Social network sites are nice. They give us a chance to talk to others and get their opinions on things. Sometimes this educates us and sometimes it aggravates us. In some cases it gives those who have lost contact with people a chance to hear from them again. An example of this is a Facebook group for people who retired from the same job. I belong to one of these myself and am still in contact with people who I worked with 20 years ago. If it wasn’t for this group, most of us would never have heard from the others. It is enjoyable to find out what others are doing with their lives and sometimes meet with them again for lunch and other things. I definitely enjoy some social media, but social media is a double edged sword. First there are the policies involved. Sometimes policies used are not policies we want and we have to make a choice of either leaving the particular social network we are on or just grinning and bearing what we don’t like.

An example of this something I heard Facebook members complaining about. Apparently some members of Facebook groups have had their computers disinfected by anti-virus software which Facebook put on its site. Facebook had stated they had a goal of cleaning infected computers which go on to Facebook. Taking malware off of a computer is usually a good thing, but there may be certain software programs which will look like malware to anti-malware software and thus be erased. I think this might be the complaint by those who have go on to Facebook only to have their computers scanned and cleaned. In most cases this does help those who are not capable of keeping their computers free of malware, but there are quite a few people who have effective software on their computers that does this. Facebook will tell us these machines will not be cleaned if they indeed are clean. Some argue a choice should be given of cleaning the computer or leaving Facebook for the session.

As far as interaction on social networks go, I will make the occasional comment along with others, but there sometimes is some pretty nasty stuff put up. I never believed in people performing character assassination and hiding behind a screen name. That is just a form of cowardice. This is a big problem all over the Internet. I think this enables those who are not able to stand up for their rights when they are face to face with others. It turns them into cyber bullies. If one cannot say who they are before putting someone down, I won’t even read their comments. One of the great advantages of certain social sites and video sites is the fact you can find out how to fix almost anything. The Internet has turned us into expert repairmen and repair women. We do have to be careful however and make sure what we are told is correct. When I had to perform maintenance on my snow blower I wasn’t sure where the drain for the oil was located. I found a video on YouTube which explained everything.

One of my pet peeves about social media is all the people which want to place a guilt trip on us. How many times have I seen something like “share this if you feel sorry for children with a missing leg”, or “share this if you support our military.” It makes one feel if they don’t share the post they are heartless or anti-American. I guess there will be a lot of people who will not agree with me on this one, but I believe I can give something what is known as a “Like” to show my support and not have to repost the post so others will also have to do it. I also do not like posts which threaten you with bad luck if you don’t repost them or even post which state you will have good luck if reposted. I saw one once which the poster tried to really scare everyone. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like you would burn in hell if you didn’t repost the post. There are those who are very superstitious and take these things seriously. Fortunately for me I am not one of them.

I am on three social networks today. The third on I am only on because to be truthful I cannot figure out how to close my page. I am not going to mention the name, but unfortunately for me I have opened two different pages at two different times without realizing I was already on this network, because I hadn’t used it in years. This screwed things up to a fair thee well. I did research on closing one of the pages but could find nothing. I wrote to the network but didn’t get an answer and looked through all their help files, but couldn’t find anything to fit what I was trying to do and that was eliminate one page. I guess this is what I get for making such a dumb mistake.

It is unfortunate that useful things can also be used for bad things as evidenced by the terrorist groups which are using social networks to keep in contact with each other and recruit new members. I often wonder why these networks cannot just be closed down or blocked if they are on foreign soil. I think we all know the Chinese block much of the Internet as do the North Koreans, so I don’t imagine they have the recruitment problem which is taking place in the rest of the world. I have heard about viruses we have sent out in the past and I am surprised we don’t lay one of some of these sites. Could it be there are reasons to keep this battle going such as weapons sales and political gamesmanship?

Social networks have their usefulness for most of us and it seems they will get even more popular as people become more isolated with their computers and game machines. Who would have believed years ago millions of people who be meeting online for dates? Believe me when I tell you this would have been considered awful when I was a kid. In the beginning of this phenomenon parents used to warn their kids this was dangerous because you never know who you were going to meet, but it has become quite popular today. Things are changing and we have to get used to the idea.