But...but...how do you then manage to reply to venomous messages you get (typically for trolling Commie videos) with even more venomous messages of your own?
Seriously though I love my YouTube account but the closest it gets to social media is hating people (who you never met) with all your soul.

Twitter mostly for industry watch (seafood), and a few game related feeds. Facebook for friends and family, and some networking (the "industry" again). It's just easier to share pics and vids.


The adverts have been much worse as of late. I guess going public didn't garner enough capital...

I don't pretend to care about people I met at parties years ago. I care about my current group of friends, co-workers and family, and Facebook is an easy, free way to do that.

What do you have against Facebook? They don't get too much information about you as long as you don't give them the information, and it may be about marketing, just don't buy their stuff.


I use it only to find out about social events and to see what's going on.

No, but Social Media uses me.

Must.. resist.. lame soviet russia joke.

i use facebook and instagram. i only use twitter for sports news.

Email, skype, phone, or snail mail or even the archaic face-to-face meetings are my preferred options. If someone's a co-worker but not a friend, they can reach me through the appropriate avenue, which would be my work email address.

No. These forums are the closest thing to a social networking site I'm part of. Never saw much of an appeal in Facebook and the like. I'll keep in touch with the people I care about, if I so have to resort to pen and paper and carrier pigeons. The rest... Meh.

You'll be telling me that you talk to people next! Yeah, okay, that's getting rather preposterous, nobody does that any more.

Facebook is silly! If something major is going on my friends usually come drag me kicking and screaming to said event/thing.
I've already said why I don't like it above, so I don't use it. I just feel sorry for a few friends I have who use it and don't want to but feel desperate to keep in the 'loop'.

90% of advertising on the internet is targeted these days; and yet I don't feel the need to avoid the rest of the web. In fact, in a way, all advertising is targeted - in that it's put in a place target demographics are likely to see it. I still manage to watch TV without accidentally buying something I didn't need just because the advertisers recognised that people like me tend to watch whatever it is I watch...

Actually, to some extent I like Facebook's targeted advertising. If I decide I "like" a band or a website or game or whatever, then they have a completely free way of letting me know when they do something cool. I've found out about new albums and gigs from bands that have become amongst my favourites, I get links to updates on decent websites all in one place, and (in the example of a game I "liked" last week) I get regular updates and notification of release of a project I'm really interested in that I almost certainly would have forgotten about otherwise.

And all the while I tend to completely ignore the actual ads.
So do loyalty cards, insurance companies, marketing executives and the government.

I managed to keep up with my friends before mobile phones became ubiquitous. The human race managed to communicate pretty effectively before telephones, telegraphs, the invention of writing, etc... Doesn't mean I'm going to avoid using something I find handy.
No it doesn't. If someone isn't my friend, I don't add them. And if someone that I have added pisses me off, I delete them.

Forums, on the other hand. There you do have to get along with all sorts of insufferable [censored] heads.
I have 184 friends on Facebook. Admittedly that's more people than I see on a daily, or weekly, or even monthly basis - and actually I could do with deleting a few - but considering how long I've been using the site, I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to to expect that I've had a decent conversation or shared some good times with each of those people. And I don't see the point not staying in at least vague touch with someone who seemed cool if I have the opportunity. It's not like it harms me to have them occasionally show up in my feed...
So am I. I think, like any social forum (in the general sense of the word) it has its fair share of potential irritations, problems and even dangers. People can get obsessional about it, there are groups for all sorts of inane things, the advertising can get annoying, the "like" feature is a bit of a parody of genuine human communication, and obviously, by no means is everything posted by every one of my contacts always worthwhile. But nor is everything people (including my closest friends) say to my face, and occasionally I might be a little cynical about small talk or complaints about the weather, but I don't see how that healthy cynicism need translate into contempt.

People only get so cynical and angry about social media because it's new.
I only post birthday messages on Facebook when it's someone I know and want to wish well.
It's not a need. I don't need to play video games, or post on this forum, or eat chocolate, or even get dressed at the weekends, but I still feel fulfilled when I do any of those things.
I don't see how external gratification is a bad thing to feel good about. Facebook or not, it makes me smile if someone I know finds something I said funny. My life feels worthwhile for many reasons, internal and external, but I one of them is socialization. Through any medium.
Any forum, not least this one, has its fair share of vapid arseholes posting rubbish and avoiding discussion just because they want to be heard and don't care what anyone else actually thinks. And any social networking site has its fair share of interesting discussion. People like both mediums for both reasons.

I'm on Twitter and G+

Twitter is an invaluable tool for finding news and about things before they hit the major news outlets. The "problems" of people posting mindless dribble are totally overblown: it's very easy to ignore these people, and most people post good stuff. No one forces you to follow anyone, so it's easy to avoid them.

G+ is also actually a pretty good news source, though not as good as Twitter. It's pretty cool, even if mostly dead.

I'm not on Facebook primarily so I don't have to deal with relatives saying "whhyyyy don't you accept my friend request? Do you hate me?"

MutantPenguin, I love you.

The voice of reason.

no.

Only Facebook, but I don't spend much time on there. Only reason I keep it is because it helps me keep in touch with people whom I otherwise wouldn't have any contact with...like my cousin for instance. I lost contact with him at sixteen after a motorcycle accident that nearly killed him. Over twenty years later I catch up with him on Facebook, and doing better than I had heard previously, which wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination.

I can understand why people find Facebook useful. I don't mind that it is so popular. As for the targeted marketing I understand that this is a part of everyday life but most of the stuff targeted to me is inaccurate. Once in a while I might see a product I find remotely useful but this seems to be a rare occasion. The fact it exist does not stop me not liking it. Those problems can be dealt with though. Facebook just feels off to me, but then again i'm anti social. I won't ever start using Social Media. Its just opinion though

Then I am obviously not talking about you. My comments were aimed at the stereotypical tween/teen/20-something who seems incapable of going an hour without updating their FB status, posting to several "friend's" walls, texting 16 people, and bothering everyone in the area by making or receiving several phone calls and failing to use their indoor voices.

For many, instant and constant communication is a need, to the point of being an addiction. These are the people who scare me. If I don't have to go to work, it is not uncommon for me to go several days without seeing or speaking to another person. I do not need anyone to validate my existance. I'm happiest when the world just leaves me alone.

I use Twitter and Facebook. And Last.fm too, if you could call that a social media site.

I used to use MySpace years ago, but as of lately it's pretty much a dying site...

Tim (aka the Slipperman)

This. I don't know why so many people forfeit a useful tool just so they can seem cool and edgy for not using something popular.

Children have always been annoying. Regardless of what gadgets you give them.

It sounds like your problem is with people, not Facebook.
Why does that scare you? I don't understand. What's so scary?
That sounds horrible.

Thats not the case. Its personal preference.

I have absolutely no use for it.

These forums don't count as social media do they? 'Cause no, I don't do that kind of stuff, anyways, I've been told that if I were ever to join Facebook the world would surely come to an end.



OK, for the handful of friends that I've got, if I want to know what's going on with them, I go and talk to them, face-to-face or contact them directly. Shocking concept, I know.

Because as a lower-40's male, I'm clearly a "hipster teenager" trying to act cool and edgy.

No, rather, I'm just a person from before all this texting/tweeting/"socialmedia"/"friending"/smartphone crap, who never really sat around talking on the phone for kicks or socialized with anything above small groups.

Not everyone is an outgoing extrovert who feels the need to connect with large numbers of people. Or to try to gain some sense of self-worth or importance by how many "friends" are recorded in some database.