Facebook has been in the news an awful lot this week.
And I’m pretty sure you are *dying* to hear my thoughts on it.
😉
I use social media daily for my work. I wouldn’t be able to do my job correctly without it.
But I really don’t like it.
I really really really don’t.
Way back in March of 2009 (nine years ago!!) I wrote my thoughts about Social Media and Time Management and how they are a bit of an oxymoron.
When I wrote that article, my online life and career were just beginning, and I have since evolved. For instance, I now own an iphone.
😉
Most of my online friends are what are known in the media and in tech circles as “early-adopters.”
This is not me. I am completely old-school in almost all of my ways (including cooking, lol!!)
I am also a hugely skeptical person. I assume that my every key stroke online is being analyzed. I am certain that I am being tracked online, and if I allow my brain to go there, when I’m offline.
😉
SO, in general, I do not have a feeling of privacy each and every time I open up my phone or a new tab on the computer.
and even if your “privacy” settings are all set to Mock 5 Impenetrable please do not take that to mean that noone knows what you are googling or clicking on.
Let me explain.
I consider myself a pretty honest and morally correct person. I have joked, many times, with my blogging friends that I have “gotten hit hard with the Ethics Stick.”
so a lot of what is floating around online on how to take advantage of readers, of my mailing list, of my facebook fans/friends, I ignore. If it feels wrong or shady, I don’t do it.
EVEN IF I’m told by some sort of online “guru” or “coach” that I’m dead wrong and leaving “money on the table.”
(SIDE NOTE: remind me to tell you a story about some online women’s business success coach who told me (flat-out) that I must not “crave success enough” because I refused to lock my children out of my office when I was on a conference call.)
Even though I am uncomfortable with black hat marketing ploys, I am very aware of who is on my tiny website at any given time, how they got there, where they are going next, what search query they used to get there, and if I really clicked around I could figure out what city they lived in, their gender, and their IP address.
and that is ME. A 41-year-old suburban crockpot lady who spends way too much time in pajama pants and fuzzy slippers to be considered any sort of tech insider.
Facebook Data.
If I want to reach a certain audience on Facebook with a targeted ad, I can. For instance, with a Facebook Business account, I can learn how to target women between the ages of 34-44 who drive Toyota Siennas and Honda Odysseys.
Why would I target these women who drive minivans? Because chances are they own a crockpot.
If *I* can do this, you most certainly can bet that a Fortune 500 can, does, and according to their Business Advisor — they’d be stupid not to.
Make Sense?
Connectivity.
And now is when I get wishy-washy.
I am able to keep up with cousins in Britain and people from around the world.
For free.
And I’ve met MANY MANY MANY wonderful people through facebook in the different writing and blogging groups that I am in.
Some of these people I have never met face to face yet we are pretty hyper-connected and communicate on a daily basis.
So it really is quite tricky and I can not pretend in the slightest that I have all the answers.
What About Instagram?
I’ve got to tell you — the news stories I’m clicking on that say that people are leaving facebook in droves and heading over to Instagram crack me up.
Because all of the ways I can target you in an ad on Facebook, I can now in Instagram.
Because FACEBOOK OWNS INSTAGRAM.
#sheesh
🙂
But Isn’t Mark Super Philanthropic?
Yes. Facebook gives lots of money to lots of charities.
all big companies do.
Actually, most of the people I know give money to charities and causes they believe in.
and they don’t even put out a press release! they just do it because it feels right and they want to help.
that’s probably all I should say about this.
😉
So What Can You Do?
This is the hard one. I can’t tell you what you should and shouldn’t do.
Mostly I suppose I just want you to be aware.
And I suggest trying to keep your kids away from social media for as long as you possibly can.
A Frontal Cerebral Cortex isn’t fully developed until well into a person’s twenties —- yet most kids are handed smart phones while still in strollers.
Google and Facebook both require that users are over the age of 13 before starting accounts.
That should be the bare minimum. In our house, the rules are a bit stricter — but that is MY house, and I’m not here to suggest any hard and fast rules about what you should and shouldn’t do with your own children.
But please be aware.
Realize how damaging social media can be even if you are a FULL-FLEDGED ADULT.
Nobody likes to see someone else having fun at a party they weren’t invited to.
Nobody likes the feeling of putting something out there online and watching it bomb or get ignored.
Being a kid is hard enough as it is —
One More Soap Box Item
There should be no online purchases or downloads or apps (even the free ones) without you knowing and approving.
Kids don’t need to have their own Apple ID (and whatever the name is for android-devices that is used to download apps/games)
until they have their own credit card. If your kids have apps on their phones that you do not know about, that is not good.
There are even “invisible” apps — apps that look like something else but are actually photo sharing devices.
Know what’s going on in your own house. The kids are living there for free and getting food for free already. Don’t let them have free reign on their devices.
What are your thoughts? how do you limit social media in your own life and in your family?
have a great day, xoxo steph
7 Comments
My feelings exactly!
This is so true. I get so tired of all the “crap” on Facebook but I love keeping up with friends and family. Plus I love my crockpot recipes that I get from you.
I agree. I don’t do Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. I do email and subscribe to blogs like yours, but that is it.
Actually, Google doesn’t really follow it’s own age limit policies. They put Google in schools and it’s a back door to everything else Google. My 9 year old, against my wishes, was given a school Google account with her full name. I was assured it would only be used to access things at school and wouldn’t go outside of school. I thought it was like an inter-office type of closed community. Not even close. It was on our phones, our laptops, she has access to youtube, chat features, you name it…. each “first time” she went to access her school information to work on a project at home, which was recommended, all that info was downloaded to our screens. If I wanted to, I could actually access each one of her classmates personal email and I could pretend to be anyone… even her… and they would never know. It’s infuriating.
Hi Laurie, Wow. that would upset me, also. In our school district the kids have a school login number that is attached to google — and even that weirds me out a little.
We live right in the doorway of silicon valley and so sometimes things that seem “standard and normal” here I didn’t think were country-wide.
in middle school in sixth grade one of the teachers wanted the kids to use Edmodo — which is essentially facebook for kids, to type in homework questions, crowdsource for answers, etc. I hated it and everytime I logged in there was chatter about dances, etc. It really went against all of my parenting instincts.
as for the “catfishing” — what you describe about pretending to be someone you aren’t online — I know that was an issue through google in our schools, since the chrome books are shared.
Also, my kids report that almost every day time is wasted rebooting computers, waiting for the smart board to wake up, etc etc etc.
🙁
I agree with you — thank you for reminding us of the google issue!!
This is just one of many reasons I homeschooled and the Internet was not on the computer used for school, etc., I downloaded the information from mine IF it was needed. Actually we preferred paper to digital.
Technology is a true double-edged sword. It can do great good, but can likewise do great harm.
Unfortunately, most people are not really responsible, so it is far, far more frequent for it to do great harm.
All tools that have a positive use must nevertheless be kept from a child until he/she is old enough to use that tool. You wouldn’t give a chainsaw to a five-year-old. Even if you gave him a plastic toy chainsaw, it wouldn’t have a working, spinning blade. Not because you are trying to keep your child from understanding how to cut firewood and build a fire for himself, but because you know that a five-year-old does not have the necessary strength or dexterity to handle a chainsaw. Maybe in a decade, he’ll be old enough to learn.
Likewise, children should not learn to use electronic devices until their brains are mature enough to handle it, and even then there needs to be supervision until they are thoroughly trained to use it responsibly.
I am not a mother, but if I ever have children, my husband and I already know we will homeschool. Even before tech like this was introduced to schools, we would have because the quality of education in public schools is not that good. But now, especially, we would never allow our child to go to a school that thinks shoving tablets into students’ faces qualifies as true education. No. Just, no.
Glad that the most we had in my high school was clunky old desktops in the library!