I always find it so strange when someone says they don't use social networking sites (like twitter & facebook)

As long as I can remember, I've used these sites. It started with Myspace, then when Facebook first came out, it was super exclusive and really nothing like it is now (no games etc.) You had to be invited by someone who was already a member, and your 'network' had to be a school. Then Twitter came out and for a long time it was really low-man on the totem pole, but now it's kind of like this public forum where you can connect with people without all of the bulk that Facebook has become.

I'm basically addicted to Twitter now, and was previously addicted to both Myspace and Facebook. Anyone else on this crazy interwebz bandwagon?

I was one of those people who resisted social networking for a long time. My husband finally got me to join Myspace when were were engaged. So I guess I joined in early 2006, since we were engaged for a few months before I finally caved. I don't remember if Facebook was as exclusive back then, but I resisted anyway. I hate jumping on the "trendy" bandwagon. But still, I enjoyed Myspace. Then suddenly, one day Myspace died for all of my friends. It was either join Facebook or lose contact with people. So I caved and joined Facebook.

Twitter I resisted for a very, very long time. I finally joined two or three months ago. But I don't use it to social network, per se. I really only use it to follow some celebs (like Bruce Campbell, who I adore) and some of my favorite Food Network stars (like Robert Irvine). I don't just follow random people. About the only normal person I follow is my husband, and one or two friends.

I'll admit to being addicted to Facebook. I've actually come to really like being able to keep in contact with various former classmates. And I've been able to reconnect with some old high school friends that I had lost track of years ago.

I find it stranger when people refuse to get smartphones. My mom is one of those people. I got my first smartphone (and current one!) just over a year ago and I will NEVER go back to a regular cellphone again!

Haha! I agree with the smartphone thing! My mom also had a cheap flip phone. I had my first cell phone ten years ago (at 13) and I went through like hand me down phones from my older sisters. Then once I turned 18 I got a smartphone (Htc s720) then a year later I bought a blackberry curve 8330, then a year later I upgraded to blackberry bold 9700, and I just got the iPhone 4g last month. I love it the best.

I'll confess I've never understood the social networking craze. I only joined Twitter because the Archive did and so felt obliged. <G> But I'll admit that one of my guilty pleasures these days is following a very small group of favourite celebs.

There are only two that I have always followed consistently: Bruce Campbell, funnily enough, is one. This is partly because I very rarely go anywhere, due to illness and, to be honest, preference. As a result I barely know how to use the thing and it's forever running down to zero battery because I forget to charge it up.

Undoubtedly, if I was still working or going out on a regular basis it would be different and I've no doubt that in those circumstances I'd find it useful. But I hardly use the thing. It is very handy for texting Stuart to bring me in Chinese every now and then though.

Semi-Luddite LabRat

Labby - Bruce is the *reason* why I finally broke and joined Twitter. I read a few days later that he'd broken the news that the Evil Dead remake is definitely happening from his Twitter account. That's when I knew that I had to join - even if only to follow him. Of course, I follow more than just him...

But I think we need to add message boards under the social networking heading. I know most people only think of Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. But through message boards, my social network has vastly increased to include wonderful friends around the globe. I've got all of you here on this board, Zoom's boards, 2 different Xena boards, and a Lion King board that I only pop into occassionally. And I used to have another Xena board, a Hercules one, and a Jack of All Trades one, but those have since shut down.

And if we include message boards into the mix, consider me an incurable addict (and happy to be so!).

Haha yea, if we talk about message boards and forums being social networking (which I'm sure they are, but just less known), I've been addicted long before I was ever on Myspace! I was doing Charmed RPG on a message board in 7th or 8th grade! lol *nerdface* Oh, and I was on Napster chat and yahoo chat all the time (when they had the user-made rooms). I did the mIIrc thingy once, but someone dropped the c-bomb and my brother wouldn't let me go back on.

I'm like LabRat though in the sense that I don't go out much. When I do, I almost always have my laptop or my smartphone, so I can check in on things.

I tweet A LOT ... mostly pointless stuff, pictures of my dog in funny outfits, and all my funky nail designs. My facebook has been overtaken with family members and old school friends, so I really only post pictures of events like Christmas and what not on there.

That's a very good point. And irc chats, I suppose.

LabRat

IRC chats. Yeah, I forgot about those. Yeah, we should probably add those under the heading too.

Oh me too. I was doing the AOL chat room thing for Xena as far back as 1996, when chat rooms were the place to be at night. I was a freshman in high school at the time, and we'd just gotten the internet at home. Then the allure of that wore off once I found the Studios USA message boards (no longer in existance) and my love affair with message boards began!

I try to use social networks, but I'm not sure they work for me. I feel too awkward writing either in message boards (that's why I don't post regularly, incidentally) or in chat boxes. The only exceptions I make are work related. Otherwise I experience a mild anxiety when one of my friends tries to start a conversation with me through facebook chat (when is it polite to log off?, with how many people can you chat with at the same time without taking too long to answer to each one? Can I write like I speak? If I'm ironic will the other person get it or just take me seriously?- I definitely don't know the protocol :p ).

But I admit that facebook, for instance, allowed me to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen or known of for over ten years, and helps me knowing how my friends and family that live abroad are.

Still, my first experience was with hi5. I quit it because it took ages to load the pages, and there were too many strangers asking me for friendship (mostly advertisers, but also some strange looking men). Then MSN, because it was a good work tool when it came to file transfers, but I haven't used it in over two years - email works just fine right now.
I still haven't understood the appeal of twitter and myspace. Sooo, it's facebook and these message boards. Pretty lame.

My stance on social networking is... complicated. I love technology. But I've never gotten into Myspace, Facebook, Twitter or even chatrooms- which makes me a bit of an oddball teenager. Part of it could be that I had very careful parents growing up, the other part could be that I'm entirely too paranoid. But even now, I don't even have a FB. Although that's going to have to change soon for networking purposes (both for my school and jobs in the future). Then again, I'm also obsessive-compulsive, so I hesitate to get involved in anything for fear of it eating me alive and taking away all my time and sleep...

... hence these message boards...

There is actually a way to turn yourself offline on the chat, so they can't even start a chat convo with you. If you need help figuring it out, I'll do a screen shot for you, but it's in the bottom right corner where your chat box pops up. Click on the settings or options (not sure what it's called off hand) and there should be an appear offline type thing.

How could I forget MSN! lol I used to be terrible on there too. I never log on anymore though. When someone asks if I have MSN, I laugh because I've had hotmail and MSN since I was like 10 or 11.


And for good reasons too! I had careful parents too, but they always assumed I was the 'good one' because I never got into trouble at school and I was always really sick (Still am). They just assumed I wouldn't even know how to misbehave I guess. Little did they know... I learned a lot about dating and sex from chatrooms and nfic when I really shouldn't have been chatting in those kinds of rooms or reading those kinds of things.

Just a random thought - but do dating websites count as social networking sites? I mean, you *are* using them to meet people...

If they *are* social networking sites, consider me a fan. I met my husband on the Yahoo Personals.

Really?! That's so sweet! I didn't even know Yahoo had a personals thing.

I met my ex on Craigslist, but I tell everyone we met when I was working as a photographer at a fashion show. I met my current... almost boyfriend... on CL as well, but I totally had a PlentyOfFish account a few years ago.

Thanks! Yahoo used to have personals. But I think in the last few years they might have merged with match.com. I haven't really poked around there since my first date with my husband in May 2005, so I'm a little out of the loop on that one.

Meeting on CL? That's pretty neat too!

I actually went on with the intention of meeting people from my area because my parents moved us out to this small(ish) town about 40 minutes east of the city I grew up in, so I literally had no friends, and just wanted someone to hang out with. It flourished into the most self-destructive three years of my life, but at least I was entertained for a while!

Originally posted by Mrs. Luthor:
Thank you for your offer, but it's ok, I've had my chat options like that for a while. The worst part is that my best friend did the same and we do this sort of cat and mouse dance, never knowing when each other is really offline (and we do like to chat anyway we can!). Usually we send random messages to each other to see if there's a reply. We need to syncronize more

I've used these boards, MSN messenger, chatrooms and IRC since I was 14-15 (started out in 2002-2003). On 2006 I started a LiveJournal I still use. I was an early adopter of those kinds of social networking, being both young and with the Internet not being very widespread in Greek homes before 2005 or so.

I used to avoid Facebook like the plague. I knew it would be a huge timewaster and I just wasn't a fan of being expected to add all the classmates from high school. I didn't even like them all that much. :p I finally caved into my best friend's pressure last year and made an account, but I'm using a fake last name and I've added relatively few people.

I technically met my boyfriend of two-and-a-half years on IRC, too. He was in a trivia channel and had already made some friends there, then I followed one of those friends (whom I had met through MSN messenger via a RL friend) into the channel... and then a long, long story which ends up with us getting together two and a half years after our first meeting, lol.

I've uh got a book series I'm pitching to agents/editors right now [had some interest, still waiting to hear...] about couples who meet on Craigslist . Glad to know real people do too .

I've met a couple of people from the boards in person - I'd consider it social networking. I'm addicted to FB, go through phases with Twitter.

One of the biggest... social networks [as long as we're expanding the definition a bit] I'm a part of is the email lists/loops for the writers' group I'm part of and the writing blogs I follow. I have made some AMAZING friends that way.

LOVE them .

And I really do need to get back here more often... I may even have a WIP rolling around somewhere... Y'all do know there's still some of us hanging out on IRC in #loisclark right? Join us!

Carol

I had a very, very bad experience in the past with an on-line stalker which is why I have no Facebook or Twitter and absolutely no plans to ever have them. I am barely entertained by the mundane details of my life. I find it incomprehensible that anyone else would really want to know what I ate for breakfast. Besides, I shudder to think that there would be a permanent record on a server somewhere of all my random thoughts.

Bruce Campbell! For him I could consider following a Twitter feed. He's the reason I'm still watching Burn Notice. Last year my sister insisted that I had to watch that show. It took me until the second episode to realize who Sam was. If you haven't seen it, the first couple of seasons are lots of fun. It's been slowly running out of steam since then, but Bruce/Sam is always worth the watch. No one can deliver a pithy line like him.

I've been hanging out in #lanekent - didn't know we had a #loisclark one.

You totally should! He's hilarious and also loves to share his pics with us.

I've never actually posted an ad, but I used to go on because it was so funny to read some of the things people were looking for. CL is an attractor for a lot of weirdos. One in a while you'll come across someone decent without ulterior motives, but you just have to make sure your reply to them stands out because there are a bunch of escort services and 'professionals' that look for clients on there by answering every ad.


I had no idea! I've never been. How do you get to it?

That's terrible! It's scary sometimes how careful we need to be on the internet how careful a lot of people (my included) aren't.

I had (about 2 months ago) a guy I chatted with online for a few weeks all of a sudden pop up out of nowhere while I was walking to school. He started talking to me and asking me if I lived around the area. He like followed me across this field to my school asking me questions about my school and where I live and what I do with my free time. I didn't even really recognize him. I thought maybe he looked similar to that guy, but I had only seen his photo and I'm terrible with faces, then about an hour later I got a text from him saying it was nice meeting me today in the park...

Just kind of goes to show that people can gather random bits of information and piece together what you do with your time and what not. I never once told him the name of my school, but I guess I told him enough about my city and what kind of classes I was taking that he figured it out.

Me too! I am glad to hear I am not the only one.

Although my hubby and I say there is no other way we could have met, as we are both quiet type. Even if we had literally fallen over one another in the library (and it would have to be the library), we each would have just mumbled 'sorry' and moved on. The meet-cute requires talking.

Thank goodness for Yahoo! Personals.

Us too! We literally lived only 13 miles apart, but never would have met one another if not for Yahoo. He had no real reason to come to where I lived, and I had absolutely no reason to travel to where he lived. And we are both uber-shy/quiet until we get to know someone.

This is a really interesting topic. I only got on facebook a few months ago at the urging of a friend.
I think i've only gotten on maybe twice. I've never been on twitter. Do the Yahoogroups mailing lists count? I have been on a number of them for years.
I don't really understand the appeal of Twitter.
Maybe i'll try it someday just out of curiosity.
I've no idea how to even find it. Anyone here old enough to remember the old letterzines many years ago in various fandoms via mail? They were fun but you could
send a reply and it could be weeks to months before seeing it in print in the next issue. It depended on which letterzine it was though as to how often they published. I still have a bunch of them.

By "letterzines" do you mean the old fanzines that were sent snail-mail? If so, then I sure remember them. I loved the old T-Negative Star Trek 'zine. Most of the episodes I had were reprints -- I discovered the 'zine too late to get most of the issues on their first run, but they were fun.

Joy,
Lynn

So far, at least, I don't do Twitter.

I like to read and go in depth, so the thought of being restricted to only 140 characters (whether writing or reading) just drives me crazy.

I've got a FB & Twitter though only use the Twitter to follow Adam Baldwin and Zachary Levi

I love my FB but it's strictly used for keeping in touch with people. It has definitely come in handy when I need to get current addresses for Christmas Cards. And finding out my sister is on bed rest or that close friends have just had babies (sorry, did that sound a little bitter?).

I rarely update my status because I have NOTHING interesting to say. I guess some people may find it interesting that I'm wearing jeans today and drinking a bottle of water but I surely don't.

I don't have any personal information on there like my address or phone number or even a current email address so I'm not really worried about anyone finding anything out about me.

I did have a semi-scary moment when I accepted a friend request from a guy I dated for 3 months when I was 16. Okay, I'm 28 now. It was 12 years ago. We dated for 3 months. I thought we'd have shallow conversations about what we do for a living, if we have kids, etc. Little did I know that the guy is a freak and started asking why I broke up with him and what did he do, that he just needs to know and don't worry, he's not trying to steal me away from my husband. Ummm... FREAK! Let's just say it was an eye opener that even people I know or knew can be psychos so that was when I removed all my personal information (and blocked that crazy).

Now I feel nice and safe.

Yes, i was talking about the letterzines via snail mail.
They died out after a significant portion of fandom got computers. I bought my first one in 1995. Around then a lot of fanfic was already appearing online first on newsgroups. I think the ones i have are from
the late 80's early 90's. Some of them came out relatively often, monthly or bi monthly. I guess they could maybe be considered fannish social networking to an extent. It was a long time in between comventions when you could talk with other fans.

Very true. Especially if you happened to be a high school student from a small town who could not even get to any conventions. The fanzines were pretty much my only contact with any other Star Trek fans. (My friends in high school were more into Dr. Who.)

Joy,
Lynn