I’m old enough to have signed up for Facebook as soon as it was available to the general public. It was 2006 and my 15 year old son and I did it together. We weren’t sure how safe it would be so my son agreed I can could look at his page with him weekly. This proved to be a good strategy because, almost immediately, mean kids at his high school began to use it to make fun of others, including at one point, my son. He and I had lots of chats about how it wasn’t real, those kids were jerks, and we both figured out how to block out those whose posts weren’t productive for either of us to see.
Both of us are still, eighteen years later, on Facebook. My son uses it to showcase his music and thus has 2200 hundred friends. I, who uses it to genuinely connect with my friends both near and far, have 170 friends all of whom I interact with outside the platform.
I’m the rare person who still likes Facebook–right now it’s helping me connect with other friends who are also struggling with breast cancer plus all those pictures of my friends’ pets, kids, and grandkids always make me smile.
I was, in an earlier era, somewhat active on Twitter/X but those days are gone. I do occasionally use it for AAR, but rarely. It seems to me to be a place full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I’ve tried TikTok but it isn’t for me. I like words more than pictures and pictures more than videos. Plus I can’t figure how to find anything valuable to me there.
I do like Instagram mostly because that’s where all my children’s friends are and I love seeing their adult lives. I also have lots of friends who are not on FB but are on Insta so it’s a way to connect with them there.
Overall, I use the social media I do–Facebook and Instagram–to keep up with those I already care for. I can say in all honesty, social media is the last place I look for news or public information. For me, that’s what newspapers are for.
How about you? Do you use any social media? Which platforms? Why? What do you love about it? What do you hate?