Social Media being mentioned makes me want to say: Not my thing.
As in Facebook-style SM. I've been a BBS/Forum-type socialite, in my time. Some might say that I'm not averse to being so upon Bay12Forums (although that's not my intention). I've been a top contributor to a University BBS, back in the day (with the added 'benefit'
1 of being able to meet up with others on campus bar-crawls), and for a long time I was a regular on a Usenet group (one of the better groups for signal:noise ratio, even after Eternal September started).
Currently, I'm a bit cut back. Two quite-active forums (Bay12 and another), a handful of irregular ones that I'll occasionally dip into. None of them with the same username or (knowingly) significant union of populations. I don't tend to geolocate myself (knowingly! ...I know there's a post here on Bay12 that could probably narrow my locale down to within 50 miles, but that's Ok, given the huge population in that area). I don't post selfies (there
are some, technically, but that's elsewhere. Not linkable to anywhere else, and not
gratuitous selfies, just a necessary record within the context of the Wiki concerned). I have considered Twittering (but not until I've worked out
why I want to), I've never considered Facebooking, nor Flickr, Tindr, Grindr or anything gratuitously ending in a non-'er'ed 'r'. (Although Flickr does look most like the spiritual successor to the still-not-dead Usenet. In Web2.0 rather than NNTP/plaintext format.)
I also don't keep my mobile devices (those that are more than the DumbPhone I still habitually carry) permanently net-connected. Nor keep the GPS on. And not just because of the battery drain (although that's certainly something to do with it). My camera is a camera, not a phone/tablet-with-a-camera. (My phone, remembering that it's a DumbPhone, doesn't even
have a camera. My tablet does, both front- and back-facing, but is rarely used.) My camera doesn't have GPS capabilities. I will use the GPS on my tablet, but only when suitable, and only rarely in conjunction with the camera, and even rarer with the camera
recording the geolocation information.
But all that just goes to show that I'm probably the worst mix between oldschool-hipster and technoluddite. Perhaps it's because I've never been on any particular rollercoaster when the ride first started, that I feel so entitled to consider the new-fangled stuff to be too 'faddish'.
Perhaps if I had discovered Twitter in the very early days (like I did the Web, before it and the Internet in general even became 'a thing' to the general public) I'd be differently-thinking.
I definitely consider myself an Asocial Mediator. Not antisocial (I hate trolls/trollz/etc as much as the next person - assuming the next person isn't a troll), at least not intentionally. And, please, feel free to update your FaceSpace Wall with your Twits, Blog your Blags, Selfie yourself in front of your town's Webosphere Access Point, and add your Anonposts to whatever WikiWikiWildWildWest talk page that you want. (I'll admit, I've contributed to Wikipedia, but only as an AnonIP... which isn't my
current IP, so making it more anon that an AnonIP could actually ends up being on a fixed-line.)
But don't ask me to join your Facebook group. Too much trouble for me. I'll just wibble away on places like Bay12, if you please. And I'm not sure that's because I like the (ultimate arbiter that is the) active moderation behind it... because Usenet never had that... but I think it helps that the scale is such that a friendly atmosphere is retained without a faceless organisation (that is far, far removed from being 'one of us') having to sort out conflicts.
Obviously my mind just isn't attuned to Web3.0. Or whatever level we've reached by now.
1 Actually, it
was a benefit. And that we mostly knew each other by our usernames, rather than real names, just led me onto all my future forms of online interactions, whether or not physical meet-ups happened. I already have a physical meet-up scheduled, for next year, with online acquaintances that I've (on the whole) been in contact with for up to a couple of decades... I'm a bit of a stick-in-the-mud...
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Topic: Internet habits which annoy you. (Read 101981 times)