OT: Social Networking: An Internet Addiction?

[Carla777]

it seem i'm the only one that use so much myspace in here i like receive the last news about bands that i like...well i guess MR & Myspace for me!

[Peartree12249]

I don't post and work. I post on my time at home. You gotta watch small children............closely.

I post at work, at home, eating breakfast, watching tv, on the toilet, in the shower, mowing the lawn, making love...... Okay, maybe not that last one.

tmi

[Monker]

I have MySpace, but I have not done much with it because there is so much extra crap that goes along with it. I like some of the feature, like the music playlists. But, for every neat thing, there is something I hate.

Never done Twitter....Don't know if I will.

Forums and mailings lists, I have done and still do. But, I have cut way, way, way back on that. Mostly because there just isn't much discussion I'm interested in. In this very forum %90 of the posts have absolutely nothing to do with Journey. And, there are always flamers and people who feel like they have to dominate the forum...I'm just tired of dealing with all of that.

I like Facebook. There are some very good friends who I very much enjoy talking to on Facebook. I don't need to rely on extended Email conversation to do it. I can go to their 'wall' and read about what is going on in there life, and comment on it if I want to...or send them an Email if I want it to be kept personal. And, there is a lot of trust and mutual respect...which I don't think really exists on these forums any longer.

I find it ridiculous that "Social Networking" is viewed as this 'new' thing. Forums, chats, IRC, mailing lists, local BBS, it was all there back in the early 90's...even before the internet took off. Hell, I still talk to some of the same people on facebook that I was chatting with back in 1995 or so. I remember working 12hr nights, getting home at 6am, jumping on to AOL/Prodigy'GEnie to check my Email and a few forums...and logon the local BBS services to do the same. Go to be at 8am, wake up at 4pm, go to work, and repeat. Geez, that schedule sucked...except for the extended weekends.

I don't think there is anything bad about any of it either. Why is it bad to be social with people with text instead of voice? Maybe if all you do in life is sit in front of a computer...I can see that being an issue. But, that issue is a symptom of a bit deeper problem then an 'addiction' to Facebook, or the internet.

[*Laura]

Myspace is a nuthouse. There is so much fucked up drama going on there and so many wackos it's crazy. And when some of the people on there take their insanity into real life, it's becoming dangerous. Last year, a person from Myspace stalked the shit out of me and a couple of friends of mine (real life friends). She threatened us and behaved like a complete nutjob. She was rejected and wasn't accepted as a friend anymore. All of us deleted our pages and relocated but that didn't stop her. This person pushed things so far that I was considering reporting her to the Police, because she was living pretty close to me and one of my friends. I was getting out of the house every morning afraid that she might jump out of a bush with a fucking bazooka or something. One of my friends filed a restraining order against her and that was the only way to stop the madness. Just unbelievable.

Right now, because of all the past experiences, Myspace is a place where I have only friends that I know in real life.
My rule is "We shook hands - we're friends. Never met - reject." Unless my real life friends personally know you. Or you are Dane Cook and I've seen you on stage at the Staples.

Facebook seems more transparent and secure, but I'm not into it too much. Sometimes I simply forget to go there when I have time to sit online.

Lack of time was the reason why I couldn't be on MR like I used to. Sometimes I log in for a minute to look at the topics, but I'm so out of the loop with the subjects, posting and all that.
I guess I had an Internet addiction at one point but somekind of an "auto-rehab" kicked in and cured me. I realized that real life is way too beautiful to be wasted in front of a computer.

[Rick]

Myspace is a nuthouse. There is so much fucked up drama going on there and so many wackos it's crazy. And when some of the people on there take their insanity into real life, it's becoming dangerous. Last year, a person from Myspace stalked the shit out of me and a couple of friends of mine (real life friends). She threatened us and behaved like a complete nutjob. She was rejected and wasn't accepted as a friend anymore. All of us deleted our pages and relocated but that didn't stop her. This person pushed things so far that I was considering reporting her to the Police, because she was living pretty close to me and one of my friends. I was getting out of the house every morning afraid that she might jump out of a bush with a fucking bazooka or something. One of my friends filed a restraining order against her and that was the only way to stop the madness. Just unbelievable.

Right now, because of all the past experiences, Myspace is a place where I have only friends that I know in real life.
My rule is "We shook hands - we're friends. Never met - reject." Unless my real life friends personally know you. Or you are Dane Cook and I've seen you on stage at the Staples.

Facebook seems more transparent and secure, but I'm not into it too much. Sometimes I simply forget to go there when I have time to sit online.

Lack of time was the reason why I couldn't be on MR like I used to. Sometimes I log in for a minute to look at the topics, but I'm so out of the loop with the subjects, posting and all that.
I guess I had an Internet addiction at one point but somekind of an "auto-rehab" kicked in and cured me. I realized that real life is way too beautiful to be wasted in front of a computer.

I was wondering why you dropped off of my friends list so many months ago. Now I completely understand.

I've never had such an event happen to me, but I know women are way more prone to that sort of craziness. Women are incredible, but I'm sure glad I'm not one.

Sorry for your aggravation Laura. Sure is good to see you posting.

I know we've never shook hands, but you don't have to delete me. I promise you, I'm harmless.

[*Laura]

I was wondering why you dropped off of my friends list so many months ago. Now I completely understand.

I've never had such an event happen to me, but I know women are way more prone to that sort of craziness. Women are incredible, but I'm sure glad I'm not one.

Sorry for your aggravation Laura. Sure is good to see you posting.

I know we've never shook hands, but you don't have to delete me. I promise you, I'm harmless.

Nah, you are in the "my friends know you personally" category, so it's all good. You are good people, Rick, I know that.
Unfortunately, by relocating my page 3 times, I lost many of my friends' pages. My fault, though, because I haven't saved their urls.

Women? God forbid to stumble on one who has personal issues like low self-esteem, lack of confidence, the "attention whore" syndrome or PMS, or ALL of that combined and it's a sure ticket to Hell.

[Arianddu]

I don't post and work. I post on my time at home. You gotta watch small children............closely.

I post at work, at home, eating breakfast, watching tv, on the toilet, in the shower, mowing the lawn, making love...... Okay, maybe not that last one.

I used to work for an insurance company taking motor claims. We had a couple of games going to stop people going nuts; strangest claim of the week, stuff like that. One of them we did was claim bingo, one 'square' of which was 'realising part way through the call that the client is calling you from their mobile phone while on the toilet.' Usually we could tell because of the echo, but we also got grunts, splashes and flushes. One of the reasons I refuse to own a mobile phone.

Although I have to confess, I do love having wireless internet because my bathtub has a tray that fits across it and I can surf the net in the bubble bath.

[G.I.Jim]

I was wondering why you dropped off of my friends list so many months ago. Now I completely understand.

I've never had such an event happen to me, but I know women are way more prone to that sort of craziness. Women are incredible, but I'm sure glad I'm not one.

Sorry for your aggravation Laura. Sure is good to see you posting.

I know we've never shook hands, but you don't have to delete me. I promise you, I'm harmless.

Nah, you are in the "my friends know you personally" category, so it's all good. You are good people, Rick, I know that.
Unfortunately, by relocating my page 3 times, I lost many of my friends' pages. My fault, though, because I haven't saved their urls.

Women? God forbid to stumble on one who has personal issues like low self-esteem, lack of confidence, the "attention whore" syndrome or PMS, or ALL of that combined and it's a sure ticket to Hell.

Yeah, I was wondering where you went, because you disappeared from mine too!

[mikemarrs]

mainly forums for me.never could get into the facebook or myspace.

Facebook kicks ass. I've found people on there that I haven't seen since I was a kid.

i have went one time to facebook and saw a guy i went to school with back in 1986 in junior high school.this was like the coolest dude in school so i wanted to see what happened to him.well his picture showed him somewhere in iraq dressed in his camoflouge with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.i'm like he is still that same 'ol cool dude.hope he survived all the fighting and back home safe.i'm still going to search for some others in due time.sort of scary in a way because i don't know how i'd react if i knew some of my old friends were dead or something bad happened to them.i did look up one of my best friends who was like the smartest guy in school and he has like ten burglary charges and numerous assaults and he was real low key dude in school so you never know how someone will turn out when their grown.i figured the cool dude would be the bad one and the real smart one would end somewhere special but from what i just said you can tell that doesn't always apply.

[bluejeangirl76]

Right now, because of all the past experiences, Myspace is a place where I have only friends that I know in real life.
My rule is "We shook hands - we're friends. Never met - reject."

I have the same rule. I have only one person on my facebook that I've not actually met, but that's the exception not the rule, and I have my reasons for having accepted her request. I had that rule for MySpace also, but I rarely even log into that anymore. A bunch of "online friends" started exchanging myspace pages awhile back (in fact I think that was here), so the one I gave out was an alternate page, with no actual information about me. Because it's not only about sharing your own info... if you allow someone as a friend and you get a nutjob, they can see your friends and family and your pictures and everything else.

I've had to learn the tough way not to immediately trust people and give out info... not that I didn't already know not to do this, but like many of us have experienced, you know... they may seem nice, and you're trying to be nice back, etc and then they turn out to be all kinds of nuts. So no more of that.

[SusieP]

25 votes so far and not even one MySpace user? Looks like that thing has been kicked to the curb.

I think it's still a big thing for musicians and bands though.

I only use Myspace so people can hear audio samples.
Don't really use the message facility - most people who go to my Myspace pages are either prospective customers who would either phone or e-mail to discuss a booking,
or cyber friends on here who either PM or 'chat' on the actual threads about stuff.

[KenTheDude]

Right now, because of all the past experiences, Myspace is a place where I have only friends that I know in real life.
My rule is "We shook hands - we're friends. Never met - reject."

I have the same rule. I have only one person on my facebook that I've not actually met, but that's the exception not the rule, and I have my reasons for having accepted her request. I had that rule for MySpace also, but I rarely even log into that anymore. A bunch of "online friends" started exchanging myspace pages awhile back (in fact I think that was here), so the one I gave out was an alternate page, with no actual information about me. Because it's not only about sharing your own info... if you allow someone as a friend and you get a nutjob, they can see your friends and family and your pictures and everything else.

I've had to learn the tough way not to immediately trust people and give out info... not that I didn't already know not to do this, but like many of us have experienced, you know... they may seem nice, and you're trying to be nice back, etc and then they turn out to be all kinds of nuts. So no more of that.

It's unfortunate that more people (especially women) are not as cautious as you are.

[Voyager]

What's up with the thing on FaceBook that shows you all of your friends' personal comments to each other? To me that seems like an invasion of privacy, not to mention a big time-waster and a source of gossip. I would imagine that people sit and read that thing for hours to check up on their friends and read their dirty laundry.

[bluejeangirl76]

What's up with the thing on FaceBook that shows you all of your friends' personal comments to each other? To me that seems like an invasion of privacy, not to mention a big time-waster and a source of gossip. I would imagine that people sit and read that thing for hours to check up on their friends and read their dirty laundry.

That is how facebook works, though, and users know that, so to my way of thinking, simply don't write anything on your friends' walls that you wish to remain private. There is a private message function on facebook also, so if you want something to stay between you and one or two people only, the Inbox is there for that.

There is also the option to "hide" peoples' feeds if you don't wish to see their blatherings on your feed. And I would say only people who have nothing better to do and are insanely nosy are the ones spending hours reading everything others are doing and gossiping about it. I pretty much ignore what people are up to and who they are communicating with unless there is something that I wish to comment on.

I had one (former) friend who does that, spends all her time, as she calls it "snooping" (and she fully admits this and is weirdly proud of it). Needless to say, this individual is no longer part of my FB page, or my life, for that matter.

[mikemarrs]

what does it mean when someone tweets?

as in...she tweeted her displeasure.


sounds like something a bird might do but hey what do i know

[KenTheDude]

what does it mean when someone tweets?

as in...she tweeted her displeasure.


sounds like something a bird might do but hey what do i know

Women don't fart - they "tweet".

[bluejeangirl76]

what does it mean when someone tweets?

as in...she tweeted her displeasure.


sounds like something a bird might do but hey what do i know

Women don't fart - they "tweet".

No, that's "toot".

[Rick]

what does it mean when someone tweets?

as in...she tweeted her displeasure.


sounds like something a bird might do but hey what do i know

Sounds like something she did on Twitter.

[Rip Rokken]

I have accounts for each but Twitter (I had to draw the line with that one). To each their own, but I feel any constructive uses for social networking sites are rivaled by the destructive effects they've had on people and society. Hard to build character in kids especially when they can be whoever they want to be without having to look people in the eye and talk to them. We're also growing a society of drama queens who freely give up every detail of their lives to keep a light shined on them. That goes to the whole issue of privacy of course. When I was in high school, we read Orwell's 1984 and the thought of Big Brother was something we feared -- it was chilling to us. Who'da thunk we'd end up being the real Big Brother against ourselves? People have really gone a long way toward losing any value for privacy at all, and that's a dangerous place for any society to be.

People can say the tools themselves are not evil -- it's just how they are used. I think you have to look at the net effects to really determine the overall value of them. I try to use the ones I do as smartly as possible, but even then I'd be lying if I said they've had no negative effects on my quality of life. I just think it's important to maintain a good balance and not get too sucked in to where they are our whole lives. It's not always easy.

[mikemarrs]

I have accounts for each but Twitter (I had to draw the line with that one). To each their own, but I feel any constructive uses for social networking sites are rivaled by the destructive effects they've had on people and society. Hard to build character in kids especially when they can be whoever they want to be without having to look people in the eye and talk to them. We're also growing a society of drama queens who freely give up every detail of their lives to keep a light shined on them. That goes to the whole issue of privacy of course. When I was in high school, we read Orwell's 1984 and the thought of Big Brother was something we feared -- it was chilling to us. Who'da thunk we'd end up being the real Big Brother against ourselves? People have really gone a long way toward losing any value for privacy at all, and that's a dangerous place for any society to be.

People can say the tools themselves are not evil -- it's just how they are used. I think you have to look at the net effects to really determine the overall value of them. I try to use the ones I do as smartly as possible, but even then I'd be lying if I said they've had no negative effects on my quality of life. I just think it's important to maintain a good balance and not get too sucked in to where they are our whole lives. It's not always easy.

your right and its really scary when two people who know each other are less then an arms length away and instead of talking to each other they are busy texting back and forth.the younger people especially are isolating themselves with all these things.

[StoneCold]

Here's a song appropriate for this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTfU-hz-C6g

[bluejeangirl76]

Here's a song appropriate for this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZe8QzTcbLs

Here's a better one...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu1RP34FLXU

[Rip Rokken]

your right and its really scary when two people who know each other are less then an arms length away and instead of talking to each other they are busy texting back and forth.the younger people especially are isolating themselves with all these things.

LOL... been there before! About 13 years ago I had a roommate who was very active on AOL, and when we had any kind of tension, he just locked himself in his room and we e-mailed each other about it. It was the damndest thing, but he was more comfortable that way I guess.

Funny, this topic reminds me of something from the movie Gran Torino where the girl explains to Clint Eastwood's character how the Hmong people don't look each other in the eye and often laugh in uncomfortable situations. It was interesting to me to see cultural behavior based on personal insecurity instead of tradition, and they must have had some hard experiences to get them to that point.

[bluejeangirl76]

your right and its really scary when two people who know each other are less then an arms length away and instead of talking to each other they are busy texting back and forth.the younger people especially are isolating themselves with all these things.

LOL... been there before! About 13 years ago I had a roommate who was very active on AOL, and when we had any kind of tension, he just locked himself in his room and we e-mailed each other about it. It was the damndest thing, but he was more comfortable that way I guess.

I've IM'd with people who were in the same room, 2 feet away, but really that's more to be funny than anything else. It's not a constant habit or anything.

It makes me nuts to see kids doing things like that. The last time I was at Six Flags, there were a group of 4 boys, maybe 15-16 years old, and all 4 of them were in line with their phones out, texting. I don't think I saw them say more than two words to each other, they were too busy playing with their phones sending texts.

[Rick]

your right and its really scary when two people who know each other are less then an arms length away and instead of talking to each other they are busy texting back and forth.the younger people especially are isolating themselves with all these things.

LOL... been there before! About 13 years ago I had a roommate who was very active on AOL, and when we had any kind of tension, he just locked himself in his room and we e-mailed each other about it. It was the damndest thing, but he was more comfortable that way I guess.

I've IM'd with people who were in the same room, 2 feet away, but really that's more to be funny than anything else.

I have too. Just texting funny shit to people in the same room, to get a laugh. We have too much fun at work.

[Angel]

Here's a song appropriate for this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZe8QzTcbLs

Here's a better one...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu1RP34FLXU

Or this one.....'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcVnhNjWV0

[Rick]

mainly forums for me.never could get into the facebook or myspace.

Facebook kicks ass. I've found people on there that I haven't seen since I was a kid.

Damn Rick...those people are still ALIVE??? You know I'm just messing with you! I had to get one more shot in on someone before I go to bed.

BTW, I'll be sending you a little "surprise" via email...I've been a busy musician today. Off to bed now...

I missed this one. Yeah, most of them Jimbo.

Can't wait to hear your tunage bro.

[Don]

Now you can buy a cyber audience, if the mood fits you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8130456.stm

Twitter users who lack an audience for their messages can now buy followers.

Australian social media marketing company uSocial is offering a paid service that finds followers for users of the micro-blogging service.

Followers are available in blocks starting at $87 (£53) for 1,000. The biggest block uSocial is selling is 100,000 people.

USocial said businesses and individuals were queuing up to use its follower finding service.....

[stevew2]

Here and Adult Freind finder .com

[mikemarrs]

i had to wait until my girlfriend went to bed tonight to post this but there is a reason i'm not on facebook or myspace.rip rokken may or may not remember me mentioning this to him once because i know its been almost a couple years since i mentioned it.i am a member of a few forums and i've known a lot of nice people but i can't meet anyone even if its a simple thing like having lunch and its because of trust issues with my girlfriend and i'll explain.a few years back i think around 2001 or so i finally got myself a computer and my first real place where i didn't have no roommates and it was just me and my girlfriend.well i went overboard chatting online and did the adultfriendfinder thing steve mentioned in an earlier post.i was meeting women left and right and quite frankly i was sewing my wild oats but the bad thing was i doing this while i was with my girlfriend and things finally came to a head and she left for over a year.i literally spent all my time online chatting in chat rooms and of course meeting a lot of females.well there came a night about a year or so later where i had a epiphany or whatever you call it.all the sudden i missed my girlfriend terribly.the thing was i had a female with me i met online and i told her the truth.i was really wrong.i needed to correct it so finally the first part of 2004 me and my girlfriend finally got back together and i've got two children now.only thing is we still have that trust issue between us because of me going behind her back and chatting and meeting girls online.we've been back together five years now.how do you finally gain someones trust like i am trying to do with my girlfriend? i am just wondering if she will ever fully get over all that because its in the past.....