You know, I have a lot of writer friends who tell me that Facebook and other social media are wonderful places to "advertise" or keep up-to-date with fans/potential fans--not to mention with personal friends as well. And while I see the merit, I really don't have time to sit on the site, read fan mail, write something new to continously update my wallpaper, or figure out if I want to friend or befriend someone. Then I heard about how Facebook mines your information to pinpoint specific advertisements to you. Of how what you put on there can be distributed all over the place (other companies can mine/use your information. They'll say it isn't so--but I don't really trust large corporations. If they can exploit you to make a profit, they'll do so...). Then just today I read how hackers are using social media like Facebook to send you "personal" e-mail requests to get you to download malicious software. And I'm thinking: do I really want to spend that much time out of my busy-as-it-is day to sit in a virtual community with hundreds of "friends," of which probably only a handful are truly "friends?"
Not really. I just don't see what the big draw is for the social media sites. I have more than enough freelance work to keep me busy all day long; there really is no time to "go on-line" and waste more of it glancing through other peoples Facebook sites or answering e-mails or playing "games."
I know my husband keeps telling me I should get a Facebook page, because I work at home; he says it will make it so I'm not that isolated. I just told him I barely have enough time in the day to do my freelance work and check our three personal e-mails (our personal, my work, my writing); if he expects me to spend time with him and our daughter and get some housework and outside work done, then the social media needs to go by the wayside. This is the way I've felt about it for quite a while now, and everyday when I keep hearing this or that about problems looming in the social media landscape, I'm so glad that "my life" isn't out there in virtual cyberspace, where it potential can last "forever."
As for kids and social media/Facebook: I'm inclined to probably not allow my daughter to have one. Reading the stories about kids/teenagers being bullied and picked on and having their lives destroyed by what other kids or even professed "friends" put up on their Facebook pages or say to slam other kids--I mean, some of these teenagers have killed themselves over Internet bullying. And anything that's said, posted, or pictures put up are lost in electronic cyberspace for ever and ever. Are you as a mom/parent going to be able to daily watch/monitor what your daughter puts on hers? And what are you going to do if a "friend" befriends your daughter and then starts a malicious attack on her? There are so many disturbed people in the world right now...
I'm actually totally amazed that social media sites have taken off like they have. It doesn't say much about our society if we have to "hide" on the computer/Internet in order to have friends. Whatever happened to actually getting together?
I don't know; maybe my mind will change down the road. But right now, I just don't see what the intense draw is for these "friendship" or "relationship" sites.