So is your point that the people who use social networks and modern mobile phones (aka the vast majority of the population) is stupid for using such things? Or maybe you are just better than the rest of us for realizing what a trap modern technology is? I’m not sure if your post was to pat yourself on the back for being cooler than everyone or a request for us all to get off your lawn. Clarification would be appreciated.
At this point everyone knows more than enough about FB to make an informed decision about whether to use it.
I’m obviously not anti tech, I was helping run the internet before it was the internet.
If my pointing out that not all technology rates getting used and maybe we might want to consider whether to use it sets you off that’s something you’ll need to sort out for yourself.
I think social media amplifies human flaws. If you can watch Fox News and believe the shit they spout then you are going to go on Facebook and believe the anti-vaxxers, the Holocaust deniers, etc.
Either you can think rationally and have a decent built-in bullshit detector, or you’re missing those vital qualities – in which case you’re gonna get fooled over and over. The con artists have been around forever. Facebook and social media just gives them the best tools they’ve ever had to gull the easy marks.
Alstein
2962
Same feelings. My mom had her mind destroyed by Murdoch, mostly. I still see glimpses of sanity on occasion.
[X] I’m in this post and I don’t like it
Also, sometimes you have to FB for the children. And I mean that literally. For instance, one dojo I’m familiar with here uses FB to manage events, used it to stream instruction last Spring when the entire world went virtual, etc. I guess that could become part of screening before signing up your kids for something - “do you use FB for organizing? yes? well, sorry, that’s a non-starter, good day.”
Zylon
2964
Once again I find myself thinking I must be some kind of mutant outlier, because when I use Facebook I just ignore the ads, ignore the suggestions, and only friend actual friends. Is that really so difficult?
I tried all my life, but was never able to do so. It always followed the usual pattern:
Make the occasional international call once a year. Write letters twice a year. Stop the calls. Write a letter once a year. Then you stop hearing back from them, and you wonder, are they still getting the letters? Why no replies? Did they move? If I write another long letter, am I just wasting my time since it won’t get to them anyway? If it doesn’t get to them, would I get the letter back, or whoever lives there now would just throw it in the trash?
Anyway, I haven’t been able to successfully keep in touch with friends ever until Facebook came along and I was able to get a hold of a few of them again. Some or most of them HAD moved and not gotten my letters. We all get lazy, letter writing takes a lot of time and effort. Now I can get in touch with some of them again even if I forget for five years, and then re-connect again.
I have to admit, before Facebook, I did have the thought for some of my old friends from The Netherlands who I’d met as exchange students: what if I book a flight and I go to The Netherlands? Should I try to go to their old addresses, even when they were dorms or off campus apartments during college there. Would the people living there now be able to help track them down? Or would I just face blank stares. Anyway, I never got the opportunity to travel there, so it’s moot point. And my wife threw out my pile of old letters, so now I can’t even use Facebook because I don’t remember their full names.
I may be an outlier as well, as I’ve long since hidden any actors that I don’t agree with to avoid arguments, and the only folks on my timeline tend to be actual friends or people I don’t get to see very often but can stay in touch with a little easier. “Just call them!” doesn’t work for me, I’d be on the phone all damn day.
Nesrie
2967
Aaaaw.
The ones I have had the hardest keep in touch since the pandemic and our movie nights and game nights and dinner outs just completely fizzled are the ones not on Facebook. I am going to have to play a chain telephone game to track them down for the parties I have, basically see if anyone is still on contact with them at all.
I mean we all have friends we talk to regularly and then there are those who you see a handful of times a year for bigger events or just the one movie they are excited about… Social Media keeps an easy link to them. I still value that link. Also, especially this last year, I see cries for help on FB especially, and when I see that, I call, check on them.
I get the hate of Social Media and the way it amplifies the worst qualities of everyone… and I would replace it with something that didn’t do that. I just don’t see, at the moment, how we’re going to get that AND have it be free. If it’s not free, the overlapping space where the older generation of my family, as well as the younger ones, plus friends and some slightly more than a co-worker group overlaps… it’s not going to happen if they have to subscribe to something. It won’t be cool enough for one group, too hard for another and they’ll split… and I am not doing 3 different active apps and sites. I have 3 now, one of them I use to support like C and D listing actors and actresses because they tell their fans having a following matters getting a job and I also use it for contests… that’s it. I don’t really socialize outside of one of those. Hell I think Twitter still believes I’m a dude.
Alstein
2968
This is what twitter is for me. I don’t follow any celebrities or political groups at all outside of one for internet consumer rights.
Most of my twitter is Soul Calibur, some adjacent stuff from Calibur players (there’s a lot of LGBT in my friends group) , occasional other friends, and lots of floofy and sweet art/cosplay.
ShivaX
2969
Motherfucker who posted this literally watches Youtube videos for research and doesn’t trust any media.
His friend had a good response:
His response is that it’s because he’s not a liberal and then poor me, I’m an oppressed white man also I prefer memes to actual evidence because you filthy libs wont look at it anyway or some nonsense.
Also his example of “facts” is… a Youtube channel run by a political guy. And of course Meme dude on Youtube is unimpeachable, fuck your facts, you’re shitting on him because you’re biased. I am without bias, which is why I know everything he says is 100% correct and I ignore all other sources.
Apparently losing all his friends is fine with him, because they’re all dirty liberals anyway.
I’m among the most liberal of them all. Because I’m not racist. That’s basically it. I’m not racist enough, so I’m a communist because when a black person get murdered by cops I say “that’s fucked up, fuck those cops” instead of spending hours looking for a reason for the cops to have murdered them.
He’s literally driving past my house later this year and a couple years ago we would’ve tried to meet up and have dinner. Now, he flat out ignored when another mutual friend suggested it and asked about sites to see from people who don’t live here.
I know some real fucking stupid, aggressively shitty people from high school.
Is this actually someone who is bragging they do this?
Her feed is a weird mix of meaningless inspirational posters, “damaged girl” emo nonsense, southern grl pride, whining about cancel culture, and the occasional bit of covid denial bullshit. It’s a very typical archetype in the southeast. She’ll probably try to sell you essential oils or body wraps or meth.
Maybe all three!
I always appreciate one-stop shopping!
Can’t that one be shortened to ‘you are a worm’?
Probably, but doing so would make Inspirobot sad.
I think that is saying we are all just living Azathoth’s dream.
