Facebook, Twitter: Why Bother…?
 

There have been a number of threads here on Xoutpost regarding Facebook and Twitter, which I have read, so I believe that I am in the minority here…

I have never had any interest in opening a Facebook or Twitter account, let alone use Instagram or Pinterest. As vocal and opinionated as I am, I cannot rationalize or justify why anyone would be interested in reading and knowing what all of my interests are, what I am constantly doing or seeing the photos of things that interest me. Also, with all that has been discussed and revealed to date about how anything you post to these social media sites are used by these sites to generate revenue by selling your information in massive marketing exercises, why would anyone want to subject their information to this type of use? Maybe it is generational and I am just comfortable in other forms of communication, especially face-to-face.

As a middle aged professional, I do admit to having a LinkedIn profile that has been beneficial for my business purposes. Yet I view it as essentially an online resume of my education and work experience. I use LinkedIn to check out profiles of potential customers prior to meeting them, as I assume they do with me, and do not have a problem with that.

I have been an active blogger on Xoutpost and a number of other automotive blogs for the past 7-8 years and enjoy this form of communication with others with the similar specific interests. I view the Facebook and Twitter connections to be redundant, in addition to being a real waste of my time, IMHO.

I find that sharing information and photos with family and friends is easily accomplished via email which does not expose that information as readily as by doing so on Facebook, keeping my communication private between me and the recipients, (and yes, sadly in all likelihood the National Security Agency…). I acknowledge and understand that based on what we have learned from Edward Snowdon, our email is copied into some massive NSA computer server farm somewhere in the country to be trolled for various key words that they or the various US security apparatus may search for either now or in the future. Currently, I do not have a practical problem with that, even though I am sad that our US Constitutional rights have been eroded in the all-consuming name of ‘security’. But back to the topic of this post, I am curious. How many of you share similar sentiments and:

1. Never had a Facebook or Twitter account and have no interest in starting either?
2. Have either a Facebook or Twitter account but do not really use it?
3. Have either a Facebook or Twitter account and have closed one or both or are planning to do so in the near future?

AVB-AMG

I have twitter and in last 2-3 years i had one post, to test how it works... not into mass texting my half naked pics!!! lol...

I do have a FB account, and i do use it - i have a lot of friends who are overseas, in different time zones, and languages... with the facebook i know when they have babies, or b-days, or something of importance... And no, all of my friends on the facebook are either real life friends and family, or somebody I had talked to (including a few fellows from this forum)

Of the sites that the NS A trolls, and the nigerian scam artists favor, i would say that the LinkedIn is the most dangerous - you have your picture, your work and educational history, the couple things that are not there, are your SSN, passport and DL numbers, which can be obtained from other sources... the LinkedIn is a Klondike for a social engineer... as well as the FB but I noticed, that many folks have limited the access to their profile to friends (still, FB can use the info for mass marketing), and some have fake profiles...

As a security professional, i would check the LinkedIn site first if i am looking for somebody...

not to scare you - but where was it written, that once everyone has a number, the devil will rise?... or, i am making this sh!t up?

I have a Facebook account, restricted to a few family members. It is essentially hidden to everyone else, even their friends. All recently added FB features are turned off due to inherent security issues. There is no timeline on my FB account. I do not put anything on it that I would not put in the newspaper. All tags are deleted if they are added by others.

I will never use Twitter. I don't want to read them, and would never send one out.

I have a Linked In account that has the same info that my CV has. It was started for work purposes. My CV is out there already due to consulting jobs and so on. No worries there. Anyone I am connected to on Linked In started out as a real contact, not on line.

In local on-line forums (usually urban design issues, local politics, etc) I post with my real name, because I think it promotes civility on line. In larger forums like this, no. But I do meet xoutpost friends from time to time. I have been here for nine years now, since X5World began. Never planned that.

I now have a Google Plus account. But I have refused all the requests to join circles, etc.

See answers in bold above, but I'll add my other thoughts. It's really sad how people have grown to only get satisfaction from things they do, by having "likes" and "comments" on Facebook of their pictures, "status updates" (a glorified Twitter, which makes Twitter very redundant, which no one seems to notice as they make billions off your information), etc.

For example, when my wife and I got engaged, she was excited and didn't post about it at all. All we did was change our relationship status to "Engaged". The comments and likes came pouring in, you know what the saddest thing was? People (girls mostly) were going crazy with comments:

"OH MY GOD WHERE'S THE RING"

"POST A PICTURE OF YOUR RING"

"WHY DIDNT YOU POST A PICTURE OF YOUR RING YET"

As if our engagement wasn't official unless we posted how many carats I invested in unless it was displayed on a public forum (which Facebook has basically become a public forum), and wasn't recognized by the general public since we didn't post our story about engagement, nor a picture of her ring.

Same with our wedding, it was very private and in Bermuda, only us and my in-laws were there as witnesses, we posted a few pictures when we got back, but it was basically shrugged off because we didn't post status updates, "check-in's", and photos of EVERY STAGE OF THE WEDDING AS IT WAS HAPPENING.


Facebook has really become sad, I like random people's updates, pictures etc, and mostly like the dog rescue photos to help spread word about them. I don't randomly post bc I no longer require Facebook as a platform for public speaking, its really a waste of time.


For the record, at 27 I was with Facebook since it was started 10 years ago by Zuckerberg in a dorm room, and to be honest it is NOTHING like it was then. It used to be a college social site, where if you wanted to "talk to someone" you'd post on their specific "wall", and they would read and get back to you. Much like leaving someone an E-voice message, it worked very well say if you met a girl at a college party, didn't want to be too direct to ask for the number on the first night, so you would facebook her so she knows you aren't a stalker, exchange a few messages, maybe invite her and friends to another party, it was a very no-frills no pressure way to socialize with people you might not know well, or if you wanted to share pictures as well that was easy.

It was also a great place to share dirty jokes, talk wild like you do with your friends, etc, because it was for a younger crowd.

Now, not that I watch what I say bc I could care less about people judging me, if you post a dirty joke, something sexual towards your significant other, etc, you got your Mother-in-Law, grandma in Pennsylvania, friends of your family, and people you haven't talked to in years viewing, reviewing, and judging about it. Sometimes I'd like to be flirty with my wife (back in college perhaps a girlfriend) and in my age demographic there is nothing wrong with it, but once you have family members, co-workers, and everyone under the sun viewing everything you post or do, it becomes a problem and takes all the fun out of the original facebook, "A place for young people, college age to socialize and share interests, etc".

I could care effing less, if some chick I was seeing for 2 months in college "Likes Coca-Cola", or if my buddy from the VW scene "Likes Tattooed Natural Beauties", its all just white noise to me. Oh and by the way, I routinely unfriend. After college I had maybe 750 friends on the book, now I think its under 300, and dwindling. If I haven't ever hung out with you personally in a social setting or don't plan to for the next 10 years, or don't have your number in my phone to wish a happy birthday (which I still do, unlike most people who just post happy birthday on facebook, I actually TAKE MY PHONE OUT AND EITHER CALL OR TEXT THE FRIEND), then you are unfriended.

It's not personal, its just thinning the herd.

Sorry for the rant, but I have some very strong opinions of Facebook after starting with it in 2004, into what it has become today. Disgusts me and the total overload of communication with people which turns into a total lack of communication in every day life.


Don't even get me started with the people who email vendors, don't get a response in 24 hours, then go on their facebook and post to them publicly, "I DIDNT HEAR BACK FROM MY EMAIL 2 DAYS AGO DID YOU GET IT?"


HOW ABOUT PICK THE FUCKING PHONE UP AND CALL SOMEONE!


/endrant

what surprises me, that in this age of feminism, the ladies are still conditioned into marriage institution, where women are treated as "property" and need to be "tagged" or "branded" with a ring, and "given away" at a wedding... this is a remnant of the old, 5-10 thousand year old custom of trading women... suprising that nobody caught on it yet...

I applaud the tibetian tribe in Himalayas that does the opposite - trades men!!!

I have a LinkedIn account, but haven't worked in nearly 14 years and thus it is of little consequence for me. A few friends and former colleuages are 'linked in' to me. It is a non event and non threatening, imo, and I seldom glance at it.

I have a Twitter account, which I have used a couple times to tweet at someone simply trying it out, and have glanced at maybe a half dozen times. But I really could not care less about Twitter...

I resisted FB for a long time, even though as a Retired Bum, it really isn't a 'time issue', as I am not carrying the bag/travelling/working anymore.

I relented to FB, mostly at the urging of our kids, as it does provide a medium to share pics, note articles/comments that might be interesting, etc. My 'Friends List', is meager by most FB standards: some X5 board friends, some Geezer Golf friends, some old friends discovered on FB, some of our adult kids' friends, a couple of cousins, et al.

As JCL noted, one can limit who sees any given post...as for FB's mining the users as 'the product', I don't disagree, but that is really the basis for most of the commercial sites on the Net, imo.

We give up some privacy, security and some of our 'rights' every time we log on to FB or a weather channel or a car board, or...

Do I like that? It sort of doesn't bother me, or affect my life to any great degree: I pay scant attention to the sidebar ads on any site, and I clear cookies and crap regularly using CC Cleaner. I avoid skin sites, I use Norton 2014, Malware Bytes, et al on a regular basis. Pretty clean machine, as Queen sang...

Not debating if one should or shouldn't use FB, Twitter, Instagram, et al, but it is simply 'social media' and a way to stay connected to those we care about, and a source of some pretty good/interesting info, not unlike XOutpost, et al...

GL, mD

:iagree: with 98 percent of what MD says. I guess that's why we're B'sFAM. :rofl:

BMW Apps / Connectedd
 

As a related sidebar to my original post, my 2014 BMW M6 Coupe has the ‘BMW Apps’ in their new ConnectedDrive.

I applaud BMW for upgrading their latest iDrive to have these features. I really enjoy and appreciate now being able to have additional music options, (i.e. Pandora, Stitcher, etc.), for streaming internet radio, augmenting my SiriusXM satellite radio for news and NFL football games, as well as better synchronization and control with my iPhone, either via Bluetooth or direct cable connection, so I may listen to audio books from Audible during long road trips. This is a big improvement for in-car entertainment that requires minimal drive control and hence, distraction.

What concerns me is that this upgraded software system also allows drivers and passenger’s access to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, with information displayed on the car’s LCD screen. I find that this will potentially exasperate the potential distraction of some drivers, causing their driving ability to be compromised and creating an unsafe situation for them and other drivers around them.

This trend in the automotive industry is disturbing to me and many others and will become a bigger issue as more and more accidents can be traced to this enhanced feature that can be very distracting. We all know that there are already too many knucklehead drivers who seem intent on texting and reading texts/emails, while also driving. This upgraded iDrive / ConnectedDrive feature will most likely make things worse and less safe on our roadways…

AVB-AMG

Fully agree. We have been casually looking at a 2014 X5, built one on the BMW site and dropped by the dealer. If we special order we can get it without the Bluetooth, phone sync, internet, traffic info, apps, and so on. No nav either. It isn't the cost, it is just that we would rather have a car without them.

I had the 535 for four years. Never activated the phone in it for BMW services.

Back to Facebook.

I found this entertaining. If I used Facebook, I would send it to others via Facebook.

7 Ways To Be Insufferable On Facebook | Wait But Why

Read it, and yes I posted it on Facebook.

I stopped reading at the bold part. :D

There is no difference between posting on a message board and using FB or twitter, the medium doesn't matter, it's the content. You could sign up for FB or twitter and just get info on what matters to you.

I am the gtf off my lawn old man of social media. I have Twitter & FB accounts I never use. I hate the whole thing.

:iagree:

As I wrote further up this thread, FB is really decent medium for us Geezers and the aging pop, imo: it allows us to see our kids, kids' friends, our friends, and other stuff. One can control our FB 'friends', who sees what, etc.

As for us being the 'product', we all are the fookin product, on the net.

If one doesn't like FB, et al, that is a choice. If one uses any of the SocMedia, it is also one's choice to use it as we choose, and keep it as tightened down as one can, as with any internet posting.
GL, mD

I am the gtf off my lawn old man of social media. I have Twitter & FB accounts I never use. I hate the whole thing.

No FB, T or LI for me. I do have G+ but hardly use it. I use different screen names for different sites. Sometimes, the same one for a group of related sites.

Funny, because I started using the Internet around 1985 (via 1200 baud modem, for the most part!).

^lol I went to WANG school in 1981, we had a PC AT with dual floppies (literally) & a "color" monitor.

Those were the days, 128 KB RAM, dual floppies, if you were lucky, CGA monitor (320x200x4 colors in the most popular "graphics" mode).

I think the AT came out around 84 though... PC 81, PC XT (with 10 MB hard drive!) 83 and then PC AT 84. Could be wrong, it has been a long time.

XT was first with the horrible green screen, then the AT. I'm thinking 81 then 84 but it is hazy.

Bottom line they were slow & a pita to get to do anything.

lol

The IBM PC AT wasn't released until '84... you probably had just an IBM PC

Which if you look at the post above you will see we had an XT, then an AT later.

Didn't expect a simple reference to Wang school and an ancient PC to turn into a Spanish Inquisition.

Monty Python - The Spanish Inquisition - YouTube

My PC & Social Media History
 

As the original poster on this thread, I will add my $0.02 to this evolving discussion with my recollection of our evolution with personal computers and the earlier forms of social media.

I remember the first IBM PC’s at my office in 1982, with green colored text on a black screen. In those days the major business software for PC’s was WordPerfect and MultiMate (word processing) and Lotus 123 (spreadsheets).

The first PC that I purchased was in 1988, a mail-ordered PC clone, a Northgate PC with a 60 mb hard drive, a 5600 baud modem and a 13” Sony VGA CRT monitor. In 1990, I was intrigued by a new graphical computer operating system called Windows 3.0, which I bought and installed on my computer. With such a small capacity hard drive I also purchased and installed a software program called ‘Stacker’, that would compress the file size of all of the other software, thus providing additional room on my hard drive for more software…. As I recall, you could essentially get the top-of-the-line computer, monitor, hard drive, memory and other features for around $3,000. We upgraded our computer system approx. every 4 years, getting larger hard drives, faster microprocessors, additional memory, bigger monitors, etc. During the 1990’s and 2000’s, we replaced the Northgate computer with PC clones from ZEOS, Compaq, and Dell. Today we have a HP desktop and a HP lap top, as well as Apple iPhones and iPads, all connected via WiFi router and cable modem.


Back in the late 1980’s, the precursor to the current social media were three (3) major proprietary internet portal pay-subscription services available to computer users with tel. modems via dial up linkages:

1. CompuServe – Started as a form of communication between college/university professors and the engineering / technical community.
2. Prodigy – Formed by CBS/IBM/Sears and used a graphical user interface
3. America Online (Aol) – The most graphically oriented communication-savvy and robust of the three, (IMHO) and required the installation of proprietary software from free CD’s.

A number of additional services followed these three: Microsoft’s MSN and EarthLink.
Both Prodigy and AOL offered news, sports and most importantly, email. AOL advanced further and faster when it introduced real time instant messaging capabilities. Eventually, both Prodigy and Aol offered full access to the World Wide Web and web page hosting, Prodigy with their own dedicated web browser and AOL being able to use and be compatible with MS Internet Explorer. Many of us older folks still have and use our AOL email addresses in some capacity. I remember enjoying the IM capability of Aol to communicate with friends, as the precursor to today’s text messaging on our smart phones.

Remember, back in the year 2000, AOL purchased Time Warner, to form AOL Time Warner, for an unprecedented amount of money, in what most people now consider one of the worst corporate purchases of all time….

On a separate topic, I look forward to our country’s citizens coming to grip with the fact that our broadband speeds are no longer the fastest available in the world and that fact will adversely affect our competitiveness with other countries in the future, unless we demand an improvement from Verizon and AT&T. (Probably a topic for a separate dedicate post and thread….)

Here is the first machine we had it was just a PC:
IBM Personal Computer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then when the XT came out we got that & the PC was relegated to a back room in the office (small family run insurance agency) where I tinkered with it & made it into an XT clone.

IBM Personal Computer XT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AVB,

I remember all of those!!!

I got my first job in 1986 at a Soviet electronic plant making chips (mostly for military) and got fascinated by an idea to have my own computer... i found a schematics for an 8080 based computer, i procured all the parts, except for the main processor chip itself (our plant did not make the processors) and... and then i was drafted into the Soviet military in 1988... long story short - after coming to the US in the 1991, I was still hoping to built a computer, but the times were hard, i needed to learn English, get myself integrated (lucky me, I was over 21 at the time and I was NOT precluded to buy my own booze... crazy law!!!)...
Amazingly, I did not have to built a computer, as I could just buy it... can you imagine that?!! I got my first comp in 1992, and read in the russian newspaper that there is "bitnet/eunet/internet" that was invented in the US and people could communicate with each other through computers for free... a phone call back to former soviet union would cost $2.49 first minute and $2.24 each additional with 3 minutes minimum...

To my surprise, nobody knew about this "american" invention and i thought it was made up story in russian press when one dude handed me a 3.5" floppy with AOL... my computer had GeoWorks (alternative to Windows) and the AOL would not load... besides, my comp did not even have a hard drive - it had two floppies... aol would give you 5 hours a month for the monthly fee... a local college offered me internet for $300 a month!!!

good ol'days!!!

it is amazing how far the technology has come - my new android cell phone is hundreds of times more powerful than what i had back then...

gee... i remember all of that... i am old!!!!:wow:

To add a little more, in the mid-80's before Compuserve, AOL and the other online services for consumers were Internet-based, there was Usenet:

Usenet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I had Usenet access through our local Hewlett Packard office via UUCP using a dialup modem in our office. We also had some access through our local university while I was there.

Usenet newsgroups, some of which are still quite active, have some advantages over forums:

- Speed. Very important if you're reading and answering a lot (just ask mD ;) ).

- Much lower bandwidth requirements. That's not as important now.

- You can choose your own reader (this is somewhat true using some of the mobile forum aggregators).

- Decentralized.

- Easier to subscribe to most... just find the newsgroup and join (unless it was private, then you needed a password).


P.S. Cabrio... sorry for bringing in the S.I... Cardinal Fang! Fetch...THE COMFY CHAIR! ;)

I demand a shrubbery as compensation!

Ah yes. When floppies were, well, floppy.

Warm up times for monitors.

Renaming the format command to TAMROF so that users who now had hard drives didn't screw them up.

Dealing with the only two guys in the IT department who didn't feel it was beneath them to work on PCs.

When PC DOS wasn't exactly the same as MS DOS.

Building custom 386 machines with SCO Xenix so that we could have enough memory to run finite element analysis.

Glad we're past some of it.

When it comes to computers, some of you are old people.....:rofl:

No Tech maven here, but my first computer was a Mac 512k, circa mid '85.
I thought it was the cat's azz, then...

I used to occasionally lug it around in a carry bag, mostly to show off, as it didn't 'put out' much stuff, and mini portable printers hadn't been invented then. I gave it to my Admin for her to learn on/use.

My CEO had one then too, and she learned Excel early on, and was a wiz at it...still is, actually.

For all the Apple phans here: See, I did have a Mac at one time. :D
GL, mD

Hey MD, I had one like it also.

Some of us are old regardless of computers.

I have the PS2 mouse from one of those ancient machines.

I wont deny that's true, but you gotta admit there are a lot of old people who are on another planet when it comes to computers. Don't know a thing about them and don't want to know.

Just wondering if that PS2 mouse is hanging from the rear view mirror....:D
Computer is long gone for sure...right?

My first pc was a turbo XT! And that button was always activated :)
MS-DOS was lightning fast to boot up. I had all the common CTRL-key commands memorized and it was like working an abacus in Word Perfect I think it was. So fast and easy. Then Windows & the mouse came out and it was all downhill from there. 286-AT, dual drives (still floppy then later the 3.5s). I can still hear the dot matrix zipping back and forth - did my own print ads on it then had the print shop make copies adding my own real photos and sometimes stick on letters.

Oh man, autoexec.bat . That's enough looking back then for me!

Oh no I'm wrong, first pc was the TRS-80 with cassette tapes.

Actually no, it was book on computers my Mom got me. In the back was cardboard pages with cutouts representing memory so you could set bits with punched out bit pieces. You could do the math exercises in the book. Wish I still had that book as a keepsake.

X5nH1

Yes but are you on FB, twitter ect?

Sure. I hate most of what's on tv so this small screen provides the endless entertainment as well as stalking I mean socializing from afar :D Twitter I am receive only and just follow a couple feeds.

Anyone remember Wildcat and Mustang BBS's? :D

Anyways back to the spirit of this thread I know I am on so many goobermint lists it ain't funny. They have backdoors into FB, Windows, your email, your phone and camera, tunnel your connection, even out in the woods they can zoom in on ya via sat or drone. So like Bill Whittle said on that Eat the Rich video, now what.

Autoexec.bat, etc....
 

[QUOTE=X5nHI;986953]

Oh man, autoexec.bat . That's enough looking back then for me!

Boy does that bring back memories...
Back in 1990-1991, with our first PC, I remember goofing off late at night playing around with altering or deleting specific lines in the computer's autoexec.bat and/or the config.sys files and then discovering the "black screen of death" when I rebooted. In a cold sweat, I would call up the PC Maker's Customer Technical Service Dept. at 1:00 a.m. and sheepishly admitting that I f__ked up doing something that I should not have and could they please, please, please help save me and bring my computer back to life.
Ah, the days of trial and error experimentation of thinking: "what happens if I do this....????..... OH SH_T!!!"

AVB-AMG
:driver:

I like the in person social interactions. The whole facebook and twitter things kinda pathetic, good for marketting though. I especially hate how all you see are posts of people whining and telling their life stories all the time. NEWS FLASH: NO ONE CARES

INSTAGRAM
 

I attended my nephew's high school graduation this past weekend. He and his mother share photos on INSTAGRAM, and said that they can determine who will see the posted photos.
As an old fart who wants to be in the loop for this type of family photo sharing, I am intrigued and have downloaded the free INSTAGRAM app for my iPhone and will start to experiment to see what I think.
I'll let you all know if I like it and will use it or, if not and decide to delete it....

AVB-AMG
:driver:

FB also provides for 'who can see' your posts, photos, etc...
Not arm wrestling that FB is 'better' than Instagram, but the close funneling is also on FB, fwiw.

For those of us not walking around with a smart phone/cell cam, Insta is not a useful site, for this geezer.
GL, mD

I like Twitter... but then I use it to sell books. :)

Brokers selling personal information
 

So you think your personal information is safe when you are on Twitter or Facebook....?

Think again!

Just in case any of you missed this from the original broadcast this past March or the re-broadcast yesterday, (8/24/14) on 60 Minutes on CBS, here is the link to the segment:

The Data Brokers: Selling your personal information - CBS News

AVB-AMG