Yes, I've been missing in action here on the blog for a couple of days. And it all started with the box of salt I bought. I was putting it in the cupboard when I noticed the Facebook symbol. My salt wanted me to be friends. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to be friends with my salt. I want the salt to set quietly in its shaker until I need to season my food.
Is social media getting out of hand? And do you really want to read all that advertising that's passing itself off as friends? I only have this blog and a few Yahoo groups but I just had to step back for a minute and wonder where in the world we're all heading. Because everywhere I look, someone is trying to sell me something. From salt to Viagra to penis enlargments. The whole thing just kind of tires me out.
Now I like reading about new stories and new books that are being published, but do we really need to make friends with our salt?
15 comments:
when the news came out that Angelina Jolie's right leg had started her own twitter account and as of Monday a.m. had something like 17,000 followers, I began to get the same feeling you did with the salt. There's something kind of hilarious about friending salt but it's sad too.
It is sad, Katherine. What really makes me scratch my head is the TV station telling me to use my computer to interact with their programming. Hmmm, my computer is two rooms away from the TV. It's one or the other. No wonder we have short attention spans - we're trying to keep up with too much stuff at the same time. :)
It is pretty shocking how I can go to look at something via google and the next time I open my facebook, there are ads for it. Sometimes it takes me a minute before I realize, oh yeah, I checked that for a story.
They are tracking us and we who use the Internet extensively, are sitting ducks.
Yeah, I keep getting ads for viagra, fake university degrees, loans and adult swingers groups.
Makes me feel like an impotent,underqualified,debt riddled, pervert.
And the question is...how do they know?
We certainly are, Patti. I get spam emails with the first names of people who comment on the blog sometimes or where I've commented on their's. There's just no privacy on the 'net.
Amazing, isn't it, Paul? They know us so well :)
There is no going back, Sandra. I don't mean to state the obvious but I don't see social media scaling back.
I'm friends with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning... it's a privately owned company and I know employees, and I like their products. But I try to avoid "Liking" on Facebook because it builds an advertising profile for them to sell. That's all it is for.
I would highly recommend the following as a paranoid IT professional...
Use Firefox as your browser.
Go to eff.org and install their "HTTPS everywhere" plugin.
Go to addons.mozilla.org and install:
Adblock Plus
Beef Taco (Advertising Cookie Opt Out)
and Ghostery, if you want to see who is tracking you and block them.
This takes a few minutes, and everything is free.
If you use Google, you should also go to:
https://www.google.com/settings/ and at the bottom choose Web History. Login, and revoke access to your history. You'll see every web search you've done... Check All and delete them.
You're still being tracked, but this covers your steps as much as possible.
No, it's never going to go back, David, but the sad thing is, people don't pay attention to what's right in front of them because there's so much of it.
Case in point, the school shooting out in Ohio the other day. The boy posted on Facebook what he was going to do and no one believed him enough to take the step of picking up a phone.
Now that's a sad commentary on this great social medium.
Good advice, Thomas!
I really don't like social media at all. I still prefer blogs, which is a kind of social media, I guess, but still somehow different. I used to like it, but anymore . . . not so much. It used to be a refuge from things I didn't care for, like TV, but still interactive. Now, put something like the Oscars (for a recent example) or the Super Bowl or any big "cultural event" and twitter and Facebook become unusable with the hordes of people trying to outsnark each other. I just stay away.
I'm also much less of a book fan than I used to be, something I'm trying to cure myself of. I still love to read, but the interaction with other writers I used to enjoy has changed, because so many use social media for little more than just "buy my stuff!" platforms. That puts me off, and has certainly changed my buying and reading habits. Hell, I don't even want to talk about my own work anymore.
I wrestle with it every day. I think if I weren't tied to my desk working from home I wouldn't use it at all, but it's hard to ignore in that context. When I am away, though, I'll go days without even looking at any of it.
I prefer blogs, too, Chris. I've resisted Facebook and Twitter. I do read tweets because it's a great place to pick up leads to new markets for short stories and you can keep track of a zines progress or lack of. And I've stopped reading many blogs because the blogger has switched from blogging to advertising whatever project they're working on.
I wrestle with this myself. I know that we have to get the word out about our work but there reaches a point when people get tired of hearing about you, you, you, and move on. It's a fine line.
I don't twitter, I don't tweet, I don't facebook, I don't fleep, I don't blog, I don't website, i can't make my cell phone work right ... and nobody knows me!!! (Sob!) In truth, that's okay with me. Now if I can just read the two words below that prove I am not a robot, I am not a robot, I am not a robot ....
It's getting harder and harder to be anonymous on the web, Fred. Unless, of course, you are a robot :)
I know it makes me sound bitchy. All social media has done is proven to me ways I didn't realize in which I'm kind of an a-hole. Heh.
Not bitchy, Chris. And I know exactly how you feel. I tend to lead with my mouth then spend hours removing my foot from said mouth. That's why I stay away from Twitter. :)
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