, spywareonya said:

Absolutely agree!!!!

It still amazes me how some people have to update their Facebook status every minute of the day haha. 

Hell some young people can't carry one a face to face conversation anymore. The only way they communicate is thru Facebook

[spywareonya 37,961]

11 hours ago, speedy3471 said:

It still amazes me how some people have to update their Facebook status every minute of the day haha. 

Hell some young people can't carry one a face to face conversation anymore. The only way they communicate is thru Facebook

And this is sad

I mean come on, people feel so compelled to "appear&beseen" that really they leave their lives behind… it's absurd!!!

But I dig what Steve wrote

It can do great things for spreading an idea

 

I am just sad it is so misused

Indeed even upon its removal, I would keep it for being used like Steve said

But all addicted should get a life

[spywareonya 37,961]

ps @speedy3471

666 likes for you now ahahahahahah

I'll keep up checking your other posts so maybe when you'll log in, you'll find more than that, but I wanted it to be embedded forever!!!!

[speedy3471 10,655]

8 hours ago, spywareonya said:

ps @speedy3471

666 likes for you now ahahahahahah

I'll keep up checking your other posts so maybe when you'll log in, you'll find more than that, but I wanted it to be embedded forever!!!!

Hahaha awesome. Thank you for all the help getting there

[spywareonya 37,961]

8 minutes ago, speedy3471 said:

Hahaha awesome. Thank you for all the help getting there

We are an army

We are the Grid of Light

The proof that even without pushing anybody to do more than what come spontaneous to him, we can built a tighter community

You are such an impossibly marvellous person Speedy

[speedy3471 10,655]

5 minutes ago, spywareonya said:

We are an army

We are the Grid of Light

The proof that even without pushing anybody to do more than what come spontaneous to him, we can built a tighter community

You are such an impossibly marvellous person Speedy

You're made me blush, thank you. You are a wonderful person as well, such a kind heart and free spirit 

[spywareonya 37,961]

7 minutes ago, speedy3471 said:

You're made me blush, thank you. You are a wonderful person as well, such a kind heart and free spirit 

I developed the light we all possess inside

Now I share it and teach how to do just as much

[speedy3471 10,655]

12 minutes ago, spywareonya said:

I developed the light we all possess inside

Now I share it and teach how to do just as much

And I thank you so much for sharing this light

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

Maigh and I use Facebook, for fairly different reasons though. I use mine to keep in contact with my strange sister. She works for the WHO in Geneva, it's it's so much easier than her worrying about an international phone service. She'll just message where she is currently working: be it Bangladesh, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago or Johanesburg. I know she's safe, and doing ok, it's just easy.

Maigh has a few people in the UK that she keeps up with, but that's pretty much it. 

We are not even on each other's contact list, lol. 

I can understand the way people get hooked on it, see them all the time, McDonalds is full of people wrapped in their own little technological bubble.

We have some amazing forests and beaches near us, it doesn't take a lot of time to just sit and listen, we do it every time we can, the peacefulness grows on you in a nice way.

[spywareonya 37,961]

44 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

McDonalds is full of people wrapped in their own little technological bubbl

You just quoted two of the worst things in the world, MockDonalds and Facebutt

In one single line

That is atrocious

I did not know you were so gifted as horror writer

 

45 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

it's it's so much easier than her worrying about an international phone service

This is one of the few reasons why it deserves respect, I mus admit

 

45 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

We have some amazing forests and beaches near us, it doesn't take a lot of time to just sit and listen, we do it every time we can, the peacefulness grows on you in a nice way

Eheheheheh, were we in a gangsta video game I would have said "Lucky son of a bitch"

But we are not, so I will say "Hey, Scot, it's marvellous!!!"

[spywareonya 37,961]

55 minutes ago, speedy3471 said:

And I thank you so much for sharing this light

I try day by day

Thank you for everything

[Scot_Lover 1,876]

2 minutes ago, spywareonya said:

You just quoted two of the worst things in the world, MockDonalds and Facebutt

In one single line

That is atrocious

I did not know you were so gifted as horror writer

 

This is one of the few reasons why it deserves respect, I mus admit

 

Eheheheheh, were we in a gangsta video game I would have said "Lucky son of a bitch"

But we are not, so I will say "Hey, Scot, it's marvellous!!!"

Rofl, thank you, I can be the next Stephen King.

Its tragic though, Mc Chucks has an app on the phone so you can order and pay without any human contact at all, apart from the minion who delivers your order. People will soon be wearing a welding mask to hide totally from the world.

[speedy3471 10,655]

46 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

Maigh and I use Facebook, for fairly different reasons though. I use mine to keep in contact with my strange sister. She works for the WHO in Geneva, it's it's so much easier than her worrying about an international phone service. She'll just message where she is currently working: be it Bangladesh, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago or Johanesburg. I know she's safe, and doing ok, it's just easy.

Maigh has a few people in the UK that she keeps up with, but that's pretty much it. 

We are not even on each other's contact list, lol. 

I can understand the way people get hooked on it, see them all the time, McDonalds is full of people wrapped in their own little technological bubble.

We have some amazing forests and beaches near us, it doesn't take a lot of time to just sit and listen, we do it every time we can, the peacefulness grows on you in a nice way.

You are so right, Facebook has its purpose. 

[spywareonya 37,961]

9 minutes ago, Scot_Lover said:

Rofl, thank you, I can be the next Stephen King.

Its tragic though, Mc Chucks has an app on the phone so you can order and pay without any human contact at all, apart from the minion who delivers your order. People will soon be wearing a welding mask to hide totally from the world.

I clicked the laugh reaction but it is an hysterical laughter

Since you came after I will call you Stephen Prince

Or Stephen Queen

[spywareonya 37,961]

9 minutes ago, speedy3471 said:

You are so right, Facebook has its purpose. 

Mmmh yes, I can dig that

I am just terrified of the risks