What real use is social media. What does it achieve that email, telephone or personal contact cannot achieve. Is it a medium for abuse and trolling others anonymously, what is this nouveau fashion of the last decade apart from making a few people very, very rich. Why are so many 'addicted' to mobile phones and social media that they never interact with each other or in fact reality.

It would be interesting to hear your comments.

 

Happy Sunday Offroad

My husband and I use social media to stay in contact with our loved ones scattered overseas and within the States. It's convenient for sharing photos, keeping up with daily activities and instant messaging on the fly.

When we opened a business a few years back we were required to have an online presence and social media was the easiest and least expensive option. A facebook page works well for us to keep in contact with customers - although the 'followers' we have hardly ever post haha.

I suppose Instagram could be fun for those who like to share their sense of humor or keen eye for photography, etc. I don't understand the appeal of Snapchat, Twitter seems childish to me and there is much about facebook that I do not care for (keeping up with the joneses aspect and 'look at me! look at me!!') Selfies seem narcissistic - constantly looking for approval from others.

I enjoy following decorating blogs for ideas in display for the shop as well as eye candy. Michigan has a Land rover enthusiast page which I follow - not too many folks up this way but it seems like a good group and that's about all I follow. I hardly ever use my cell phone - it's basically for emergency purposes only, for when I travel or looking up an odd item at an estate sale. I'm fairly old school - probably one reason I want to keep my Rover on the road (fewer technical things that I have to mess with).

It's funny that you started this post as my dad was saying that not too long ago. 'Why would anyone want to text anyone when you can call?.. I don't get that' he said. I have a friend who lives 4 hours away and likes to text a lot. I love her but that's not my thing.

 

 

I may have to look you up in a couple years when I retire.

 

 

Not ready yet Friday night need to get my 20 years done first so I can get that pension and medical benefits lol

 

IMHO social media marginalises many and categorises genre to various groups. It has the ability to 'distort' the truth where many take it as read, fake news in fact. Take FB for instance, they are advertising their 'cleanliness' heavily on UK media but little has changed to promote any trust in them, in fact I survived adequately prior to social media and I'm sure I will survive long after this 'phase' dies a natural death. Would I ever use social media, never, it's security is crap, it asks for far too many personal details and it targets the weak and vulnerable, also many unsupervised children. Why they can't put a secret police recognisable digital stamp on all social media entries I will never understand, probably it will cost them some money and customers initially and reduce their profits as they rely on selling on YOUR data to advertisers etc, even to crooks like CA. Digital recognition would make it impossible to be 'anonymous' to the police and simplify bullying and stalking investigations.

 

I am not interested in social media because I am not interested in the details of day to day lives of people and crap news. I would rather talk on the phone, text, or have a conversation face to face.