think you may be an old fogy and don't "get" FB?

Try Twitter out. Nothing but a stand-alone "status update" deal?

"Followers" rather than "friends"......

- JR
(designing a site for collecting "sycophants.")

On Feb 24, 10:00*am, JR wrote:
Try Twitter out. *Nothing but a stand-alone "status update" deal?

"Followers" rather than "friends"......

- JR
(designing a site for collecting "sycophants."

Our local NBC-TV outlet has fallen in love with Twitter. All of their
reporters are one it. From what they say, I guess there's a chat
feature on it so you can keep up to date with reporters that are "on
assignment'. BFD.

On Feb 24, 11:50*am, george9219 wrote:
On Feb 24, 10:00*am, JR wrote:

Try Twitter out. *Nothing but a stand-alone "status update" deal?

"Followers" rather than "friends"......

- JR
(designing a site for collecting "sycophants."

Our local NBC-TV outlet has fallen in love with Twitter. All of their
reporters are one it. *From what they say, I guess there's a chat
feature on it so you can keep up to date with reporters that are "on
assignment'. *BFD.

Read the Pogue NY Times Circuits columns on Twitter. It's actually
pretty interesting. At least for a guy like with him with a lot of
followers . . . But if one can't get their minds beyond the current
mechanics of fb or twitter, to see that there's something good and
powerful to be harnessed by these different sorts of networks,
especially when used on something like the iphone, then one isn't
thinking very hard.

On Feb 25, 1:53*pm, "mr.rapidan" wrote:
, then one isn't
thinking very hard.

Giving personal information to strangers on the Internet is a bad idea
for anybody. There may be a lot of nice people around, but the ones
who will cause you problems are the assholes, and there are more than
enough of them.

"Good and powerful", like what?

Nutjobs successfully inciting others to commit suicide, people whose
only apparent aim in life is to make it miserable for others? People
who spend more or less all their leisure time on the internet trying
to relieve boredom, compensate for their inadequacies, and avoid
interaction in the real world?

Powerful, indeed. Good? Extremely unlikely.

On Feb 25, 8:25*am, wrote:
On Feb 25, 1:53*pm, "mr.rapidan" wrote:

, then one isn't
thinking very hard.

Giving personal information to strangers on the Internet is a bad idea
for anybody. There may be a lot of nice people around, but the ones
who will cause you problems are the assholes, and there are more than
enough of them.

"Good and powerful", like what?

Nutjobs successfully inciting others to commit suicide, people whose
only apparent aim in life is to make it miserable for others? *People
who spend more or less all their leisure time on the internet trying
to relieve boredom, compensate for their inadequacies, and avoid
interaction in the real world?

Powerful, indeed. Good? *Extremely unlikely.

Well, it all depends on your friends and acquaintances, I suppose!
Sorry you're seeing the glass half-empty.

"JR" wrote in message
...
Try Twitter out. Nothing but a stand-alone "status update" deal?

"Followers" rather than "friends"......

- JR
(designing a site for collecting "sycophants.")



I think these trends towards always connected, somewhat Borg Collective-like
uses of the 'Net have 'potential' both for good and ill.

Certainly, humans are social creatures and need large amounts of connection
to be healthy, as humans.

But too consistently I see the following problems ( and others not
mentioned )

1) Cyber connection replacing instead of adding to real connection. It is
extremely common to see people texting and cell phoning and Blackberrying
when in the company of real people and AT THE EXPENSE of potential real
social interaction.

Calling people we've never met and probably never will, .... people that we
only 'know' by their 'status updates' .... a 'friend' is odd and, partly,
a redefinition of 'friend." But choosing to, say, sit in the Park on
lunch break and use an Iphone to check those cyber 'friends' when surrounded
by real people you could be having a short, but real, chat with is damaging
to our humanity and society, imho. The guy that sold you the hot dog
you're eating and the lady that has pushed herself to the other end of the
park bench to get as much distance as possible when you sat down both
actually live where you do, and have obvious things in common with you.
Why the hell not solicit their 'updates'?

If you "can't think of anything to say' ... If the inane twitter that we
all post to FB and ROFF seems too, well stupid and inane, for a real
conversation ... maybe that shows us what that twittering is actually doing
to our standards of conversation ... ?

Seems to me that if many FBers and Twitterers were to spend as much effort
trying to take an extra minute or two to 'connect,' just briefly, to the
many real people they encounter each day that the need to 'find singles in
your area' and 'meet people online' wouldn't be growing in a getting more
crowded world. Chicken then egg? Egg then chicken?

Checking our various 'Net social networks takes lots of time each day, when
it's time that might have led to more in the flesh and in this town friends
it's not time well spent.

2) Group think. I don't shake in terror at thougths of the "Borg
Collective" idea that comes to mind each time I see someone with one of
those cell phone receivers jammed in his ear, BUT I recently saw a short
article on Twittering in Congress. It turns out that Republicans use it
3 or 4 times as much as Dems .... makes ME wonder ... does their group think
cause the twitter, or does the twitter enforce and enhance the lack of
individual thought ? ( yeah, this might be a troll ;-) but dammit
Republican group think IS something obvious and I DO believe their
acceptance of twittering ( when they should be listening to chamber
business ) is connected to that Group Think.

Individual thought requires time spent being an individual. ( NOT part ot
the RNC platform ;-)


3) "Me, Myself, and I" Humans are social, we know that. However, I
don't trust people that are fearful of themselves ... I figure they must
have good reason to resist being alone with themselves. Time alone,
really, truly, alone is as needed for developing a healthy human-ness as is
social time. Turn off the Blackberry, the cell phone and the 'puter some
of each time. They can add to a real life, but I fear ( and I'm serious
about it ) that they are replacing life, not adding to it for increasing
numbers of people in our culture.

On Feb 25, 8:25*am, wrote:
Giving personal information to strangers on the Internet is a bad idea
for anybody.

What does this mean, exactly? What kind of personal information?
You've really got to define what you're talking about, here, before
you can make the blanket statement that sharing personal information
is a bad idea. I mean, I'd follow the same rules I'd follow in real
life - respect the wishes that others have for their own privacy,
don't give out information that someone could run and out and use to
deplete your investment funds or rack up purchases on your credit
cards, and don't tell people where you keep your secret key. I mean,
what's more sinister about the internet?

On Feb 26, 11:15*am, "Larry L" wrote:
1) Cyber connection replacing instead of adding to real connection. * *It is
extremely common to see people texting and cell phoning and Blackberrying
when in the company of real people and AT THE EXPENSE of potential real
social interaction.

Calling people we've never met and probably never will, .... people that we
only 'know' by their 'status updates' .... a 'friend' * is odd and, partly,
a redefinition of 'friend." * * But choosing to, say, sit in the Park on
lunch break and use an Iphone to check those cyber 'friends' when surrounded
by real people you could be having a short, but real, chat with is damaging
[...]

I'm definitely sensitive to this line of reasoning - don't facebook
and twitter at the expense of your real human relationships, your
community, etc. All things being equal.

For me, FB makes it easy and fun to maintain contact in between in
person events, it keeps contact up with people I don't know if real
life but would probably enjoy meeting, and it keeps at a distance
people that I'd rather not get any closer to.

I don't care that FB calls the people in my list "friends." Some are,
some aren't, some could be. I'm not confused or frustrated or
concerned that my definitions and FB's definitions different.

It's a tool. All these things are just tools. You don't go to FB
church, you're not in or out of the club. It's just a tool. They get
what they consider personal information in order to shoot ads to me,
or to suggest things to me. I don't care that FB knows what it knows
about me.

Hey, one thing I do know - I'll be doing a hell of a lot less of this
damn online stuff once there are bugs active in the woods and on the
streams!