Eh, I’ve heard worse.
One very important point about smartphones: You don’t have to use all of the features if you don’t want to. If you want, you can just use it as a phone. But you can also use it as a camera, as a quick way to jot down some notes, to read books or play games on when you find yourself with some time to kill in a place away from your usual amusements, to get directions when you get lost while traveling, to play music you like, to listen to the radio, and so on. Now, maybe some of those don’t appeal to you, for instance if you don’t have any reason to travel outside the area you’re familiar with. That’s fine, don’t use that feature. But no matter what it is you’re interested in, there will probably be several different smartphone tools that you would find useful, and it’s convenient to have all of those tools in a single device that fits in your pocket.
I’m fully on board with this.
*Wait a minute! *Did I just “like” something? :eek:
But it is irrefutable that we are never going to go back to the “old way” of obtaining information barring some apocalyptical alteration of society. If my boss asks me a question and I tell him I’ve got to do some research before giving him an answer, he is going to look at me sideways if he finds me poring over dusty tomes in the library. He is going to expect an answer at least within a couple of hours. And that’s because the available technology sets the standards we are held to. Maybe the answer I get from the library is more reliable. But if the bosses want answers right now, that doesn’t matter.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my coworkers who refuse to get smartphones tend to be the same ones who come to me with questions that can easily be solved with a few minutes on Google. They think they are just “old school”. But I think people who openly embrace “old school” thinking are essentially announcing how much they want to retire.
I’m 71, and understand your sentiments completely. But I just got an iPhone, primarily to carry it around with me in case of an emergency … and at my age, an emergency can happen at any time. Remember “I’ve fallen and can’t get up”? Or I can call for help if my car breaks down.
But now that I have it, I’m constantly discovering wonderful and amazing things to do with it.
Haven’t had/needed/used a phone book in what, 15 years?
ETA: yeah, I find numbers online all the time. But the idea of a “phone book” threw me there.
- Create an email account that you only use for FB
- Don’t tell FB where you work
- Problem solved
Very few people even use a phone book nowadays. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even got one. (I think we just threw it in the recycling bin)
And I want a pony. What’s your point?
My point there is that if someone wants to contact me, they can find me without me having to be on Facebook or any other social media.
This is completely false. Facebook will not trawl your email inbox and send a friend invite to everyone you’ve ever emailed. What makes you think this will happen?
You may be thinking of Linkedin, which when you sign up famously asks if they can send an invite to your email contacts list. But they can’t do that unless you click “yes” when they ask if they can do that.
Facebook doesn’t do that.
Facebook did this to me about 5 or 6 years ago. It scared me so much that I closed the window immediately and ran away.
I was curious, and had gone to Facebook and started the process of registration, not really sure what I was doing.
Before I had gone very far (I think I was still on the first step of the process), it gave me a welcome message that said “here are some people you might want to friend”–about 50 names.
The list included everybody in my email contacts, and a whole lot more–including the newborn grandson of a woman I sometimes email. Let’s call her Debbie. Now, Debbie is a typical grandmother, and I assume that she follows her family and the newborn baby on Fbook. I have zero contact with Debbie’s family (i.e.the baby’s parents), and didn’t even know the baby had been born. Yet Facebook wanted to connect me with the baby, who has his own Fbook page.
Presumably, if I had actually completed the registration process , Fbook would notify the baby that I am now available to be friended. After all, that’s why Fbook exists.
Now, if the baby decided to friend me, that might be cute. I could accept or not, and he wouldn’t be insulted.
But if the baby happened to be one of my co-workers, that would NOT be cute. If I refuse him , and he feels insulted, it could be disasterous to me.
You are only missing something if you *feel *that you are missing something. The social media aspect of the modern world is not necessarily a good thing and causes at least as many headaches as it solves.
In any case the headaches that it does “solve” aren’t headaches that everyone has. The thought of being involved in social media to any extent fills me with horror. I can’t imagine anything worse that being connected 24/7 to friends and family and being subjected to a “push” of bullshit. If I want to speak with them then I speak with them or physically interact with them. I’ve never been in a situation that social media can solve or improve but have certainly been in plenty where it could only make things worse.
And, full disclosure, I am of the age that grew up at the first dawning of true tech, home computing and gaming. Cutting my teeth on ZX81 and Spectrums. Many happy hours striving to become “Elite”, early adopter of tech in many. many forms. I’m no luddite but then social media is not a technological phenomena as much as a cultural one (enabled by technology) and like many cultural developments it holds no charms for me. You may be the same.
Smartphones are a different beast, they are merely the logical endpoint of the convergence of laptop and communication devices and would be useful even if social media never existed.
For what it’s worth, the fact this accurately describes so much of Facebook now is partly why there’s a not insignificant movement away from it.
For years, I was the weird outlier amongst people I knew - the guy who didn’t have Facebook. Now lots of people I know have left the platform, or only keep it to stay vaguely in touch with Aunt Mavis who lives in Port Augusta.
So now Zoidberg is the popular one! 
I may not be typical, but if I’m trying to find someone Facebook is the first (and often only) place I look.
You refute yourself here:
What happened was that some of the people already on facebook had let it peek at their address-books and it suggested all of those and then friends and connections of those to you.
That you have co-workers that are satisfied with “I’m not on facebook” as a reason for you not to connect with them, but would be deeply offended by “I only use it to connect with my closest friends” is a separate issue.
What you’re missing is thousands of possibilities of varying utility. If most of the people you interact with and want to interact with aren’t on facebook or use old fashioned channels of communication, you might not be missing much, but facebook, twitter, etc. each can be used in a myriad ways and maybe you would personally be extremely entertained if you signed up for twitter and did nothing with it except follow William Shatner. It’s impossible to know.
My 88 year old grandmother has a facebook account and uses it to keep in touch with children and grand-children in a way she wouldn’t be able to if she was off facebook. Sure her descendants would talk to her and show her pictures in person, but it would never be as frequent and immediate as the invites-only family pictures group.
Im not sure it’s a separate issue. The OP asked if he is missing something.
And I say, “Yes, you are.” You are “missing” out on an opportunity to ruin your life and get fired.
My boss doesn’t feel personally insulted that I’m not on facebook. That just means I have “defriended” the entire planet, including her. I have cut off all 7 billion people equally.
But she would feel insulted if I blocked her personally and individually from my facebook page.
And it’s not just my boss.
Here are some other worries:
Suppose I have fairly distant relatives who I only see once a year. FBook would be a great way to stay in touch–but then they start to spam me with religious stuff till I get fed up and block them. That could insult them enough that at the next family reunion there would be an unpleasant atmosphere. I don’t want to cause unnecessary family drama.
Or suppose a casual friend enjoys cooking. Fbook would be a great way to share recipes and encourage our friendship. But I didn’t expect her to spam Fbook with her food pics 3 times a day. Eventually, I get tired of it, so I semi-block her,and she suddenly discovers that she can’t post to my feed or the wall or whatever it’s called. She might feel insulted.
So my having a Facebook page has endangered a friendship, instead of encouraging it.
Not missing anything by avoiding Facebook except getting into trouble with other people. HOWEVER note that some businesses, schools, governments, and news organizations now will post news on their Facebook page and they have stopped posting this stuff on their web pages.
You can get an account using a fictitious name and just look at these types of Facebook pages - like reading the news. So long as you never post anything, you will stay out of trouble.
So far as smart phones, note an Android smart phone is like a small P.C. You can use it for anything a P.C. can be used for. And Android is now available on larger screen tablets and laptop P.C.s (called Chromebook). Also you can get an Android box for your TV called a MINIX U1.
So while I don’t use my cell phone for anything but phone calls, I do have a used Android smart phone which I use to play CD music. I have over 200 CDs stored on it which I copied to it using my PC. And I watch TV now using an Android TV box (MINIX U1).
Note I am VERY SERIOUSLY thinking about replacing my Microsoft PC with an Android Chromebook. Then I will be done with Microsoft FOREVER! (Google listens to their customers, Microsoft does not.)
I meant separate from your paranoia about facebook reading your address list.
If you have a boss that thin skinned and can’t simply ignore/unfollow (this is invisible to them) your proselytizing relatives and spammy friends. Then yeah, you are probably better off without it. But remarkably several million people have managed to avoid those dangers, so maybe it’s your specific set of fellow humans that’s the problem.
Facebook, as a substitute for actual family? Laughable.