Private People

Are you the Spaz Troll, OP?

No, r1. And you're boring.

This is the very reason I have nothing to do with Facebook or the like. I don't give a fat rat's ass what's going on in other's private lives.

I saw a rather amusing post on Twitter.

Someone wrote something like, "I've been working with my therapist and trying to get over the shame of being inpatient on a psych unit a couple years ago."

You must not be *too* ashamed about it if you're advertising it on Twitter.

I find the oversharers highly amusing, esp the young ones who proudly share the details of their mental illnesses and medications. So easy to trigger, just call them fat.

I'm not even talking about "oversharers". I'm talking about people who post pictures of parties they go to on Instagram. I'm talking about anyone using Twitter. The entire concept of everyone being their own PR lackey grosses me out. That no one considers their private life valuable enough to keep private anymore grosses me out. Why does no one value their own privacy anymore?

I am not interested in the minutiae of anyone’s life and I don’t expect others to care about mine. Or it could be that I am really self-centered AND a private person. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

We have yet to reach peak narcissism OP. The hollow emptiness of most people has to be camouflaged from themselves so a digital community of spectators replaces real intimacy. It's also easier as you don't need to actually put in the work of getting to know others, build trust, become vulnerable. Connection is abstracted. Your life is a commodity to be marketed and evaluated by strangers rather than actually lived.

R8 is right. Marketing appalls me all on its own, and the fact that everyone is now doing it as a 'lifestyle' just makes the world seem a horrible, shallow place.

Also, what's with people who have conversations by text instead of phoning? You answer one, then in comes another, and so it goes until I see red and phone them myself. Surely texts are for alerts like "Lunch at 2.30 OK with you?" or "Arrived safely." ? Using it to replace conversation is, as you say, another way of removing the real connection.

Finally, I learned the hard way that you can't let friends who are into social media take your photo, even as part of a group, at real life events, because they'll paste your photo all over the very apps they know you despise. I get really angry about it, not least because I've yet to have one apologise and agree it's a breach of privacy and trust.

“I'm talking about people who post pictures of parties they go to on Instagram.”

How does one go to a party on Instagram??

To see them--indiscriminate Women, it Pains me more than I can say The lack of taste that they display!

I have a fairly ordinary job, I'm an accountant. My whole life it has been very weird to watch people in even casual circumstances treat me with more respect when they find out my parents are both doctors and the head of their respective departments a private hospital.

That's what everyone would hope for, r12.

What r7 said. I lead a fascinating, amazing, awesome, sporadically uneventful, at times deeply painful and deeply joyful life-

To Me.

So do you.

I don't presume you wish to know the details of my life, nor am I interested in the details of yours.

I keep waiting for the day when the ultimate in status and position will be to have no social media presence whatsoever.

I note also that social media and tech billionaires severely restrict their children's time on social media. A guy who wrote a book on the Silicon Valley titans said so during an interview.

Think about that. They profit off something that they forbid their children from taking part in. What a bunch of suckers we are.

Participation in social media isn’t mandatory you know. If it bothers you so much, just read books or do something else.

One of my co-workers inadvertently recorded her descent into alcoholism on her facebook page.

2004 Look at me I'm drinking in a bar. l'm legal!

2007 Look I'm on vacation and I'm swimming AND drinking.

2009 Look how drunk I was when I got home!

2015 This is my mug shot. Fuck the pigs!

2018 This is my first day home from rehab. Hope it sticks.

It feels too many people have turned into personal PR flacks. Endless soporifics mouthed by vacuous idiots, posturing an imaginary life. There’s no authenticity, no examined life.

I admire those who have overcome true adversity and encourage others. Otherwise, social media is awash in egos, pretense and illusion.

The worst ones are those who tag friends on Facebook to thank them for something. Just text them you narcissists!

R18 Or those who run to Twitter to wish their spouse a happy birthday and say how much he/she means to them. How about just fucking looking up from your phone and telling him/her. You're having breakfast together right now.

R14 it sounds like something people that work for RJ Reynolds would do to their children. Tell them never to smoke cigarettes but yet that’s how they feed their families.

It's just attention whoring, OP.

OP and all the bitches on this thread are two-faced liars. They continually make people captive to their moods and feeling while pretending not to care.

I would love to share... if I had anything.

OP can't stand that anyone EXPECTS anything from him. The truth is nobody does. Those blogs aren't made for people like you, but for people who are not narcissistic users.

You’re contradicting yourself in your post. I thought you don’t tell strangers what you’re thinking, well you’re doing it right now!

A student who worked for me in the early 1990's doing IT told me to keep my online presence as minimal as possible because someday everything you said or did would end up online. This was before Google and before Zuckerberg thought up/ripped off Facebook. The original search engines - Yahoo search was the first one in widespread use - appeared then (1994-95?) and he said I was lucky as I have a very common name and he did not: there are 3 people I can find in the United States with the same name as his. But him? A couple of old PR photos - nothing about his marriage, kids, vacations, work; zero personal data - so he's followed his own advice.

We keep in touch occasionally by phone, email, or Christmas card. Neither of us has ever had an online presence via Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.

From the mouths of babes...

I've actually started disliking some of my close friends (some of whom had moved away) just from reading their posts on Facebook over time. Not because it was anything I disagreed with, but because it all became so boring, predictable and constant.

This is a main reason I'm glad I'm not on social media anymore r27

I prefer my friends and acquaintances to retain an air of mystique

Very interesting timing. I am trying to find a new home in a beach community in the northeast. I truly do not know what is to come with my work life or future so I am going to rent a place for a year. The ocean air and this area are truly my home.

The place I am leaning to has a few rental homes in this little village and I guess the couples are all very close, and were close with the family vacating the unit I am going to take. They barbecue, have dinners, ect-

It is near impossible to find "year round" units in this area

I am very independent and keep to myself I have some good friends all about an hour away and I am at peace with that.

I am very interested to see how this pans out for me when they realize I plan on keeping to myself. I have learned my lessons with work friendships and I do not plan on complicating my personal life with this shit.

I am affable, very easy to get along with, and very friendly (and I must say a great tenant and neighbor) but that's where it will end

I do find it strange that so many people simply don't consider privacy and confidentiality as big deals.

I've heard so many people say that "they" (whoever the "they" are in any particular situation) can get whatever they want, so it doesn't matter. But, THAT IS THE POJNT. "They" shouldn't be able to get it.

Also, I've heard people argue that it's not a problem to give companies access to stuff like your DNA because their privacy policies limit what they can do with it. Of course, these people don't bother to remember that the company can change it's policy whenever it wants to whatever it wants without your having any recourse, not to mention that anything not explicitly covered by the policy would essentially be fair game at the company's discretion.

I had someone who I respect actually tell me that "if you're not doing anything illegal or immoral, why do you care who knows what you're doing?" WTF? There are plenty of things that are neither illegal or immoral, but you wouldn't want people to know about, as well as stuff that could or would have negative repercussions on one's life and livelihood.

R25 No contradiction. The OP has privately stated his feelings. He's not mugging for the camera or releasing his name 'me me me' to announce this insight to the world. A person can have ideas, thoughts, feelings, and express them without exposing anything more than what they want to. Or at least you could 20 years ago.

The worst offenders are those who post pics of their half-naked kids on Facebook/Twitter. How can they be so naive?

I'm going to visit an old-ish friend in another city for a long weekend. She's not a complete social media whore, but she's active with it. More than that, she has a preference/habit of verbally vomiting everything that's happened to her/that she thinks/etc to friends during long phone calls/while hanging out. That's fine, whatever, her choice to be so open and, of course, she has every right to share anything she wants to share about her own life with anyone she wants to share it with. But it makes me feel like I can't tell her anything important or personal about myself because I have no idea who else or how many others are going to wind up knowing private details of my own life that I would absolutely not want them to know. So, then, everything does become superficial, gloss, even real relationships turn into photoshoot selects because you're not exposing anything that could ever have bad angles. I just hate it.

r19, yes, those posts and the yearly anniversary posts are the worst! "Happy anniversary to my awesome husband who would be nothing without me!" I had a friend actually fight with me because I didn't "like" her anniversary post to her husband who is never on facebook. She was upset that 250 of her "friends" liked it but I didn't to which I replied, "if 250 of your friends liked it and you're upset that I didn't like it (neither did her husband, btw), then your post was not about your anniversary, it was about me." We got in a fight that resulted in her not speaking to me for several months. But it was the fucking truth. She was constantly telling me how she "settled" for him. I said, "Did you want me to write, 'Congrats on settling!?"

I don't understand people.

[quote]You’re contradicting yourself in your post. I thought you don’t tell strangers what you’re thinking, well you’re doing it right now!

That's a cheap argument. You do see the difference, though, don't you?

OP's issue is not about strangers who post and discuss anonymously, but about friends and acquaintances who put their stream of consciousness on blast without discretion. It is completely different.

I liked MySpace because you set up your little online home and people could drop by if they wanted to. It felt more cozy, especially with the customization of your layout. Facebook's news feed is like the town crier who won't shut up. Facebook hates privacy.

The only problem I have with it is the documenting of children's lives.

Your posts here, your DNA, Reddit, twitter...you're never truly anonymous. Say or do something too terrible and you're fucked, eventually. People who think differently a in for a sad, rude shock.

Well it's a good thing I'm not doing anything too terrible then. :)

Social media has been very useful for me personally--and I'm as paranoid as you all are. You have to make sure you're using it for reasons that help you. I'm on twitter and comment frequently, but only on industry news. I've been able to meet some wonderful people in my industry in different states and countries who have been immensely helpful to me.

Just this weekend, I "followed" a guy who wrote a book that's pertinent to my job, he followed me back, and we've been chit-chatting.

I don't really understand why any adult would instagram for free.

You do realize OP that you can set IG to private, right?

And that many people use it to share photos of things they find funny or beautiful, not party photos.

And that you can create Groups on FB so that say, only family members get to see the photos from Grandma's 85th birthday

And that many people use Twitter as a news reader of sorts, since every major outlet has a Twitter feed.

Or they can use it to follow analysts and companies in a specific industry they either work in or invest in so they can stay on top of that industry.

The notion that people are going to social media to post what they ate for breakfast or to photograph their dinner plate is very Old Person 2012

^^But to your point, even with Millennials, chronic oversharers are regarded as freaks, people who clearly have a psychological issue of some sort and are not to be trusted.

Social media's okay for people over 30 who were forced by the times they were born in to have a real non digital life beforehand, but for some shut ins under 25, cyber connections are all they have known.

I think there is going to be a lot of brain cancer ahead for small screen addicts.

You're missing my point, r40/r41. Why would you want any segment of your social circle to have that kind of window into your hour to hour life? Fine, share picture from an event with the people who were actually at that event. But it never stops there, not with the way this tech is designed to operate and not with those errant personalities who think there's something appealing about making their entire lives into a reality show. These tools that were supposedly designed to enhance and enable connection do exactly the opposite, by preventing anyone who isn't a halfwit or a narcissist from engaging in social intimacy.

I regard usage of social media and tangential applications for the purposes of work and research as an entirely different object, as long as all personal information and non-professional opinions are withheld.

Even as a kid, I would feel like my mom was prying when she would ask about my day. So, I know I'm kind of an outlier and more instinctually private than the average person. But being surrounded by all these people broadcasting their personal lives 24/7 has made me even cagier.

Fugster at R43, I get your point, but was making another one. This is a thread, not a platform for you to reiterate your point over and over.

Did you ever take a photo album into work and share your holiday snaps with your colleagues? This is the millennial equivalent. Yes, they like grandstanding and bragging about their status, outing, vacations. purchases.

You're missing MY point OP

No one is forcing you to look at these people's socials.

And as I stated, explicitly I might add, at R41, most people my age regard oversharers as freaks. There's a massive insecurity that causes them to post some curated version of their life for the world to see.

"Curated" seems to be the part you're missing too: it's not their ACTUAL hour-to-hour life, as you put it. It's an idealized hour-to-hour life, the one they'd like the world to see, one that is likely only loosely grounded in reality.

FFS, how many miserable people do you know who post happy family photos and yet you know they're abut to dump their spouse?

OTOH, social media in and of itself, like DL, which is a flavor of social media, is harmless enough: if you like photos of sunsets, you can find thousands of them on IG.

You can even post your own under the screen name "EGSunsetLover" and no one will need to know who you are.

Just some random human (or collection of humans) who posts pretty sunsets once or twice a week.

[quote]No one is forcing you to look at these people's socials.

That's not what this thread is about at all. You lack the capacity for reading comprehension.

I miss the world pre-internet. I just feel people tried harder to get to know other people. People were in moments more. People tried their best with other people.

I don't remember all this social-anxiety. People had so many other interactions with people, they were quite used to it and comfortable in their own skin. People needed each other more. I just liked it better.

Amen, r47.

R47, me too.

'I don't remember all this social-anxiety. People had so many other interactions with people, they were quite used to it and comfortable in their own skin. People needed each other more. I just liked it better.'

So true. Being online is very safe. All you have to worry about is being grammar shamed as long as you don't share any pictures. No need to obsess over clothes or appearance. Social anxiety just wasn't a thing in the 20th century. The rise of home schooling is also ridiculous and leads to more self conscious, self obsessed shut ins.

[quote] Social anxiety just wasn't a thing in the 20th century. The rise of home schooling is also ridiculous and leads to more self conscious, self obsessed shut ins.

This is so true.

I worked from home for 5 years, and I realized that I had become a hermit and that I had to stop working from home.

The first time I went to a networking event downtown, I had a massive anxiety attack--and I was never, ever a socially anxious person before.

I don't know, in some ways it's really cool, but in some ways it took a lot of mystery out of interactions. Eh, it's a trade off. But I do miss the feelings of excitement going somewhere, relying on word of mouth, having an adventure, feeling more connected to people. Well, I suppose those of us that got to experience that life are unique and eventually will be the last of our kind. I feel like we are going to be like those people in the 20s who remember the world as a child without electricity.

So many people these days, especially young people think everything they say, do and think is worthy of applause and a standing O so they broadcast it all over multi media. One of these days it will catch up with them.

Oh R53, it's not young people. It's also 55 year olds. Ok, and it is young people but don't act like people wouldn't have filmed themselves in the late 20th century had the technology been there.

I'm just going to include this scene from Teen Witch. I feel it makes my point. People would be doing the same oversharing today had the technology been there.

I have a friend who is constantly on FB. She even shares the arguments she has with her hubby. Her hubby is also on FB. I didn't feel comfortable in responding to that nor the fact that she shared her disagreements with her FB friends.

She constantly poses selfies of herself but you can tell they've been edited, her face looks so flawless. It's like these people use FB as an approving audience.

Oh, look, another thread where eldergays complain about something.

[quote]Did you ever take a photo album into work and share your holiday snaps with your colleagues?

Who the hell brings a photo album to work? At most, my coworkers might show a few photos on their phones, but we don't subject each other to anything more than that.

I'm a private person and I don't understand any of this. People are also so fucking nosey . They think they have to know everything about everyone. My private life is none of their God damn business.

R54 That clip made me nauseous. Foul language and rich whiteys pretending to be ghetto African-Americans.

Agree, R32, so wrong. A lot of celeb mommies do it. Yuck.

I actually am interested in the minutiae of some people's lives and have become a voyeur, but usually someone unexpected.

I haven't talked to one of my cousins in years, but found out she's in a Golden Girls-type living situation with women she met in AA. An retired aunt of mine that I assumed did nothing goes to Europe and travels internationally a few times a year, drives to New York City and goes on road trips on her own for the weekend, and I've realized is the most social member of my family by far.

R61, hell, send them a birthday card. Pick up the phone and call them.

To the IG and FB fans. When was the last time you left your phone at home or went more than a day without checking your favorite sites? How did it feel? or is the idea so horrifying/alien the you couldn't conceive of doing it?

R62 voyeur - someone who likes to watch in secret

I dislike the ubiquity. Now if you’re private, people think you’re suspicious or hiding something. Or if you don’t boast about your weekend plans you’re to be pitied since you’re obviously doing nothing. No, It’s just not your business! F this shit...

R64, I know, but it's not healthy--or fun.

Part of the fun in life is talking to other humans.

Yes, you're right, R66, part of the fun in life is talking to other humans.

But these new devices allow the ugly dreary people like us to vicariously share in the lives of the beautiful and the glamorous.

It's a very fine line between private and secretive and people are very good at sensing that line when they are interacting with you even if it is difficult to define. It's an intuitive thing. Private is usually fine. Secretive puts people off.

R19, do you really think they haven't told their spouse in person? Come on.

[quote]Also, what's with people who have conversations by text instead of phoning? ... Surely texts are for alerts like "Lunch at 2.30 OK with you?" or "Arrived safely." ?

No, that's not what they're for. People use them for numerous reasons and I don't understand why you think they're only for alerts.

Much of this thread seems to be people not understanding technology or personally not liking it, and I have to say I don't know why anyone would act helpless about it all. You can learn the norms of texting; you can tell people you only communicate via phone call; you can refuse to use social media.

But it's hypocritical to insist on phone calls while complaining if someone else insists on texts. You're both doing the same thing.

[quote]I don't remember all this social-anxiety. People had so many other interactions with people, they were quite used to it and comfortable in their own skin.

Good grief. The people who had social anxiety STAYED HOME, that's why you never saw them. You only saw the people who didn't have social anxiety.

Let's face it, most of it is so people can feel famous (in some sense). Some of them get some of that fame and find a way to monetize it by exploiting every damn detail of their lives as "influencers" or "lifestyle bloggers" which is really nothing more than the new name for basically commercial actors (to essentially sell products).

It's fame + marketing = getting to feel special/superior. That's it.

Same. I don't like social media at all because it is only a warped, awful distortion of social interaction, which is why I am not on any sm platform. I think the worst thing to arise from SM is stan culture. Stanning has a cute/harmless reputation/connotation, but it is anything but that. It's SCARY as fuck how obsessed some of these people get over their celebs. No one should be that intense in following every little detail of someone's life. I never realized how extreme it was until I went in some of the celeb threads here and saw what people did to get info. Insane.

Science fiction/fantasy fandom has been "stanning" online since the 1990s and they seem to have basically started the whole phenomenon. I grew up watching British shows on PBS and was on some LiveJournal groups and remember one lady, nice enough, who sent me some Red Dwarf on VHS along with photos of her kids!

During a dark period of my life I was really into Gilmore Girls and the TWOP ladies were fucking insane too.

I guess LiveJournal and TWOP are basically social media but this oversharing thing has gone on a long time, it's not new to FB or Twitter.

Can’t stand people who insist on txting to try to resolve complicated plans.

A family member died. Five relatives tried to arrange coordinating details for the funeral via group texts.

OMG

Miscommunication abounding. Emotional tone absent. Responses got paired to wrong questions, provoking more (weird) responses; sincere comments got interpreted as snark; temper and anger flared unnecessarily; and so on.

We’re normally a happy family in person.

Two joint conference calls would have saved soooo much time and confusion

It's not just young'uns, I work at a nonprofit where I mind my business and do my work, I am a very private person. The over 50s where I work are all over my business, asking me about why was I out, oh you had a dr appointment, what's going on etc. WHAT.THE.ACTUAL.FUCK.

I'm not your hobby, go knit a scarf.

People have no idea how much they give away. Post constantly about your two kids and then all of a sudden drop to one? Kid #2 fucked up royally, you don’t have to tell us (but you did). He she is in rehab/jail/dropped out of school/fucked your BF.

I used to use FB, but probably only had 100 friends. One was someone I’d known in my teens but wasn’t close to. Posted constantly. This was almost 10 years ago and I think she was trying g to build some kind of business/online presence, but she was pure cringe. Since I had so few friends, I noticed all her posts. It got to the point where I knew way too much about her. Her posts were so cringeworthy that sometimes my BF would, “Hey, what’s Jane Doe up to?” And want to read the latest. She was like Jean Teasdale, but more delusional.

One time while BF and I were both looking at her posts and snickering we saw one where she mentioned a “date.” I had access to an old Match.com account I’d set up for a friend. Based on all the info she’d provided on Facebook, I was able to do a match.com search that turned up one person. Her. This was on my first try. And here’s the kicker - she lied about her place of residence in her match.com account. But I knew she would.

r77, that story makes you sound like a creep, like an obsessive sock puppeteering monster, like a stalker. But A+ for proving a point about how dangerous it can be to reveal personal information even to 'closed' groups of 'friends'. You never know who's a psycho, until it's too late and they're setting up fake match.com profiles to fuck with you.

That's not what a sock puppet is though, R78. Someone with sock puppets is someone who has multiple accounts where they pretend to be different people.

r79, r78 created a fake match.com profile, as in, they created a false identity with which to communicate with Jane Doe while already communicating with Jane Doe as Facebook Friend 98. I don't think it matters that were different sites since r78 was intentionally both targeting this woman and using a fake persona to do so. Also, this is just what she's admitting to doing, here, in this thread; these are the things that she thinks sound like acceptable behavior.

R78, I agree. It really does. She was just this abstract to us and once I noticed the oddity of her over sharing it was like I couldn’t look away. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You can’t help but look at it. But you certainly don’t want to get close. I don’t really have any defense, though. It was weird of me, no doubt. I would not be telling the story in person. - R77

I agree with OP and many of the posters in this thread. Unlike almost everyone I know, I'm not on social media, even though I work in an industry that heavily involves technology and am very technically proficient when it comes to the internet, devices, etc.

I agree with whoever said that when you tell people you don't have social media, many seem to think you are hiding some sort of deep dark secret, which is a frustrating assumption. But just as many when I tell them, say something along the likes of "Wow that's so great, lucky you... I wish I could be like that", and are genuinely jealous/impressed.

I tell those who want to connect on social media that I do have a phone. We exchange numbers and if mutually interested in staying in touch/connecting, we start off by texting. If not, there's no further interaction even though we still have each other's numbers. It weeds out so many potential superficial connections and instances where people (including myself) say and even sincerely feel in the moment that they want to remain connected but in reality don't really care to.

I tagged all the posts wrong, but you get my point.

I noticed a spontaneous drop off in personal interactions on FB about a year ago. Party in response to knowledge that FB was selling data. In my case it became boring and I thought that sixty year olds should stop acting like we were in high school. Also I got tired and frustrated by the continous political posts. I fell down to following only a few people and now I follow no one. Did not unfriend but don't follow. I go there rarely now.

The Facebook twitter phenom has made people more authoritative to no end. Demanding personal info, googling people’s lives for entertainment (and often for harassment) nosiness goes into overdrive with neighbors being “researched”. Normal people never before had the compulsion to act like they were a pr firm working for one client (themselves) narcissism. Everyone is a snoop. I don’t do any “SM”.

When a frau neighbor, out of nowhere focuses in and says “ I wanna know your story!” It’s creepy AF. Especially the next time you see them and they reference what google has revealed and they are so up the ass of the SM ethos that they then just speak at you as if you told them this info. I had a neighbor creep become a stalker based on what they could get involved with from googling me.

He used his old match profile, from what it sounds like r83. Doesn't sound like it was fake, just that he had the password for it. Which is an asshole move obviously but isn't strictly sockpuppetry. More lack hacking, honestly.

Maybe I had bad luck but I knew plenty of snoops before the internet. There's a whole bunch of cliches about neighborhood snoops and busybodies.

r85, that's exactly what I'm talking about. But I've encountered it even with friends who suddenly brought things up that I knew I hadn't discussed with them, but which come up with a google search of my uncommon name. Nothing I'm ashamed or embarrassed about, but it just feels like a breach of decorum and, also, how do I get to know you now when you've circumvented that process?

r86, I read it as the creeper created a composite profile using data they knew about Jane Doe to ensure a match.

OP/R43, your not wanting to tell your mom about your day when asked, as a kid, does not make you special (an outlier, as you put it).

This is the norm for kids everywhere. It would be odd to have a kid who DOES want to talk about their day when prompted.

r90, this is your contribution to the subject?

Think they just searched using data they knew about her, R89. Not that I understand why they would do that, or why they would get bent out of shape if she lied about what town she lived in. Some people do that for safety reasons, it's not some kind of clue that she's a psycho or a spy or something.

I get why some people put real info like name or town online if it helps them find jobs or network, or just because they work online (as a former writer I can tell you that you will not get anywhere without using your real name, unfortunately). But if you don't need to put your info out there, you shouldn't, because there is always someone like R77 who will go too far.

The OP obviously has a very boring life or is up to something shady.

Those are the only two reasons not to share or have a Twitter account.

I had more online presence 10 years ago w my blog. About handraising kittens and fostering foundling/abandoned cats. Then the kittens were adopted, and no more new litters because we had an overflow of adult cats, cats getting older starting dying, and it just wasn’t fun anymore. So I grew up too much for online clownage and self-regard, as I experienced a darkening of the world around us. Because I was getting older too. Facebook and Instagram are just ways people have found to relentlessly perform in the face of oncoming death. Tap dancing to distract The Reaper

R80, I did not create a fake persona, I simply logged on using a friend’s logon info (friend had no problem with this) and did a search. I didn’t communicate with her, and I never communicated with her on Facebook. It was a one way communication with her broadcasting the minutia of her life. But was it an unsavory thing to do? Yes.

R77

No composite profile, no communication (except to read her daily posts).

R91, The subtext is that OP is a little caught up in OP's So Unlike the Others-ness, and is using Datalounge to showcase to us how special OP is, since she cannot get that attention from Facebook, etc.

I don't care for social media or oversharing either, and there's a lot of it. Yet you won't find many people who admit that they do like social media and oversharing. And sometimes the people who deride oversharing the most are among the worst offenders. It's reasonable to expect that if a large percentage of users are narcissistic, that they would also be incredibly jealous of another "Friend" getting attention (likes) for a post, and they'd call that oversharing, yet they fail to see it in themselves when instead if posting one selfie, they post three, etc.

I suppose it has less to do with oversharing and more to with not enjoying/not liking what another person has shared.

For what it's worth, I'm a Naturalist and I have a profile as it seems to be the only way to keep up to date on the state parks and where/when native plant sales are happening in my area, follow bird migrations, etc. These organizations used to have active websites, but now those websites are never updated and one is directed instead to their Facebook page. I never share anything at all on mine, but if I didn't have one I'd definitely be missing a lot of real-life happenings that are important to me. What am I going to do, demand that every group have volunteer learn to maintain an actual website because I don't want a Facebook profile?

Anyone can easily create a fake Facebook profile solely for the purpose of viewing other Facebook pages such as events.

[quote][R91], The subtext is that OP is a little caught up in OP's So Unlike the Others-ness, and is using Datalounge to showcase to us how special OP is, since she cannot get that attention from Facebook, etc.

That’s what I thought at first, but then got into the thread, and realized it’s a little different than that. This thread could be the start of someone's sociology dissertation, on evolving social norms as influenced by new tech.

OP does look like an outlier, but so what? People have different responses to social interactions. There’s someone at work who gets offended if you just ask where they went on vacation (as if anyone really cares).

Social anxiety in the 20th century was not as pronounced as now, probably. Until the 60s, everybody knew what was expected, in their own social circle, and as long as you appeared to do/be the exact same thing as everyone else, then you were good.

From the 60s forward, it was all, everybody do their own thing, so you were still good.

Now, all social/work/whatever have differing expectations and norms, and you have to figure them all out, separately, whenever you encounter a new one, because the cost of transgressing can be extreme. Clothing’s no big deal, but comments and expressed opinions are minefields.

FWIW, the incident described by r85 is an outlier. You never tell someone you googled them ffs.

[quote]Why does no one value their own privacy anymore?

Plenty of people do; they’re not on Twitter. The bigger question is why do you let what you see on Twitter define how you see the entire human race? Maybe the problem is that you spend too much time on Twitter, aka “any time at all.”

One of my FB friends in particular, will actually start off some of her posts with stuff like "OK, so I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep up with posting on here, but I've been so busy lately with...". It's as if she's ASSUMING that all of her FB friends are her captive audience, enthralled with anything and everything going on in her life at all times.

I tried r98, they wanted me to send them selfies to verify who I was. Big nope to that.

I tried to join a local group that has gatekeepers. There is helpful information sometimes. They won’t let me in because I won’t include my locality in my profile. I could probably pursue it, but I don’t care that much.

My friend, ~55, had a Facebook page, but it did not identify her at all.

We had lost touch, and she was not findable. Though, finally I found her brother, and sent him a letter, and the friend and I finally got in touch. Then she died! OxyContin, is my suspicion.

I don’t post much on FB anymore. It’s amusing to see in my memories how upset I was about this or that 10 years ago and I can’t even remember what was bothering me at the time. I’ve mellowed and don’t sweat the small stuff, and don’t post the small stuff on FB.

R104 Maybe it was you getting in touch is what killed her?

I forget.

R106, well, that was the point, so I hope so.

I don’t think this has been expounded upon enough in this thread, but a huge piece of this is that half the adult population does not *remember* life before SM. They’ve known nothing else, and they actually don’t truly understand what privacy means.

I’m on my phone constantly. It is addictive for sure. But I am never on SM, I despise it. In that sense, I am off the grid, and happily.

I'm private, and was never suckered into any of these apps. I don't go exploring others online either.

R109 You're not "off the grid" if, as you also claim, "I'm on my phone constantly."

I mean off the grid as in “off SM.”

That's not what the term "off the grid" means, dear.

I am a bit older, in my 50s, and don’t have any social media. At one point, at the request of some people close to me, I had a Facebook with a made up name. My closest friend for a time was a very young man, half my age, who not surprisingly used SM. A year or two into our friendship, the topic came up, and I told him about the defunct Facebook with the phony name. He could not conceive of the purpose of a Facebook that no one (other than people you actually knew) would recognize was you. He seemed to feel very pressed to reach the milestone of 1000 followers, but was literally the loneliest person I have ever met. But he felt pressure to shine things on online.

When I pointed out that a person can choose not to participate, his response was, “but I have so many memories there.” I assured him that memories could exist (and previously did, primarily) in a person’s mind, but I could tell he didn’t really believe me. It was eye-opening. My initial response to SM was that I was simply not that interesting and couldn’t imagine anyone bothering to read all that crap.

Wow, r114, that's very interesting. I was reading earlier today about how people are, lately, less likely to trust their own memories of things and how they don't seem bothered by no one correctly remembering recent events and how we're outsourcing our own brain power to machines. And what happens when 'The Grid' goes down and no one knows how to do anything without looking it up? Have their been physical changes to the memory centers of the brain? What does a world without context feel like? How does it operate? How do people negotiate social structures in a world that they can only experience and comprehend in the immediate present?

While I don't do FB or Twitter or put out any personal information about myself anywhere online if I want to know something I always think, oh I can Google it. I wish I didn't depend on that because someday it might not be there.

One quick EMP and 3/4 of the world would go insane

I'm not on social media either—just never saw the appeal. I keep up with my friends by phone, email, and text.

Back when Facebook was red-hot around 2010, I almost signed up but changed my mind after seeing how many formerly cool and fun friends of mine from college had become Jesusy, Obama-hating, fake-news-sharing wingnuts.

I find Facebook most useful for tracking events in my city that I want to go to. When I first joined up (fake name: my nickname in college + my dog's name), I didn't have any friends on FB. I just followed the museums I like (for events), our local Pride center, the city government pages. I've also branched out to "lost dogs" page of my municipality (because I happened to find a dog earlier this year), theatres. The great thing about FB is it suggests other events you might like--and it's mostly right. (Or when it's wrong, I like being informed of what I might be missing.)

None of my family are on it--and now I have 20 FB friends that I've met from attending things. For me, I would have no real, in-person social life without it because everyone in my new social circle coordinates their weekend and evening plans on FB.

[quote]He seemed to feel very pressed to reach the milestone of 1000 followers, but was literally the loneliest person I have ever met.

That's why he wanted more followers, genius. The percentage of followers who actually engage with you is very low, so 1000 followers would probably mean 5-10 people who regularly commented on his posts.

[quote] But he felt pressure to shine things on online.

That literally makes no sense.

[quote]I almost signed up but changed my mind after seeing how many formerly cool and fun friends of mine from college had become Jesusy, Obama-hating, fake-news-sharing wingnuts.

How would you know what they were posting on Facebook if you hadn't signed up for Facebook?

[quote]And what happens when 'The Grid' goes down and no one knows how to do anything without looking it up?

Same things that happened before the internet. Everyone except the very youngest remember libraries and have friends and co-workers to ask advice of. People still have knowledge, they haven't turned into empty mindless vessels.

Unless you mean the entire power, gas, water and communication grid, at which point we'd be fucked, because we've had some form of that "grid" for a century or longer. That's not a social media problem, that's a clean water and safe electricity problem.

[quote]Have their been physical changes to the memory centers of the brain?

The hippocampus doesn't generally change unless there is injury or illness, though some evidence shows that stress, depression or PTSD can change the hippocampus by shrinking it. That has nothing to do with social media or the internet.

There is evidence that the internet leads to "cognitive offloading," i.e. people turning to the internet for answers instead of retaining the info in their memories. However, I find no reason to see why that is a negative. Dictionaries and calculators did the same thing for society and we are, as a species, just as intelligent as our ancestors were, as studies have shown time and again (namely Flynn, Are We Getting Smarter).

R120, I was not asking for anyone’s analysis. I was just reporting the situation as I saw it. He felt that having 1000 followers was some kind of public validation of him and personal achievement to aspire to, despite not interacting with them much (or at all, who knows).

As for not making sense, to “shine something on” means to act like it’s okay, or even great, when it’s not. In other words, he was leading one of those lives of quiet desperation people talk about. 🙄 Have a great day!

The internet is our brain’s external hard drive. I can’t wait until it’s fully integrated.

They post every personal and private moment like this woman, Angela Lanter who is married to the actor Matt Lanter. They made a podcast where she had a cyst on her clitoris, I mean come on, why would you tell the whole world something that personal?

Here it is again in case no one can get into the previous link.

[quote]she had a cyst on her clitoris

You couldn't pay me to click on those links.

But I can tell you something: she talks about having a clit zit because she knows people will do exactly what you just did and share it all over. Even if it's shared with an "OMG can you believe this shit?!" it's still a share, it's still attention.

I could not be in a relationship with someone who overshares like that. I'd be afraid to do or say anything in their presence knowing it would just be fodder for their attention whoring.

You’re right there R127 I didn’t think of that, sorry. R128 Angela Lanter is constantly online and letting people look into her life. She has a young daughter and posts everything the child does.

I wasn't trying to scold you r129, sorry. A lot of these threads complaining about social media have some really bizarre attacks on normal people doing normal things and in response I get a little curt.

Oh that’s no problem R130, I know you weren’t scolding but you are right though.

Wow, that lady is fucked up! I couldn't ever date anyone who posted details about themselves like that, or our lives together, either. It would feel invasive!

Also, what happens if you break up or divorce? Then, they trash you with not-as-flattering, detailed posts, of course. True or false, but detailed.

People like her are trainwrecks.

R109, you were very clear when you said off the grid IN THAT SENSE. R111 and R113 must have even more time on their hands than me. And I’m sill in my pajamas.

R5 My sister is mentally ill. She has improved over the years and now has a career she loves, but she was basically non-functioning for a few years. She once told me that joining an internet support forum for her mental illness just enabled her and made it worse. I remember that every time I see someone seemingly bragging about their mental illness(s).

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that people should be ashamed of mental illness, but some people think it makes them special or interesting, when it doesn't. It mostly just hurts them and their families.

I don't usually agree with R44 and R45 but he's right. Obviously something is off with people who constantly post and post stuff like their breakfast, lunch, and dinner or get too emotional and use Social Media as their therapist or friend. But even then, if they have no one to talk to then live and let live. I don't need to pay attention to it. R47 I completely agree.

So much of what is said here and the hundreds of other "young people and recent technology are killing the world" threads is illogical and ridiculous. It's a manifestation of confusion and fear from people who don't realize they're lashing out because they're feeling lost and hostile to a world they didn't bother keeping up with.

In years past, at least you could point out a lack of logic and get some kind of discussion about it, but no one is interested anymore. "Social anxiety didn't exist until Facebook" someone says, and everyone chirps, "I totally agree."

Come on, guys. You know that's not true.

I was also agreeing with R40 not really R44. R136 Social Anxiety existed but not like this. Social Media has definitely brought out the awkward and crazy.

No, R137. What has changed is your perception, in part because of pop-psych clickbait articles saying "33% more people are anxious than last year!!!" Maybe you think that means social anxiety disorders have increased, but they have not; the truth is that there has been no increase in social anxiety disorders at all.

[quote]There is no evidence that the prevalence rates have changed in the past years.

Who marked R128 as a troll? I'm not a troll and am only wondering.

Agreed R132

r139, I have that poster blocked. They may be trolling in other threads.

At the end of the day, the snooty Op is here posting...on social media.

I watched Angela Lanter’s stories on Instagram and she’s going on about her daughter shitting all over her. 😂 This is the same woman who’s podcast was about having a cyst on her clit. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’ve noticed many people go overboard on FB with their medical issues, including 3 acquaintances who chronicled their ongoing cancer treatments, daily, with photos. Two of these have since died. (One family even posted photos of their mother’s dead body, still attached to tubes and wires. So pleasant.)

I’ve had my own medical issues, but the last thing I want to deal with is people I don’t know that well, sending me “Thoughts and Prayers.” Yuck!

Artificial feelings on a sham site.

Yes, I feel the same way OP. I pay to have my private information removed from public databases each month. The service is called Abine DeleteMe, by the way. I don't want people to know my business!

I deleted all of my social media. I only have one thing that counts, Snapchat, which I use for conversations that I need to disappear quickly, like buying pot. Other than that, nothing. I’ve even considered getting rid of Snapchat too, but at least it serves a purpose beyond narcissism.