Just to start out let me say that I am not a cave dweller or a Luddite. I am in fact an IT professional. I have also been an early adopter of several new technologies. I generally like “The Next Big Thing” I am currently waiting for ebook readers to break the $100 mark (Getting Close) and can’t wait to see the Google tablet.
But I have never been able to find a reason to access any of the various “social networking” tools that now exist. (I put social networking in quotes because people seem to have some trouble agreeing on what it means)
I am posting this now because of this report that I saw online today. While I think the report itself is highly dubious because they don’t define their terms very well and seem to be comparing apples to oranges. It highlighted the fact that, apparently, a lot of people are spending a lot of time using these tools.
I am also aware that the primary use of these sites tends to be teenie boppers gossiping with each other and that skews the numbers. But that still, presumably, leaves a lot of actual grown-ups doing something with these apps.
So I put to the boards:
Do you use any of these tools?
Which ones?
What do you do with them?
How important are they to your work?
Your private life?
What am I missing here?
(Disclaimer: I have had a Stumble account for years, but apart from the thumbs-up and thumbs-down I have never used any of the “social” aspects of the service. I don’t even have a profile.)
I use Facebook. I find it good procrastinating. I also like the very passive nature of it. It’s kind of like a high school reunion, but without actual interaction! I can look at the profiles of people I haven’t spoken to in 20 years, but I’m under no obligation to actually have conversations with them. It’s often interesting to see what people are up to. On the other hand, I’ve begun corresponding with a handful of those people that I never would have spoken to otherwise. I also keep track of my extended family’s comings and goings, which is nice, because otherwise I only see them once a year.
Right now, I’m a grad student. A lot of my colleagues are on facebook as well. I sometimes post a status update that I’m having trouble with a certain dataset (or something along those lines) and someone will usually come along with an answer shortly. That’s nice. I wouldn’t want to e-mail everyone I know for that sort of thing. Or I can share relevant news.
I also like to post pictures of the kids for various relatives, without sending lots of giant e-mails.
Basically, I like stalking people from my past and I like the ability to share information with a lot of people without mass e-mails.
I’m on Facebook, but I never use it for anything. Every now and then I get a friend request, usually from some relative that I haven’t spoken to in decades.
I don’t use them, but my wife uses facebook. A useful thing i can see is that she can put up pictures of our young baby onto the site just once, and then all her friends and family can see them and make comments if they wish. It’s simpler and faster than emailing them separately.
I use Facebook and CouchSurfing. The latter, I use to go to events in my city pretty much every weekend and usually once a week too. I get to meet people from all over the world, tell them about America, and hear about their homes. I use Facebook to keep up with relatives, old friends, and some of the more memorable Couchsurfers I’ve met. I don’t play any of the games but I look at people’s pictures and read their stat…i? Sure, stati.
What you’re missing is that you’re an IT professional. You, therefore, don’t have any friends.
I’m right there with BetsQ and suryani. I love that I can “keep in touch” with all these people and not have to actively participate. And I can control who I see and who sees me. I love it when random people from different areas of my life come together and comment on one of my wall posts.
I’ve also made some connections with people I haven’t thought about or heard from in many years. If people are still local and we have the same thoughts and opinions, it’s awesome!
As for Facebook vs. email…I use email for work, for the most part. That’s not going away. Some people I contact more on FB than on email but everyone I know still uses it.
The one thing I can’t figure out is when people say stuff right on my Wall that they should say in email, or at least a PM on Facebook. I was having an email convo (not a Facebook email convo) with a girl I am going on a trip with, and instead of finishing our email thread she just posted an answer to my wall, for everyone to see. It wasn’t private in the least bit but it was just nonsensical to me to see her post it there. WTF?
Nope. I used Facebook for a few months and found it to be pretty annoying. It still surprises me what people will post for all the world to see. Frankly, the site is kinda creepy.
Which ones?
Only Facebook for a short time.
What do you do with them?
They seem good for connecting with people from your past, as well as sharing pictures and such with current friends/relatives. But again, the whole thing (Facebook) is kinda creepy. I was getting friend requests from people I had no interest in hearing from. I think a lot of people friend everyone in order to get their count up.
How important are they to your work?
Linkedin seems like a good site. Someday I may use it.
Another Facebook user, I don’t really update my profile but I get on occasionally to add friends and check on people from my past. I normally get on after I’ve hit it off with a girl to add her as a friend so I can do a quick crazy check before our first date. I find it useful but I don’t understand the crap people post for the world to see.
As far as replacing e-mail the invites to a friend’s daughter’s birthday party wet out over Facebook and they also sent out a wish list that way as well so it can be pretty useful. I also tend to post picture that I take on vacations rather than having people over to look through them with me. Despite the uses I don’t see it even competing with e-mail and its block for me at work so I rarely get on in general.
I also have a Linkedin profile but I never use it for anything except to accept contact requests. I can’t imagine using it either for recommendations or for a job hunt but it might be useful someday. It is available through the office firewall though.
I see a lot of comments about Facebook and I am relieved to hear that I’m not really missing anything. I don’t really have a large family and am currently in touch will everyone I want to be. And I guess the IT stereotype must be true because I have never had a large circle of friends and am still in touch with those I care to be.
What about Twitter? That is the other biggie that I keep hearing the “experts” rave about. Anybody getting anything useful out of that?
I was like the OP for a long time. I could NOT figure out why someone would use a social networking site. I even went so far as to ask people who used them what the point was, and nobody could really answer.
Then, all of a sudden, within about 2 months about a gazillion old friends of mine got on Facebook and contacted me.
I’m now in daily contact with my best friends from high school. We all live in different parts of the country, but we can get together and talk just like we did when we showed up at school together every day. I can keep up with them with almost no real effort - just like you do with people you see every day at school/work. You don’t make a point to keep in touch with the person in the next cubicle at work, but you see him/her every day and as a result, you have a relationship.
Social networking sites are kind of the electronic version of that. A way to keep up a relationship without having to expressly put time/effort into it. I’ve even developed new relationships with people I didn’t know well - there’s one girl I wasn’t great friends with in school, but we’re both on Facebook and talk quite a bit. Heck, I have a neighbor who I’m distantly related to who I’ve gotten to know more now that we both post on Facebook than I ever did in the past.
I’ve got Facebook and I didn’t adopt it until pretty recently. It’s essential in my line of work. I need to be able to get a message out to as many people as I can and keep them notified of things that are going on. I
I should probably Twitter and MySpace too, but I don’t. I do like how I can stay updated and keep everyone else updated as well through my phone.
Do you use any of these tools?
Yes, but I don’t regard them as “tools” in any sense. Which ones?
Facebook, reluctantly. What do you do with them?
Mostly nothing. It’s where anyone that knows or knew me could find me, and some of us can stay in touch. Sometimes I post MPIMS on my wall. How important are they to your work?
To my work? Not at all important. Your private life?
Hardly important. I could do without it. What am I missing here?
Nothing at all, really. Again, it’s kind of a good hub for being found. Even if you’re not a South Park fan, take a look at last week’s episode.
**What do you do with them? **
Facebook - my recreational league sports team game schedule and team social schedule relies heavily on Facebook. I also use it for local kayaking and cycling community group news and events. Not much else.
LinkedIn - keep a list of professional contacts from the entertainment and print industries where people move around a lot. Eg/ I thought “Donald” was a reliable sales rep, so much so that when he changed companies, I chose Donald over his former employer and we now do business with the company where he works now.
How important are they to your work?
I don’t need to rely on it for work, but tend to rely on it more during ballgame season.
Your private life?
Minimal. But it’s good for keeping track of friends who are all over the world. If I ever lose track of their current address or phone number, I can send them a message to get it updated.
What do you do with them?
On Facebook, I read about my friends and how they’re doing laundry. On LinkedIn, I keep a list of professional contacts and join in discussions about the healthcare industry.
How important are they to your work?
Facebook - not at all.
LinkedIn - not terribly, but I have had people ask my opinion of this or that piece of legislation and have had others contact me with job opportunities. It’s nice to have because I probably wouldn’t have the same exposure to others in the same field, but if I needed to, I could find other ways of doing that.
Your private life?
Again, nice to have, but not necessary. I really like that I can say, “Hmmm… Wonder whatever happened to X,” and find out pretty quickly. But like I said, on Facebook, you get people posting pretty useless crap. I think the last post I read was, “Doing laundry today. Hope I can get grass stains out of whites,” or something similarly uninteresting. What little I do post on there is probably equally uninteresting unless you hang out with me regularly.
What am I missing here?
Not a whole lot, especially with Facebook, though I find LinkedIn occasionally useful.
I liked social networking to meet people I normally would never meet. This is why I don’t use Facebook. Why bother? If I know you I want to talk to you in real life, not on a computer. Or I’ll use email to connect with a known person. If someone only likes me enough to keep in touch with me by computer, that’s not someone I’m terribly interested in anyway.
If I haven’t seen you in ages, or dropped contact, there’s a reason for that, so I wouldn’t want to find you anyway.
I’m also on Facebook, but it’s only for one or two sites that I use occasionally for chatting. My profile is 100% private, and I do check it every week or so to re-assert that everything is blocked and private.
ETA - I could have chosen Twitter for the chat login, but I really despise Twitter, and wish it would just die. They gladly source more spam then all of China, Russia, and Africa.
Sort of. I would lump the SDMB into “social media”, where there is a lot of user-generated content and certainly a form of social interaction and discussion, but “social networking” seems to put some kind of value/priority on adding names to your networking bank.
On a South Park episode a Cartman podcast had him treating Friends Lists like the stock market: the more friends you have, the higher your value.
This isn’t the case for me. I have people in my life I liked a lot but rarely see because they moved away for job/school/family reasons, and we lost touch for no reason at all except distance and being busy. And I hate the phone and am lazy as hell about emailing (and most of the time there isn’t much news worth emailing anyway). FB lets me keep in touch in a much more casual way, without losing the connection totally.
It turns out I know a lot of interesting people. The kid who used to sit next to me in high school music class, is in Kathmandu at the moment.