Thanks Exiled - has been a stressful 36 hours to say the least. Not much we can do now but sit it out - cut off in all directions & the river in town is close to bursting it's banks which will cause additional misery to many. Calgary looks like it's getting hammered as well, and places like High River are beyond belief. My house was saved by the incredibly well timed installation of a flood defense barrier to divert water flow coming down from the mountain we live on - just a week before this deluge otherwise I dread to think what would have happened...
To the point on Social Media - the twitter feed & facebook pages from the local Emergency Services & the Municipalities have been priceless in terms of giving out advice & squashing rumours......
Thanks @Oakster, glad to hear you guys are ok. I am lucky enough to be in a part of the city not effected at all by the flooding. The support in the city has been incredible with 100,000 being displaced and only 1,500 of those needing to use shelters. Also there is a line up of people trying to donate essentials.
Seeing the photos of the Saddledome (the Calgary hockey rink) have been quite sobering, as well as the photos from different areas of the city. The cleanup will take months.
Floods in Southern Alberta including Oakster's home town of Canmore. Downtown Calgary has been evacuated as well as several other parts of the City. Hope you're safe and well @Oakster. It's all dry here in Edmonton so if there's anything I can do to help out a fellow Addick let me know.
Thanks Exiled - has been a stressful 36 hours to say the least. Not much we can do now but sit it out - cut off in all directions & the river in town is close to bursting it's banks which will cause additional misery to many. Calgary looks like it's getting hammered as well, and places like High River are beyond belief. My house was saved by the incredibly well timed installation of a flood defense barrier to divert water flow coming down from the mountain we live on - just a week before this deluge otherwise I dread to think what would have happened...
To the point on Social Media - the twitter feed & facebook pages from the local Emergency Services & the Municipalities have been priceless in terms of giving out advice & squashing rumours......
Good luck fella, have seen news footage of the floods, stay safe.
Facebook used to be fun and new. But over the last few years the site has gone to the dogs, became over-commercialised far too quickly, the sensible content has moved to Twitter, the junk remains on Facebook. Only use it now to keep contacts - and with people being so easy to find online these days I don't think even that is of much value. Twitter is excellent for niche interests.
Facebook is only as good or bad as the people on your friends list. When people moan about reading boring status updates, I think maybe they shouldn't be friends with boring people.
As someone who lives abroad, I find it's a great way of letting your parents/friends see what you're up to and how you're doing - whenever they want to. Invaluable in that respect.
Twitter I can't get into, just because it's really poorly designed. Why do you have to click three times and scroll around, searching, just to follow a conversation between two people? Why do you usually have to follow this conversation from the end and then read backwards to the beginning?
Something else occurred to me about complaining about other people's boring status updates, and how many people who are anti say they prefer to have conversations face to face. What do you do when the person talking to you starts banging on about their children, for example? Do you ignore them, start whistling, interrupt loudly and talk about football? No, you stand there glazing over, slowly losing the will to live and praying they don't have four dozen pictures of their overweight offspring on their mobile to bore you even further with.
On Fb you... scroll down brother... Bye bye boring Sarah and her dull sprogs...
Something else occurred to me about complaining about other people's boring status updates, and how many people who are anti say they prefer to have conversations face to face. What do you do when the person talking to you starts banging on about their children, for example? Do you ignore them, start whistling, interrupt loudly and talk about football? No, you stand there glazing over, slowly losing the will to live and praying they don't have four dozen pictures of their overweight offspring on their mobile to bore you even further with.
On Fb you... scroll down brother... Bye bye boring Sarah and her dull sprogs...
I think Facebook is infantile: the nature of the medium seems to encourage triviality. Strictly only for six-year-old girls wetting their knickers over Brad Pitt. The limitations of Twatter - nothing longer than 140 characters - seems to me to be arbitrarily restrictive. I use e-mail regularly to keep in touch with friends. I don't know anything about smartphones, tablets, apps, and all that stuff, and rarely carry my mobile phone because I prefer to feel unencumbered.
on the demographic issue, there is strong evidence that age is not a major factor in uptake of technology. there are cultural issues arising from what you are used to, and it is your world view that affects the uptake, particularly in early stages of a new product. people naturally tend towards the status quo, so the more life experience you have, the more baggage you need to work through to get to the tool. so early uptake is slower in older age groups than young ones. by maturity of a product the spilt is fairly even.
broadly, though, the use of technology can be divided into those that get it, and those that don't. in those terms, age is not relevant. all these things are just tools to talk and communicate in different ways. different tools will come and go, but the communication is likely to continue. much of the research i do at the moment includes taking social feeds of information, as well as recognised ones, to make sense of what is happening. this becomes important in times of crisis or major incidents. the boston bombing is a great example of how social media and information feed from the public was used to understand what was happening.
i am curious that there are those here who say they don't do social media but are here posting on a forum, which is, albeit an older form, a type of social media.
Met a brilliant group of boys and girls from Canada in Mexico last year, all good people
I'm of a generation that didn't really get a chance with computers let alone any sort of online teaching. I'm all in favour of anything that fires up communication like the 25 years too late rollout of fibre optic the country is seeing now.
I like Facebook, keeps me in touch with a lot of old mates a lot of whom are ex-pats this is better than paying for cross-border texting or calling. Twitter is too messy is for me, instagram I had a go at but is just the same people posting exactly the same as what they post on Facebook.
I've nothing against the principle of facebook if that's what people want to do but from my limited perspective it is highly intrusive and as one of a generation that values privacy I resent that.
I set up a spoof account a few years back to play a prank on another family member. Other than posting at that time I've probably opened it about once a quarter, if that, since then.
Yet, despite going to great lengths to make myself as private as possible, I still receive a deluge of emails from facebook suggesting I befriend various people or have been tagged whatever that means. The spooky thing is that despite operating a spoof account some of these people are known to me so how the hell has the link been made? I don't understand being essentially a technophobe.
I have briefly looked at Twitter but cannot follow the conversations at all, no doubt because of my inability and general uselessness as the hash tags bamboozle me rather than design faults, so have made no attempt to pursue it any further. I don't think I am missing much!
As regards Charlton Life it is something I fell into after the demise of Netaddicks and has become a habit more than anything else. One I am making a conscious effort to curtail as 14k plus comments tells its own story about the amount of time I've spent on here over the years!
I'm 20, and hate Facebook, but it can be extremely useful. I deleted it last September, however I got it back this month, simply because it makes arranging football easier and my work rota goes on there.
I think Facebook is infantile: the nature of the medium seems to encourage triviality. Strictly only for six-year-old girls wetting their knickers over Brad Pitt.
Again, only if you choose to be friends with six year old girls VF. Those of us that don't, and are able to press the "scroll down" button have no such problem. How long were you on facebook for before you came to this conclusion?
I think Facebook is infantile: the nature of the medium seems to encourage triviality. Strictly only for six-year-old girls wetting their knickers over Brad Pitt.
Again, only if you choose to be friends with six year old girls VF. Those of us that don't, and are able to press the "scroll down" button have no such problem. How long were you on facebook for before you came to this conclusion?
Of course you are quite right, Algarve: my tongue was partly in my cheek. I'm in my mid-fifties and like several other recent posters above, the use of computers didn't come easily to me. My Facebook account was set up for me by a girlfriend, so my introduction to the network was tainted by the inane warblings of her friends. I think the facility to 'Like' things on Facebook is as infantile as the use of emoticons - and you are quite right in saying I have the option to ignore all the trivialities. I'm of a generation that used to keep in touch with friends by writing long letters; for me, e-mail has neatly replaced pen and paper. Charlton Life is the only forum I belong to - a correspondent above reminds me this is a type of social media - and I find it convivial, enlightening, and entertaining.
Point taken VF. Although I would disagree with the point about emoticons. Sometimes they are needed to convey that you are being tongue in cheek, or writing something in jest - otherwise a post/status update which is light hearted can be taken the wrong way - whereas face to face you can tell when someone is joking?
I think Facebook is infantile: the nature of the medium seems to encourage triviality. Strictly only for six-year-old girls wetting their knickers over Brad Pitt.
Again, only if you choose to be friends with six year old girls VF. Those of us that don't, and are able to press the "scroll down" button have no such problem. How long were you on facebook for before you came to this conclusion?
Of course you are quite right, Algarve: my tongue was partly in my cheek. I'm in my mid-fifties and like several other recent posters above, the use of computers didn't come easily to me. My Facebook account was set up for me by a girlfriend, so my introduction to the network was tainted by the inane warblings of her friends. I think the facility to 'Like' things on Facebook is as infantile as the use of emoticons - and you are quite right in saying I have the option to ignore all the trivialities. I'm of a generation that used to keep in touch with friends by writing long letters; for me, e-mail has neatly replaced pen and paper. Charlton Life is the only forum I belong to - a correspondent above reminds me this is a type of social media - and I find it convivial, enlightening, and entertaining.
I often find myself ignoring trivialities on Charltonlife. Problem is I can't delete people on here like I can on facebook.
On here I don't know anybody personally, on facebook I know all my friends and don't have any 'online friends'.
I actuallly like the fact that I only know 1 person on CL personally, to the best of my knowledge, (not including RE, who we all know to some extent...or at least most of us do).
I actuallly like the fact that I only know 1 person on CL personally, to the best of my knowledge, (not including RE, who we all know to some extent...or at least most of us do).
I actuallly like the fact that I only know 1 person on CL personally, to the best of my knowledge, (not including RE, who we all know to some extent...or at least most of us do).
I actuallly like the fact that I only know 1 person on CL personally, to the best of my knowledge, (not including RE, who we all know to some extent...or at least most of us do).
I actuallly like the fact that I only know 1 person on CL personally, to the best of my knowledge, (not including RE, who we all know to some extent...or at least most of us do).
Point taken VF. Although I would disagree with the point about emoticons. Sometimes they are needed to convey that you are being tongue in cheek, or writing something in jest - otherwise a post/status update which is light hearted can be taken the wrong way - whereas face to face you can tell when someone is joking?
Decent writers convey nuances of meaning by the words themselves. Jane Austen didn't need an emoticon to express irony!
Point taken VF. Although I would disagree with the point about emoticons. Sometimes they are needed to convey that you are being tongue in cheek, or writing something in jest - otherwise a post/status update which is light hearted can be taken the wrong way - whereas face to face you can tell when someone is joking?
Decent writers convey nuances of meaning by the words themselves. Jane Austen didn't need an emoticon to express irony!
I was an early adopter of email (early nineties), ipod (1st generation) and forums (Netaddicks late nineties), so despite being (well) over 40 I am not a total Luddite! These are all great things that I still use (later gen music iPod of course).
For me most of what has come since is of zero interest, in Silicon Valley they like to generate preposterous ideas to exploit us, spy on us and make massive profits from us.
Open to all communications and statuses, no thanks - email is perfectly targetted and forums allow me to converse with relevant people on common interests. Having facebook friends and and liking stuff, no thanks. Electronic books, no thanks, I "like" the real ones Apps and online games & puzzles, no thanks, crossword on paper is ideal. Twattering all over the place, no thanks.
I've nothing against the principle of facebook if that's what people want to do but from my limited perspective it is highly intrusive and as one of a generation that values privacy I resent that.
I set up a spoof account a few years back to play a prank on another family member. Other than posting at that time I've probably opened it about once a quarter, if that, since then.
Yet, despite going to great lengths to make myself as private as possible, I still receive a deluge of emails from facebook suggesting I befriend various people or have been tagged whatever that means. The spooky thing is that despite operating a spoof account some of these people are known to me so how the hell has the link been made? I don't understand being essentially a technophobe.
I have briefly looked at Twitter but cannot follow the conversations at all, no doubt because of my inability and general uselessness as the hash tags bamboozle me rather than design faults, so have made no attempt to pursue it any further. I don't think I am missing much!
As regards Charlton Life it is something I fell into after the demise of Netaddicks and has become a habit more than anything else. One I am making a conscious effort to curtail as 14k plus comments tells its own story about the amount of time I've spent on here over the years!
How do they know? Because apps and social media gain access to your email address book and big computers draw up patterns of links and behaviours... no doubt driven by the hunt for advertising revenue to start with.
I expect newspapers will continue to dwindle in circulation and political spin has to change since the web has a way of revealing many angles to a story if one cares to look.
So not just a fad and all the more important to teach ethics in schools as well as the techy side.
I knew nothing about any of this until I joined the Trust committee but now have a simplistic view of how it works- for example 20% of www.castrust.org traffic comes via twitter so we make an announcement or amplify/spin something at the club and people read it.
Comments
Thanks Exiled - has been a stressful 36 hours to say the least. Not much we can do now but sit it out - cut off in all directions & the river in town is close to bursting it's banks which will cause additional misery to many. Calgary looks like it's getting hammered as well, and places like High River are beyond belief. My house was saved by the incredibly well timed installation of a flood defense barrier to divert water flow coming down from the mountain we live on - just a week before this deluge otherwise I dread to think what would have happened...
Hoping @CalgaryAddick & Gavin Peacock are both OK.
To the point on Social Media - the twitter feed & facebook pages from the local Emergency Services & the Municipalities have been priceless in terms of giving out advice & squashing rumours......
Thanks @Oakster, glad to hear you guys are ok. I am lucky enough to be in a part of the city not effected at all by the flooding. The support in the city has been incredible with 100,000 being displaced and only 1,500 of those needing to use shelters. Also there is a line up of people trying to donate essentials.
Seeing the photos of the Saddledome (the Calgary hockey rink) have been quite sobering, as well as the photos from different areas of the city. The cleanup will take months.
As someone who lives abroad, I find it's a great way of letting your parents/friends see what you're up to and how you're doing - whenever they want to. Invaluable in that respect.
Twitter I can't get into, just because it's really poorly designed. Why do you have to click three times and scroll around, searching, just to follow a conversation between two people? Why do you usually have to follow this conversation from the end and then read backwards to the beginning?
Something else occurred to me about complaining about other people's boring status updates, and how many people who are anti say they prefer to have conversations face to face. What do you do when the person talking to you starts banging on about their children, for example? Do you ignore them, start whistling, interrupt loudly and talk about football? No, you stand there glazing over, slowly losing the will to live and praying they don't have four dozen pictures of their overweight offspring on their mobile to bore you even further with.
On Fb you... scroll down brother... Bye bye boring Sarah and her dull sprogs...
Just a thought. :-)
broadly, though, the use of technology can be divided into those that get it, and those that don't. in those terms, age is not relevant. all these things are just tools to talk and communicate in different ways. different tools will come and go, but the communication is likely to continue. much of the research i do at the moment includes taking social feeds of information, as well as recognised ones, to make sense of what is happening. this becomes important in times of crisis or major incidents. the boston bombing is a great example of how social media and information feed from the public was used to understand what was happening.
i am curious that there are those here who say they don't do social media but are here posting on a forum, which is, albeit an older form, a type of social media.
Met a brilliant group of boys and girls from Canada in Mexico last year, all good people
I'm of a generation that didn't really get a chance with computers let alone any sort of online teaching. I'm all in favour of anything that fires up communication like the 25 years too late rollout of fibre optic the country is seeing now.
I like Facebook, keeps me in touch with a lot of old mates a lot of whom are ex-pats this is better than paying for cross-border texting or calling. Twitter is too messy is for me, instagram I had a go at but is just the same people posting exactly the same as what they post on Facebook.
I set up a spoof account a few years back to play a prank on another family member. Other than posting at that time I've probably opened it about once a quarter, if that, since then.
Yet, despite going to great lengths to make myself as private as possible, I still receive a deluge of emails from facebook suggesting I befriend various people or have been tagged whatever that means. The spooky thing is that despite operating a spoof account some of these people are known to me so how the hell has the link been made? I don't understand being essentially a technophobe.
I have briefly looked at Twitter but cannot follow the conversations at all, no doubt because of my inability and general uselessness as the hash tags bamboozle me rather than design faults, so have made no attempt to pursue it any further. I don't think I am missing much!
As regards Charlton Life it is something I fell into after the demise of Netaddicks and has become a habit more than anything else. One I am making a conscious effort to curtail as 14k plus comments tells its own story about the amount of time I've spent on here over the years!
On here I don't know anybody personally, on facebook I know all my friends and don't have any 'online friends'.
http://www.facebook.com/JaneAustenAuthor
For me most of what has come since is of zero interest, in Silicon Valley they like to generate preposterous ideas to exploit us, spy on us and make massive profits from us.
Open to all communications and statuses, no thanks - email is perfectly targetted and forums allow me to converse with relevant people on common interests.
Having facebook friends and and liking stuff, no thanks.
Electronic books, no thanks, I "like" the real ones
Apps and online games & puzzles, no thanks, crossword on paper is ideal.
Twattering all over the place, no thanks.
I expect newspapers will continue to dwindle in circulation and political spin has to change since the web has a way of revealing many angles to a story if one cares to look.
So not just a fad and all the more important to teach ethics in schools as well as the techy side.
I knew nothing about any of this until I joined the Trust committee but now have a simplistic view of how it works- for example 20% of www.castrust.org traffic comes via twitter so we make an announcement or amplify/spin something at the club and people read it.