this message board has not been affected by the emergence of social media. This board is active every day and I find it very impressive that it has the same amount of activity as facebook. I am glad I found this site because I was a member of a few boards that lost a lot of members because of Facebook and Twitter but I see this place is still running strong with lots of activity.
I can’t do anything but give this board a thumbs up:)
Quite an exaggeration, but it seems to be a fact ( well, as clost to a fact as you can get from highly unscientific board polls ) that this board skews closer towards the middle-aged. And to hear some folks complain, towards the luddite. Though obviously not quite luddite enough to avoid computer message boards ;).
40 active threads during the 9pm hour is exaggerating???
Well I’m an old curmudgeon but I have worked in IT for 30 years and started programming nearly 50 years ago. So I was an early adopter of Facebook and Twitter, well before all my young nephews knew they existed. I do use both and probably check them once a day but I spend far more time here.
Well, one of the reasons was succinctly noted by my wife a couple of months ago: It’s called Facebook, not Brainbook. It’s called Twitter, not Discusser.
I do not think this board is active because it’s filled with confused luddites.
The Straight Dope column tends to attract curious people who like talking about intelligent topics. It’s a nice breeding ground for smart, active conversations.
40 active threads in the same hour looks active to me. The site that lost a lot of members right in the 9pm hour has only “9”
Yes. Not been affected is less accurate than has been less affected.
Neither do I really, I was just amusedly pointing out that I’m pretty sure some would make that argument.
Sure. But to be completely fair, also a lot of moronic, plodding conversations as well :D.
Well, you can’t “Like” it; that’s for sure…
the SDMB has a lot of old people who begrudgingly accept the Internet but still make topics like “what’s the point of Facebook i don’t get it???” so it makes sense it would still be as active
I can’t claim that kind of experience, but I can remember trying to get my coworkers to text me instead of calling me when I was driving from site to site, and the idea seemed almost foreign to them.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read all week. Computers didn’t just appear last year. I started using them back in the early 80s and started using the Internet not long after it became an entity. I’m sure a lot of the “old people” like me on this board were fully engaged with the Internet during the latter part of their working lives and continue to use it on a daily basis.
I came here from Usenet, because even following one or two newsgroups was getting to be overwhelming. And a big plus is moderation. The Times had an article yesterday about how trolls have won in a lot of places, including Twitter. Not so here.
I’m not interested in Facebook because I don’t have time to establish a presence or check others over and over. Maybe when I retire. Around here you can be active on a thread or inactive with no pressure.
I’m old but hardly a Luddite. I was using something like IM in 1975 and was active on a discussion board even before Usenet. Most of it, except for the commerce and the spamming, has been done before.
I use social media personally and professionally.
When I comes to leisure time and “talking” about things I find interesting I prefer message boards with a large number of strangers.
Unless you are really into certain niches and only associate with members of those groups, I think most social media interaction is fairly limited to just interacting with family members, friends, and previous school/work acquaintances. That really limits what you can discuss. Sure there are things like FB groups and G+ Communities but still pretty limited and not that widely used. You can also only have friends and followers that have specific interests but that is more common with business profiles and again not something as broad and casual.
This is pretty much the most effective broad message board there is. I also go to music ones, relationship ones, etc. They all have their place. If I talk about 80s metal on FB no one is going to care, but there is a message board for that. If I want anonymous relationship advice about whether I should divorce my wife, I’m not going to seek it on facebook. If I want to find out who has very strong opinions about chicken nugget sauce portions, I come here.
what relationships ones do you go to?
I just turned my head and saw five computers built before the internet went public, so I guess I’m old. Facebook I use…well, I don’t use it much, actually. And I sure can’t talk about serious things there–FFS, people know me personally there, though I suspect a few people here know me better. And Twitter? I can’t even say hello in 140 characters.
It’s funny how Luddism is such a relative thing. I sometimes find myself thinking (at the age of 44) “What the heck is wrong with these people, always with the Facebook? What the heck is wrong with just sending an e-mail like we always used to do?”
email is outdated now. It was replaced by
facebook
texting
“Kids these days with their fancy velocipedes.” :D.
The bar for being a luddite seems to get ever-lower as the technological pace gets ever-faster.
I think a lot of forums were just proto-social networks. They were just a place for people to get together and make friends. That’s not really what this board is about. I won’t say it’s really about “fighting ignorance,” but I will say it has a more intellectual bent.
While it is possible to have intellectual conversations on Facebook. it’s really not geared towards that. Twitter is even worse.