Prog Archives Facebook

Not the ONLY one !

Of course Mrs. JD has one, but not me.

FB is supposed to be instant new things which it is ... but not always. A lot of FB groups can push the same old. There is no reference such as the PA archives.  If you display an interest in something you get further posts on a subject. It's an alternative and one can communicate instantly. This I suspect is the main appeal.

Good for comedy videos.

It's also a time sink so choose your moments wisely...

I reluctantly curate a FB account as I find it useful for keeping in touch with close family and real life friends, but I don't really use it for much else.

When it comes to social media I much prefer Twitter which can be good company for someone living on their own like myself.

The birthday thing!  What happens is FB notifies you that it's the birthday of somebody in your friends' list.  And then you feel it would be impolite not to wish EVEN if the person is just an acquaintance and not REALLY a friend.  Which happens a lot on FB because people, myself included, just add each other like crazy and then forget who all are in the friends' list. 

It happened that I was not in touch with a woman who was in the same batch as me for a management training program years back...but she was in my list.  I saw her birthday notification.  But I didn't immediately wish her and instead clicked on her wall.  I usually do that because people often put a wrong date as their birthday on FB for privacy's sake (unless they are close friends/relatives where I know for sure).  So I did that and then learnt to my great shock that she had died.  But I saw/see people wishing her on that day like clockwork, never wondering why they don't get a response.  

As morbid as this is, a documentary about something similar was made back in 2011 and about something that happened in 2003 (that is, before social media).  A British woman named Joyce Vincent died in 2003 and her body was only discovered nearly 3 years later.  She was youngish when she died and supposed to have been a vivacious personality so her death and the fact that she had been living all alone (as a result of which her body lay unattended for so long) came as a shock to the people who knew her. Guess it happens sadly that some people drift away from society, perhaps due to something that makes them sad or depressed or perhaps because they are in circumstances where they would like to avoid the judgmental eye of society. 

The problem with Twitter is it's too crude and virtually anyone can butt in with any kind of 'opinion' where opinion could be simply a euphemism for vile personal insults. 

FB too isn't that much of a bubble.  You can discover through FB that your work acquaintances, family friends who are pleasant company in person can have seriously bizarre political views and are, uh, more than a bit vocal in expressing them. Actually, the younger generation seems to realize the problems with FB for some of them have made groups where people express political and other opinions from all over the spectrum.  The idea IS to build tolerance to dissent and disagreement. 

It's time for me to get the dictionary out to find out what "acculturation" means. 

PA is an extremely well moderated forum. We do get flare ups and rows here, but they are, in truth, an e caption and not the rule.

We don’t often get the type of moronic comments you see on social media at large.