Weekend Open Forum: Do you use social media?

I never felt the need to have a facebook account or likewise any other social media account.
It's much too complicated .......Anonymity is what I like.

Yes I read techspot once a day, this enough for all

Finally someone who's on a tech site who isn't a hater. I too can't believe all the hate from Tech people. Facebook is great. Great way to keep in touch. Great way to advertise my business. Most people I see who hate or left Facebook don't understand the potential. You don't have to use Facebook like the newbies out there gaming and what not. I have learned the inside and out of Facebook and there is so much to it. It's so freakin easy and people who don't understand probable don't know how to program DVR's or VCR's back in the day. Sure there are downsides as with any technology but I see the greater potential of Facebook and I choose to be in from the beginning and learn all their is. Come on your Techies...SMH.

No. And I intend to keep it that way. It breeds narcissism.

Nope, don't use any social media. Facebook has had too many privacy screw-ups. Google's Android was busted uploading location history and address books, so I don't trust Google. I'm way too prolix for Twitter, not to mention Twitter having to hand over Birgitta Jonsdottir's tweets. Uncle Scam already knows too much about us and can force any social media to hand over the goods on anyone. Oh, and don't forget the more than 1 billion comm intercepts per day by the NSA performs. Remember Mark Klein? Remember the Stasi? OK, do you know what the Stasi was? You can say I'm paranoid or you can say I know more history than you do.

I'm on some tech sites and participate in those communitys however I'm not on social media nor have I ever been on site such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have some friends who do put their whole life up on these sites however I'm more of a private person and would rather interact with people one to one.

Potential?? You mean potential for crap that I despise. Things that have nothing to do with keeping in touch with friends and family members. Facebook is no longer a social media site, they are too wrapped up in marketing. But yet you know this since you state it's a good place to advertise your business. You see if I were to spend time on a social media site, I wouldn't want the site to be plastered with ads to the point of hardly ever seeing anything related to social media. I'm happy with making this statement, you can keep your Ad Site (aka; Facebook).

You see its all the crap that distract people from their social life that makes Facebook a fail (from my perspective that is) as social media. Surely you can see from all the comments how people want to stay out of Facebook but yet they feel obligated to stay. Obligated to stay but rarely interact in the social environment. I don't know how the others feel but when the social environment usually only involves game stats and game invites of which I would never play, I don't see any reason to hang around.

If you don't like facebook, you might check out http://facecrooks.com/ .

I have a facebook account that I use mostly to log in to places I don't bother to register with. Does TechSpot count? If so, that's two: Facebook for convenience and TechSpot because I enjoy it and learn a bit, here and there, along the way - some of which even sticks. Otherwise, social media and untreatable tuberculosis hold about the same appeal.

My face aint shown in no book!
not in the past,present or future.

Well I'm another FB user.

I joined back in 2008 but never did anything much with it. A friend of mine setup a group for a local piano museum, and asked me to joint so I did. There it sat untouched until mid-2010. I was an older student then at UMASS-Lowell, and a bunch of students and faculty were up there that I used to hang out with. We used this for conversing over projects and such. At the same time, a friend of mine, a storm chaser and photographer, was using this for his photo blogs and essays. Thus, I became a Facebook user. If however, the site disappeared I could care less. The piano museum still exists, and has for the past 30-plus years. My storm chasing group that I go chasing with, has their own website anyway, so there's nothing amiss should I not bother to visit FB.

In addition to FB, I am also a member at some other tech forums, and over at a couple of medical-related ones. With one of the medical forums, I became a technical lead for a book that some members are writing. I am also over at a virtual railroad forum at www.auran.com where I help with tech support issues.

I admit though it is a nice way to keep in touch with former coworkers that have long retired from the workforce as well as family and friends that now live many thousands of miles away.

I tried twitter once. What turned me off were the stupid posts like announcing to the world that someone had to use the bathroom. Who cares about mundane stuff like that.

One don't need to put in their "Real" face (picture). I have several friends in facebook that use cartoon type pics. I've seen their facebook page(s). But, to each their own.

I use googlemail, does it count?

for facebook, I use it purely for social needs, such reaching out friends or planning a gathering or invitation etc.. when my friends trying to advertise their business, I'll just remove them from my friend list..

I have a Facebook account. Many online giveaways ask for Facebook likes, so it's useful for that. I also have a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lowendia) where I sometimes post giveaways I come across (and don't update as often as I'd like, unfortunately). I also played some games on Facebook in the past (when I had more time to play games), and used it to communicate with some companies and follow some games (in particular City of Heroes when it went F2P).

I have a Twitter account, which I originally also created for giveaways, but also used for a while to post links to articles for future reference. I recently went back to do this.

I've had a blog for many years, but often months go back without me posting. I occasionally did have some interesting posts there. Unfortunately at one point my free host deleted it by mistake, and the resurrected site later got hacked. I just recently put it back online, now as a simple blog at Wordpress.com (http://www.lowendia.com/).

No, I only join some forums, if that counts as Social Media ..

I think it really depends what age you were when Facebook took off, me and all my friends joined right at the beginning when it was only open to university/college people and it was clean and free of all that advertising and targeted marketing. I can imagine someone joining now would not have the same experience.

I still find FB very useful for things such as organising events and sharing two of my favourite hobbies: photography and travelling.

I only go on techspot. Period. And thats because I need to for work to keep up to date. otherwise, No socialing what so ever. I feel the Facebook and MySpace put way too many ppl in contact with ppl best left in the past. Im against it for the simple fact that it is just another level of drama that I choose to avoid. A prime example is that in my small town, a father killed his daughters boyfriend because of a arguement on social media. That right there points to some of the dangers of social media. Some ppl cant live w/o it, some ppl can not seperate fantasy and fiction. Some ppl buy into whatever is typed on the screen.