Social Networking Forum·367 discussions

Social networking – am I missing anything?

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I’ve regarded MySpace, Facebook, and other social sites as irrelevant at best. I admit I’ve reached this opinion without visiting any of these sites, opening an account, or participating.

Am I missing anything or are these just the latest fad, soon to go the way of the CB radio, the ISP-generated personal web page, and the abandoned blog?

If you participate in these types of web sites, which ones do you prefer and why?

Topic

If you’re missing it

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

I am too.

I prefer TR for my “social networking” and prefer to not add myself to the mix on places like MySpace and Facebook.

Given the fund raising I do for the 3 Day, I do find that an easily accessed blog helps but the 3 Day built that feature into my web page this year. Last year, I used Blogger.

I honestly don’t think that you are missing a single thing. That’s just me.

I doubt it

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

Everyone I know is a member of some sort of social networking site, except me. I have better things to do than spend my time updateing everyone about whats going on in my life..

TR takes up enough of my time, and it suits me fine..

If anything, if some of the peole spent as much time with thier friends and family as they do on then maybe thier lives would be that much richer.

My daughter was on one for a while, and when I cheked out her friends pages it was just a hairs breadth away from being porn. The info and images they posted were shocking to say the least….

If i was President of the World, I’d ban the dang things alltogether! ]:)

But i guess they have thier uses, and some people have so much of thier life invested in these pages, so might as well leave them be…otherwise they might start bothering me with cr@p.

🙂

I actually have

In reply to I doubt it

a MySpace page, that I have probably logged into once this year. I created one out of morbid curiosity, discovered that pretty much all of the conclusions I jumped to were sadly accurate, and moved on.

I do have a Dogster and Catster page for the dog and cat, but I just post photos. Those are a bit disturbing in a different way. Hundreds of thousands of adults masquerading as their pets on the internet and blogging for them.

hmmm..

In reply to I actually have

Catster you say?

Now this I must check out!!! Probably more interesting than people prattling on about thier mundane stuff..

I have a better one

In reply to hmmm..

Quizzes & Thought Provoking Questions

Be sure to read the “Diary of a Mad Cat”. Written with assistance, of course but funny!

I’ll have to check out Catster too. Didn’t even know it existed. Thanks Ganyssa!

Clarification, please.

In reply to I doubt it

“I cheked out her friends pages it was just a hairs breadth away from being porn. The info and images they posted were shocking to say the least….”

So you saying I AM missing something?

You [i]are[/i] not.

In reply to Clarification, please.

*wink, wink*

Seriously though…

My wife has a page which she used to keep tabs on college friends and teenage girls she and I have coached in volleyball.

I last went on the page a year and a half ago and I shall never return.

We coached an 18 elite team together. Several of the girls would send us messages through the site. I checked one of the messages once, visited the girls site, and she had pictures of herself wearing lingerie. Not only was this girl only 17 years old, but she is like a little sister.

A male cousin of mine has nothing but pictures of him doing drugs and drinking.

A female cousin of mine was wearing slightly less than the girl I coached (she’s 16).

Just…uncomfortable.

Which is a good reason…

In reply to You [i]are[/i] not.

to be aware of it and know how to control your children. They are going to want to be on it since all of their friends are. You can be the complete a-hole parent or you can parent. Those parents should do their job. Or maybe they approve.

I found some harsh things my nephew said and where he posted his cell #. I immediately informed my brother and he no longer had that cell phone and his page was deleted.

Happily

In reply to Which is a good reason…

I can report that my daughters page was clean and had no personal info such as contact details and location..

but some of her friends did..phone numbers, locations..and very bad pics indeed..

I did tell the one parent that she may want to view her daughters page, she never said if she did or not..

We had a key logger on the pc, knew everything she did while on our computer
and all passwords to all sites. Not for the faint-hearted…trust me

That is the new parenting strategy…

In reply to Happily

these days. Your kids are going to be online, or they will not be able to interact like other kids do. That could cause them to have less friends and a bad school life. So what do you do? You use keyloggers and monitor their internet usage. I use Linux at home so any software I want to use is free. I use profanity filters, ad blockers, whitelists, blacklists, and know everywhere they go.

I did find some things I was not pleased about on his YouTube account and saw he had created it as an adult. I deleted it and created him one stating his real age so it would limit the content he could view.

I was hoping

In reply to That is the new parenting strategy…

to hold on to my delusions for a little while longer. My daughter is 6, so she’s still perfectly happy with my old laptop that I loaded Curious George Does Phonics on (is it just me, or does that sound just wrong)?

But I probably only have two or three good years left if I’m lucky.

Curious George Does Phonics

In reply to That is the new parenting strategy…

oh yes..that just does sound wrong!!

kids grow up way too fast..the internet can be a great resource for them , but if its not monitored can mean big trouble.

you have a couple years left i’d say..but soon enough she’ll be wanting a cell phone and then it starts..
enjoy the peace while you can…
i wish we were back in the days of “Curious George Does Phonics”..nowdays its more like “50 Cent Does STD’s ” and “Parenting: Should you wait untill you 16 to have your second Child”

but that a whole other thread…. 🙂

I was about to bring up that point

In reply to You [i]are[/i] not.

that a lot of the people with the myspace pages are young girls and boys in their early to mid teens.

I am so glad I had boys instead of girls…..

I’m with ya there JD…

In reply to I was about to bring up that point

I have one boy and we just found out last week that the next one (due in March) is a boy too.

We may go for three in a few years, but for now, I’m thankful I don’t have to worry about a little girl.

Just you wait, Inky

In reply to I’m with ya there JD…

My father had 5 children- all girls.

Oddly enough, he started graying in his early 30’s. Must be a genetic thing…
😀

Well, I’m 30 at the end of the year…

In reply to Just you wait, Inky

and already have quite a bit of gray at the temples.

But mine really is hereditary, most of the men in my family have gone gray pretty early.

I don’t mind though, I’m so damn good looking that a little gray doesn’t bother me a bit! 😉

I would not be upset with gray hair

In reply to Just you wait, Inky

after all, it is still hair….. :0

I did notice a few white ones in my beard when I let it grow out a bit….. 😀

No Palmie

In reply to Clarification, please.

not unless your a lot more depraved than we think you are..they were all aged 12-15 at the time.

I’m crazy, I’m not sick.

In reply to No Palmie

To paraphrase the old joke.

I will get flak for this…

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

I have not met a single competent, IT manager that has had one of these…

I personally do not have one because it really does not appeal to me. I have a cell phone and wish I could get rid of that. I really hate the concept of people trying to contact you all the time.

I am also a full time student and I hate it when I get a call when I am in class from work and it is because the employees do not know how to use a printer. I do not have to trouble shoot it… The actaully do not know how to switch between printers…

Can’t “fit in”

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

Unless there are some IRL people I know who are using it I will not participate. It’s because I cannot find mundane things interesting – even if it’s just for the sake of converstaion – that I can’t seem to fit into the SN agenda.

Forums like this are my favoured method of “social networking.”

Facebook

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

I use this as a means to keep in touch with people I already know IRL or have recently met IRL.

Like old school friends, friends I have in other countries/around the UK.

I hate My space apart from the usefulness of checking out new bands/lesser known artists which I think is what My space has now developed into or was the original intent, the social networking side of things I dont see so much, especially with the amount of spam on there. I dont like the public availiability of it all either.

Facebook on the other hand has a privacy feature which means only your friends can see your profile.

No comprendo IRL

In reply to Facebook

Since both you and nodisalsi have used the same abbreviation, I’m now forced to ask what ‘IRL’ is. Please excuse my NASCAR background, but I assume it isn’t “Indy Racing League”, one of the open-wheel racing series in the U.S.

That would be

In reply to No comprendo IRL

In Real Life

Sorry

In reply to No comprendo IRL

I recently quit an MMORPG, finding it hard to break the slang habits 🙂

Did it again

In reply to Sorry

u just can’t help ur self, can u? 😀

MMORPG

In reply to Did it again

isnt a known term?

bah, its a massively multiplayer online role playing game.

World of warcraft 😛

Let the record show I didn’t ask about MMORPG.

In reply to MMORPG

That was jdc’s problem, not mine.

[b]I[/b] knew what it was, but…..

In reply to MMORPG

in a post that JUST got done having to explain a term, then turns around and uses another struck me as mildly amusing! :p

And yes, it is a lowercase “p” for your emoticon :p

[i]note, at least you didn’t call it WoW… ;\

So – ‘real life’ needs a slang term? THAT is sad!…

In reply to Sorry

If someone has become so engrossed in their online life, that their socially-inept ACTUAL existence requires an ID to differentiate it, – time to put the ‘net away for a while don’t you think?

ALSO, don’t try using IRL anywhere near an airport baggage-handling area otherwise you might wake up in a cargo hold bound for Eire!

MySpace has that too…

In reply to Facebook

My kids can’t be contacted in anyway by anyone other than friends. To ask to be their friend they must know their name or email. If you are not their friend you only see ?this profile is set to private”. That is the only way I would let them on it.

That depends…

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

I have an account that I use mainly as a learning experience to understand and over-protect my kids. My son wanted to have an account, so I got on there checked it out. I learned how to interact with their CSS and taught my son so he could modify his profile without going to all of those SPAM sites.

I did have an old friend who I had not seen in 10 years contact me one day on it though. I also occasionally find some good music on there.

I keep everything private though and don’t really talk to people that I don’t know. I keep up with band tour dates and events and it is pretty good for that. Most bands have a profile and send out info to their “friends”.

Minority

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

Well I guess I am alone here with this one cause I do have a myspace page.
However I only have it for a few reasons. A few of those are my band, old friends that live back home 11 hours away and promotion.
I don’t like myspace but it seems at least in the DFW area the only way to promote the band is myspace.
Now if I had children I would NOT allow them to use the site!

i agree

In reply to Minority

Yeah Myspace is great for aspiring/established artists.

As a social networking site though I think its appalling, Facebook is much better and safer in my opinion.

i have not used Facebook…

In reply to i agree

what is it that makes it safer. Honestly I think now it is more dangerous to walk outside than be online if you know what how to act properly.

I doubt it.

In reply to Social networking – am I missing anything?

I’ve not looked at myspace or facebook and I don’t intend to.
[ my wife does that for the daughter’s protection ]

I did look at stumbleupon, pretty useless as far as social networking, but you can find some interesting websites through it. I did find Choppit in the stumbleupon system though. 🙂

The Blog/wiki social networking site for it pros I found doesn’t get the same community as here.
[ ittoolbox.com ]
and their content as far as technical data isn’t yet very comprehensive, though they do cover all operating systems, not just windows. The content being purely user supplied, not staff supplied.

edit to add:

Second life online community, has to be the worst.
1) mozilla based client software, great all os supported.
2) oops, client won’t start.
3) oops oops can’t log into their “forums” for linux support, have to login through the client software first..can’t log into client software until support available to get client running right.

a complete waste of time.

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