And for building up a vast amount of information that they can 'sell' on to the various companies that has made the founders of facebook millions of dollars - along with allowing some rather neferious people to snoop on , and make use of the sensitive information that many half-baked users post there.
Who in their right mind would post there something along the lines of: "hi there ********** (insert name[s] of so called and often anonymous friends) I'm off on my jolly old holidays on ***** (insert day and date) to wherever, and I'll be away for a fortnight - yahoo!!" - or anything else just as stupid.
Ah well, many a job has been lost at the interview stage when prospective employers have gone-a-looking there for information - who needs RIPA when there's facebook? ;-)
I just checked their Ts & Cs. You own whatever you post there, but by signing up you agree to give FB a non-exclusive licence to use your intellectual property (such at photos, movies), and to sub-licence it to anyone else. Not bad, eh?
Sadly, I think you've just spent several minutes typing out something which most younger people (and probably most _people_ in 20+ years time) would simply read as "I'm old - there's this new thing - I don't get it - it must be bad".
This is pretty much what "older" people have been saying about _any_ new thing for as long as people have been saying anything!
I don't say this to be rude or cruel. I catch myself saying similar things quite often, and I don't think I'm old! But the world moves on. This is the future. New generations will find it just as exciting as you/we once found radio, or television, or home computers, etc. And then they'll grow up and look back on "good old facebook", decrying whatever the new "new thing" is.
Whatever _is_ bad about it will get sorted out. The sky won't fall. People will enjoy it for a while, and maybe move on. Those that are around will probably judge that the world was a slightly better place because of it.
Those that are already old will still claim the world was a better place when _they_ were young. Pre-NHS. With bombs dropping on them. Poverty. Starvation. But they were happy days etc.
Actually, you are quite wrong. I still have much the same attitudes as I had when I was a kid, as does my wife. We have always been 'mates' with our kids, especially since they have grown up, and they treat us and talk to us no differently than they talk to any of their friends, and likewise their friends do too. Huge great bunches of us go on holiday together, and get along without any problem. I don't have a problem embracing change, and do not continuously harp back to the old days. You are right, the world moves on and things change, some for the better, some for the worse. Much of today's technology and attitudes are a huge improvement over what prevailed when I was a kid, but by the same token, much is not. People are not, in general, so well educated as they were, and much of that is down to poor parenting, and parents who are only marginally less thick than their kids, and marginally more thick than the teachers. Social attitudes have declined. People have a lot less respect for each other now, or for authority. It's not hard to be pleasant to one another, but even smiling at someone that you pass in the street now, often gets you a strange and hostile look, as does saying "hello".
There must be a reason for this - or probably many. However, having watched the usage of Faceache quite closely via my kids', and also the young people who work for us, I think that it, and similar sites, are a major contributor to the antisocial, and often quite hostile behaviour, that seems prevalent among some social groups now. The Faceache pages that sprung up after the shooting incident last week, are a good example of this. I bet that a great deal of the kids that contributed, would not have said the same things in a face to face conversation. The anonymity that hiding behind a persona in these sites gives to them, allows them to carry on with this behaviour without fear of consequence, and some of the anarchistic tendencies that grow out of it, inevitably spill out into 'real' life as well.
So no, my comments were not a 'grumpy old men' thing, but carefully considered as a result of observations of real life usage of these sites by a number of people.
Yes indeed. That article adds real research to what I had felt from my observations. I am also active on another group, that is a lot more 'international' than this one, and many of the contributors are American. It's amazing how often flame wars break out as a result of a misunderstood comment that passes either way across the Atlantic. It's a great example of that old phrase that the U.K and the U.S. are two nations separated by a common language ...
Miserable old buggers, the lot of you! No doubt other miserable old buggers were saying exactly the same sort of thing when
- telephones were in their infancy ("Why do you want one of those things, ringing bells at all hours and destroying the peace? What's wrong with actually TALKING to people, those things will destroy PROPER human interaction. And anyway it's so easy for the government to listen in")
- mobiles were invented ("what's the point? I don't want people phoning me up in the street")
- texting came in ("what are you supposed to say in 160 characters? Why can't you just call people?")
- Oil lamps were invented ("Why do you want those things stinking away and filling the place with smoke? You should just go to bed like normal people, why do you want to stay up all night? It's not natural. And it will make it much easier for the government to find you in the dark.")
I introduce enough inaccuracies to prevent it being used for identity theft.
For me, the most interesting part of linked-in is seeing what colleagues you worked with years ago are up to now.
I have advertised jobs on Linked-in too which is very much cheaper than going through agencies, but in the end I've never taken on any of the people who came through linked-in.
I get invites from plaxo too, but haven't joined it.
I haven't found it depressing, and not sure I ever would, even though some have done very well, and some others have been unemployed for years, eventually to retire or change trade.
I think all the things you suggest pre-date facebook by many years!
...and you must know that your observations on the declining standards of behaviour in the next generation are several hundred years old too,
Whether that makes them right or wrong, I don't know. The Welfare State didn't exist back then, so some things have certainly changed. I suspect Welfare dependency, rather than Facebook, contributes more to some of them.
...which is about as accurate as the reporting of that incident in the news. Never mind the fact that facebook is anything but anonymous. Never mind the fact that most of the people who joined that group (far fewer than reported by the media) did so to post a message about how stupid it was. Never mind the fact that the few posts supporting the group were an interesting insight into the thinking of the UK's underclass - saying the very things that these people say to each other face to face.
Well, you might be right, but I suspect we're stuck with it.
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