Facebook, Twitter: Why Bother…?

[AVB-AMG]

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