Social Media

[poliphilo]

I don't have a Facebook page and I don't Twitter. I've spent my life avoiding random and meaningless social contacts and why should I change now, just because we've got a technology that enables them?  I see people are beginning to complain about how much time these things eat and how they're the death of proper, slow, worked-out thinking. Well, yes, of course. 

I'm not a technophobe. I understand how useful Twitter and Facebook are as tools of revolution. I hate them not because they're new but because- like the telephone- they intrude.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I have a Facebook page. I hate Facebook with a white-hot passion, most days, and on the rest find it merely annoying.

So far, I have been reunited with precisely one friend from years gone by that I actually wanted to hear from. The rest of my supposed friends and former class mates are, with a few exceptions, contagiously stupid right-wing reactionaries. I am ashamed of even a distant association with many of them and, when it comes to a few, I am ashamed to say that we are apparently of the same species.

For the record, I despise the telephone as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can see Facebook has its uses, but I have managed to position myself in a place where I don't need it- thank God!

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Stick to your guns!

[trixibelle-net.livejournal.com]

See, i HATE the bloody telephone, because there is no choice involved in when you are contacted and by whom. But I find I like facebook and twitter because I can decide exactly when I go on it, and I can choose who I interact with.
I do really dislike the fake aspect of facebook, and having got the curoisity of finding out what my old school-'mates' are doing these days I promptly deleted 99% of them which was actually quite rewarding haha.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There are one or two schoolmates about whom I feel a certain curiosity- but I have no desire to contact them.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

Plus I have both, so you can always check mine to see how people are doing - and of course I do keep you informed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm glad you have them.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Actually, I see more of you, Ailz, on FB than I do here on LJ. I appreciate that.

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

>> I've spent my life avoiding random and meaningless social contacts . . .

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. :D

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Time is too precious...

[redatt.livejournal.com]

Curiosity landed me with a Facebook after years of resistance, now I only keep it because it's turned out to be an ace way of playing Scrabble and a couple of other word games.

I like Twitter, but I was both amused and irked the other day when I an old friend got pissed off because I took over a week to respond to a semi-important question that he asked me via Twitter's private message feature, he even started making passive-aggressive status updates about it on Facebook because he felt all offended over apparently being ignored. "Duffus," said I, "it was half-term last week and I'm not actually MARRIED to the Internet."

So, yes, I agree, I feel they intrude too -- or at least that they give some people certain [unrealistic] expectations about how much accesses they are entitled too one's life.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never used Twitter. To be honest I wouldn't know how. I can see how it might be fun, but I don't feel any need for it.
Perhaps I'll come round to it in time.

I'm a late adopter with most technologies. I was still using a manual typewriter long after most people had moved over to word processors and pcs.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

If you are going to dislike those things, that's a fine reason to dislike them. :)

I cannot abide Facebook because I can feel my ability to concentrate fracturing when I use it. Constant updates in one feed, games in another part of the window, chat windows popping up... it scatters me. Even without the privacy issues, I found it hard to focus.

Twitter I like fine. I can ignore it. When I pay attention to it, it only does one thing at me. That I can handle.

[redatt.livejournal.com]

Fortunately the Fb chat feature can be switched off, because otherwise Fb would cause me to explode.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never used Facebook. I've looked at other people's pages- and decided I don't understand what's going on and don't particularly want to. I can see that Twitter could be fun- but I don't feel any need for it.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

You have just stated what I've wanted to express for some time now. I don't need either FB or Twitter. The people I actually want to keep in touch with know how to find me outside those places and I them. Email and LJ are really all I need (and the phone which I don't like but tolerate especially when it's a good friend I'm speaking with).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I accept the telephone as a necessity of modern life- but I use it as little as possible.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

To be honest, as much of a technophile as I am, I really never got very excited about Facebook or Twitter. For the most part, they seem to mostly extend the ability of chit-chatters to chit-chat. Beyond that, they allow people to constantly update me on what they're doing; I'm not a fan of real time narration.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never been one for chit chat. I think we have a human duty not to bore one another.