For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1819626
As some have now less access to social media, but on the whole most of us have now more time on our hands I was musing, what would we do without social media.

Internet access is a great good and without a doubt enables us to gather more information, use services more efficiently etc etc, but no doubt a chunk of time is taken up with less productive activities.

So what would your world look like if there was internet but maybe without social media? Has anyone decided to ditch all social media (other than this forum as otherwise you would not read this) or ditched the internet altogether?
Rob P liked this
#1819628
Mid-Brexit and at the start of the pandemic the self-appointed experts on Facebook became so tiresome I ditched it. Such a shame it had been fun a few years back.

I have had a lot of amusement on Twitter the last few weeks, winding up merkins, but with #diaperdon disappearing all the fun has left that. I doubt I will bother much in future.

So basically that leaves posting pictures on Instagram and this place. That's close enough to ducking out of social media altogether I guess?

The proliferation of messaging is becoming confusing. Messages from friends now appear by SMS, Messenger, Instagram, What'sApp or Telegram. It's getting hard to keep up.

Rob P
#1819646
Members in our flying club post on WhatsApp if they're going flying somewhere and want company. (Less now, of course.) That's a great way to use social media. Other than that I don't use them much: I follow a few journalists and politicians across the spectrum on Twitter and I follow a few creators on Youtube, mostly related to cooking, science, chess and aviation.

I've never been on FB and I grew bored with Instagram. I have LinkedIn, but rarely log on. I hate it when someone I've had a single meeting with sends a connection request. I sometimes want to reply "You're not part of my network!", but that would be to be too much of an ar$ehole. I simply ignore them. I also hate the "inspirational" pictures and quotes people post when they get a new job: "Today is the first day of the rest of my life" and such. "Carpe diem" is the worst by far.

Am I becoming a grumpy old man? :lol:
townleyc, JAFO, Flyin'Dutch' and 1 others liked this
#1819648
Large swathes of social media have proved to be as much of a curse as they have a benefit for society. The proliferation of fantastic conspiracy theories about everything from the Covid vaccination programme being a cover for micro-chipping humanity, to prominent world leaders really being aliens from space disguised as humans, has never been easier. Probably started by patients on day release from institutions or 15 year old spotty youths in their bedrooms, they spread like wildfire and just because of the number of views or reposts they receive actually gain credibility in the minds of those who really should know better.

Just as the internet itself, for all its undoubted advantages in making life much easier, has a very dark side that is difficult to counter but involves real human suffering, so many social media platforms seem to be a double-edged sword. I contribute to very few beyond a few forums like this one.

I am none the less uncomfortable with a world where the power to decide who is allowed a world-wide platform to express their views , even those with which I disagree, is in the hands of a very small number of people.

PW
#1819663
Propwash wrote:
Just as the internet itself, for all its undoubted advantages in making life much easier, has a very dark side that is difficult to counter but involves real human suffering, so many social media platforms seem to be a double-edged sword. I contribute to very few beyond a few forums like this one.

I am none the less uncomfortable with a world where the power to decide who is allowed a world-wide platform to express their views , even those with which I disagree, is in the hands of a very small number of people.

PW

Yeah, that.
I use Facebook to keep up with cousins in the far-flung colonies (for free) and we are now far closer than we have ever been able to be before.
Finally taught my mother to use Facetime and it has been very useful over the past year when I couldn't go and visit. She still can't manage anything financial on t'internet but I can do Amazon for her and administer her electricity/gas/phone etc.
Instagram, Twitter etc have always baffled me because I don't see why anyone (apart from my nearest and dearest) give a flying **** what I am up to on a daily basis.
But the world could not have survived the past year, in the shape we have come to expect, without the net and (probably) social media. I am a bit confused where SM stops and the "rest of the net" carries on..........
T6Harvard, townleyc liked this
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1819667
I joined FB several years ago to get pics of the Saucats Fly in to rels in Australia.

I then let it lapse till we moved house then I used the local FB marketplace to flog a load of cr ap I'd accumulated over the years and very sucessfully too.

I dip in from time to time, interspersed with absences when toe-rags intercept my account.

But my mainstay , despite the occasional unpleasantness, is this forum which I treat as my local pub and font of all knowledge and advice.

I'm currently using Facetime morning and afternoon to help out my daughter by home schooling my 10 year old grand daughter and couldn't fault it. :wink:

It ain't all bad......................It's too easy to be snotty about social media :roll:
kanga liked this
#1819688
Flyingfemme wrote:Instagram, Twitter etc have always baffled me because I don't see why anyone (apart from my nearest and dearest) give a flying **** what I am up to on a daily basis.

I agree. But there are plenty who think otherwise and constantly let the world know when they exercise, barbecue or whatever. Times change.

I don't consider chat and video "social media". My parents, around 80 y/o, use them to see children and grandchildren. Especially useful these days.
T6Harvard liked this
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1819708
akg1486 wrote:barbecue


One of life's pleasures is seeing what other people are cooking and eating! It provides inspiration. It was just this week that I got inspiration from a fellow Popham pilot who was making (and taking pictures of) batches of food to freeze, and I made up a couple of batches myself, one of Thai green curry, another of chilli.

I'd have no clue what was going on with my friends and family and fellow pilots if it wasn't for Facebook!