Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, oh my!

[lph]

Ok, so I finally caved and took the smartphone that my job was throwing at me. It does make it a bit easier to plan while on business trips, as they sometimes go to odd little fjordy places where ferries are irregular and internet access can be hard to find. But now I also have two more things to distract me - Twitter and Instagram, in addition to Facebook where I spend way too much time already. I follow my friends and a few colleagues, and am beginning to follow strangers.

So who do you follow on social media, and more importantly, why? Like most people I guess, I follow people who are interested in the same things I am - bike advocacy, popular science, green living especially sustainable eating, ski mountaineering, kayaking, favourite sci-fi/fantasy writers, the occasional interesting politician. But I'm beginning to realize I'd probably learn a lot more interesting stuff from following people I disagree with!

I haven't bothered searching tags either on Twitter or Instagram, I just sort of click around. For those of you who use social media - how do you use it and what do you get out of it?

[Catrin]

LOL LPH, love the thread title. I don't know how much help this will be, but I don't do much outside of Facebook. I check that MUCH too often, and I've recently pruned the pages I "follow" or "like", which is different from my "friends". I will follow the pages of cycling, kettlebell, or other activity related folks. I used to follow/like more activity related association pages but dropped many of them because they seemed to be more about a Facebook advertising page than providing real information. Of course all association pages will have some of that, but many of those I was following were 90-100% ads. No time for that! I've been on FB for something like 5 years now, and I've only just started following strangers.

I've Instagram, Pintrest, and Twitter accounts. I even have subscriptions, etc. I rarely, however, even think about checking them I would suggest to just explore as you have time, it is always interesting to me the different ways that individuals interact with social media. I seem to be backing off from it, while others I know appear to be using it more and more. Take what is useful to you and leave the rest Social media IS a time-suck, albeit at times a very useful one!

[Crankin]

I don't use Twitter or Instagram, I just don't see the point, and, as you point out, they are a time suck. I mean, I love researching and learning, but I don't have the time for sitting and being on line all of the time. I am on Facebook, and look at it way too much, but I don't post very much. I stay away from making any political comments, although I do follow some politically oriented things. I use it mostly to keep up with friends far away.
I find it interesting that my kids, who are in the prime demographic for these things, both think Twitter is silly. My older son had his Facebook hacked (he didn't tell me what happened, but I think his photos were used in a very inappropriate way) and has not gone back. Considering that he had 300+ friends and planned and orchestrated his high school reunion through Facebook, I am surprised. My other son has had a love hate relationship with Facebook. He was not on at all, until right before he finished his last tour in Afghanistan and was out of the military. Then, all of a sudden, last fall, he deactiviated his account. About a week ago, I noticed he was back on. I think this was related to the fact that he was getting his security clearance re-upped, so he has to appear squeaky clean.
You could spend all day looking at stuff, and it's really easy to get addicted.

[ny biker]

For me, Facebook is primarily a way to stay in touch with friends, family, former co-workers, that sort of thing. It is especially useful with people who live far away and friends who have less free time since they moved into the young-children phase of life. I check it a few times a day. I also post my planned bike rides there so that people will know where to tell the police to look if I disappear.

Twitter is primarily for news and entertainment, and I check it often because I find it very useful. I follow a bunch of local weather people, as well as a few who cover the area where my parents live. I also follow some reporters/columnists from the Washington Post (my local newspaper) and a news blog for Arlington County, where I live. Also some official county accounts for Arlington and Fairfax (where I work). Twitter has actually become my first source of news -- when a big storm is coming or something big happens, I hear about it first on Twitter. It's also a good way for me to follow sports that don't get much attention in the US, like cycling and Formula 1, and in fact I first signed up for it in order to follow cycling. And it's a good way to follow sports teams from major US sports (like baseball) that are based in other cities (Let's go Mets!) and the college teams that my nephews play for. I also follow a few comedians on Twitter for entertainment.

Last year a few relatives signed up for Twitter, and we use it as a kind of enhanced text message service. It's easier to communicate with a group on Twitter than via texting, as long as you're discussing things that don't require a higher level of privacy.

I have also set up a couple of lists of Twitter accounts that I don't follow but would like to access easily sometimes, such as local traffic reports and a longer list of weather people for the area where my parents live. I use the latter when major storms are in their forecast so I can monitor the situation.

I don't use Instagram. I have a Linked In account as a way of being able to stay in touch with former co-workers, though I don't do much with it.

[Irulan]

I use twitter for information. Example - I follow our local newspaper which always has up to the minute stuff posted ( Monroe and Stevens closed due to collision) things like that. I do follow a few friends who post entertaining life comments.

Facebook - I'm pretty picky about who I'll friend, but that line is starting to blur with all the women's biking activity I'm involved in this year. I use the "restricted access" feature a lot for people who want to friend me but that I have no interest in allowing them to see my stuff. Lists are a really good way to organize who sees what if you care to manage your list like that. I made a pages feed for the pages I want to follow - local businesses and organizations mostly. You have to follow George Takei's feed and Humans of New York. Most of the organizations I am involved with use FB as the primary form of communication.

Blogs, I follow a few, mainly gear reviews and sports related. Again, I like information much more than experiences. I use the Newsify reader on my iPad.

I do not use or follow instagram although I see things through other links.

I use pinterest strictly for personal idea collecting and to surf when I am bored.

Except for the Think Progress feed on FB I stay away from poliitcal stuff.

[lph]

Well, I sure got what I was looking for! I threw in a comment on a Twitter discussion today, and ended up spending the rest of the day (sh! don't tell my boss) discussing environmental politics with a local politician I heartily disagree with. Civil, but a bit... pointed. I'm having trouble leaving the discussion. That's the problem with people you disagree with, I guess, hard to leave when they're STILL SO WRONG! :-D

But at some point I will just have to say Thanks and goodbye.

[Irulan]

internet rule #1. You can't change anyone's mind. So don't bother trying.

[lph]

Heheh. Yeah, I know. But I enjoy honing my arguments. Some of the minor points may sink in, and someone else could be reading too. But no, I am not going to convince him that it does matter if half a million Norwegians drive their cars less.

[ny biker]

I really try to avoid political discussions on social media. I also am not big on them in face-to-face conversation. I usually don't think of the really good things to say until it's too late. When someone posts or shares something that I disagree with on Twitter or Facebook, I just try to take a deep breath and ignore it.

One thing that is important to teach the young people in your life -- things you post on social media really can come back to haunt you. The managers at my job do look up job candidates online and they consider what they see before deciding to offer someone a job.

[Helene2013]

Although the pressure is high that I join FB and the likes, I'm still not there. But I do lurk in some profiles and it is freaky what you can find out in those profiles, who they are connected to, etc. I don't see the need for this in my life. for now anyway. I do enough web as it is. I don't need to have a mass population follow me in every detail. I understand you can block off your profile to only selected people, etc. But then what is the real point of creating those sites???? If someone wants to know what I'm up to, give me a call or send me an email.

[thekarens]

I use twitter for the same reason Irulan does, it's my news source. I follow people like Amazon for sales, local news station and then I follow interest groups like Tropical Birding and Engadget. I never post. I don't use Instagram. I get all my photos on FB.

[rebeccaC]

I've never been interested in facebook, instagram, twitter etc. I keep in touch with some friends through their blogs and then texts, calls and face to face. I post to some photography sites, this site and occasionally two other bicycle ones. I quickly check a number of blogs each day to read new posts. Other than that I use a commuter for just work, research for personal things, some in-depth news and photography. Never found arguing with someone on the net to be a very rewarding experience...

[Catrin]

It is useful for keeping in touch with select individuals - which is mainly what I use it for. I do have my profile settings so that only those I've "friended" (see how it creeps into your vocabulary by creating non-existent verbs?) can see it. I also make use of custom lists because I figure my family couldn't care less about my kettlebell or other fitness activities or vice versa, for example. My actual posts only really deal with fitness and the occasional cool picture or sharing of a motivational quite. I will not get more personal than that as everything on the internet stays there. I've been more personal on TE than I've been on FB, but that is different, and there are topics I won't post about here for the same reason.

Haven't thought about using Twitter for news though, will have to see if that works for me. I tend to be too busy to pay much attention to the news and if I can get it from Twitter without a firehose stream of notifications then that might be a good approach.

[OakLeaf]

I gave up on flame wars about the same time I left Compuserve ...

I do FB only - I use it to keep up with friends, to get notifications from organizations I belong to, and as my primary news aggregator.

DH does Twitter only, and it's an ENORMOUS time suck to him. He justifies it because of the news feed - if anyone remembers CNN back when they first started in the 1980s, kind of like that, but obviously even less filtered - but then he gets into back and forths with newspaper editors, plays the Twitter games, etc., etc. ....

[Irulan]

I sure do love that xkcd comic. I survived a whole lot of flame wars on usenet. It cured me of internet arguing.