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Ask Slashdot: Living Without Social Media In 2015?
An anonymous reader writes On Slashdot, we frequently write derogatory comments regarding social networking sites. We bash Facebook and the privacy implications associated with having a great deal of your life put out there for corporations to monetize. Others advocate for deleting your Facebook profile. Six months ago, I did exactly that. However, as time went on, I have fully realized social media's tacit importance to function in today's world, especially if you are busy advancing your career and making the proper connections to do so. Employers expect a LinkedIn profile that they can check and people you are meeting expect a Facebook account. I have heard that not having an account on the almighty Facebook could label you as a suspicious person. I have had employers express hesitation in hiring me (they used the term "uncomfortable") and graduate school interviewers have asked prying questions regarding some things that would normally be on a person's social media page. Others have literally recoiled in horror at the idea of someone not being on Facebook. I have found it quite difficult to even maintain a proper social life without a social media account to keep up to date with any sort of social activities (even though most of them are admittedly quite mundane). Is living without social media possible in 2015? Does social media have so much momentum that the only course of action is simply to sign up for such services to maintain normality despite the vast privacy issues associated with such sites? Have we forgotten how to function without Facebook?
I wonder if it would work to get around that to say that you use your Facebook for private religious purposes...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Four digit codger here, I rm'd my facebook profile over a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. It's refreshing. As an uber tek nerd, mmo fiend, etc. now "old codger", take it from me... rm facebook, rm your mmo, limit Steam to a few hours a week, and go outside. Hike, Fish, buy a cheap sailboat and goto the Bahamas or the Keys. Stop searching online for that cool landscape wallpaper for the latest greatest distro you installed, and go outside and see that beautiful landscape in person.
Awesome!
Facebook, et al. can only "put out" as much as you put in.
No, Facebook can only "put out" as much as everybody else puts in. For example my classmates from primary school are a tightly connected clique and since some of them have told Facebook they went to the same school, Facebook has correctly deduced that everybody in that clique probably went there too and is asking me to confirm it, but they basically know anyway. Another relative of mine did some genealogy thing and basically drew up the whole family tree for Facebook. Same with people tagging you in photos and checking you in and whatnot, even though you can hide it from your own timeline or even untag yourself Facebook knows that when a friend tagged you it was almost certainly correct. I doubt they really forget anything.
And most annoyingly, Facebook often knows when I send email because the one I send to has shared their address book/inbox with Facebook. There's no other way some of those "friend suggestions" could turn up on social media, so even when you try to keep a life separate from Facebook it's no good when the other end is being a tattle-tale. And I don't know if it's just my friends, but my impression is that you don't reach out and actually tell friends about the things that friends normally get told about. They post it to Facebook and expect people to have read it there, that's more or less the expected way to socialize. Not reading Facebook gets you the "Oh sorry, I didn't know you were stationed on a nuclear submarine under radio silence" looks.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't do Social Media/Networking at all (and I rarely, if ever, miss it).
A couple of years ago, my boss sent me a LinkedIn invite. I said "Well, it's my boss; so..." and started to fill-out the application.
I got to some point, and said "Screw this. I'm not giving up (whatever info it was it wanted)." , and CANCELLED the rest of the application. Mind you, I had NOT completed the Application, so theoretically, no LinkedIn "Account" was created...
Too late! My work email, which had been blissfully SPAM-FREE for two years, INSTANTLY started receiving about a dozen pieces of SPAM per day!
It eventually (almost) stopped; but I learned a valuable lesson: Despite the language regarding "We won't sell your email addy into cyber-slavery", it's all a big lie (go figure!)
So that, was that. I stuck my toe into Social Media, and promptly got it bitten-off. So, no more for me!