Like a billion others, I have a Facebook page. And I had a MySpace account that is still out there...somewhere. As a job seeker, I also have a LinkedIn account. There isn't much to say about LinkedIn here, and MySpace is sooo last decade, so I'll pick on—er, stick—to Facebook. While social media is definitely a part of my life, I'm not quite as avid a user of it as many people are. But I do have a few issues: the five problems that I personally see are, in no particular order:
1. Privacy. If you're a private person, stay off of social media. It doesn't matter how guarded you are about your presence—you can be tagged in photos and posts, which can be seen by any Tom, Dick, or Harry anywhere on Earth. People can post photos or comments about your comings and goings as they see fit, and all too often it's not how you see fit. On Facebook, you can remove tags, but getting photos or comments removed from another person's page can be tricky, if not flat out difficult.
2. Tagalongs. Another issue of mine are those who follow you around. I have one friend who, for reasons unknown to me, needs to "Like" everything I post. S/he even searches for my posts just to give them a "Like." Even on pages s/he has nothing to do with! To me it's like photobombing someone's photo. While it is a good feeling to have someone like what you bring to the table, it gets annoying after awhile when you can't breathe without that person following up with a "Like." Pretty soon, you can't tell what they really like or dislike because they "Like" everything! Fortunately, Facebook has a way that you can throw these serial Likers a curve so that they don't see everything you do, yet still remain a Facebook friend. I've invoked that for this individual. In real life, though, I'm not sure what I'd do about someone who did this.
3. Advertising. A friend of mine had a physics professor in college who reminded his class that "physics is EVERYWHERE!" Unfortunately, so is advertising. Ads do make it possible for websites—particularly social media sites—to have members without having to crack open their wallets and purses to participate. Definitely a good thing. On the bad side, ads can contain sneaky little things like cookies (not Oreos, unfortunately), which are little programs written to track people's actions. Knowing where people are going and what they're doing allows advertisers to tailor ads to those people's specific tastes. If I absotively posilutely have to look at ads, I don't mind seeing ones for items that I might actually buy (like chocolate or electronics), but I don't need to see ads for Pampers or Maybelline products. In my case, I use the Google Chrome browser and have installed a free extension called Adblock, which works quite well to hide ads. More about that some other time.
4. Difficult people. This may be somewhat related to the Privacy or Tagalongs point above, but I put it separately because not all problems about such folks are privacy related and don't involve people who glue themselves to you. Social media is just that: social. That means that everyone can participate as they choose, sort of like real life. As in real life, there are people who just don't fit in. Of course, we should always try to make people feel welcome in a group or conversation. Most people, upon being accepted, turn out okay and are just fine. Unfortunately, there are those who not only don't fit in, but won't fit in or even try to fit in. They're the ones who need to hog conversations, change the subject/steer it toward what they want to discuss, try to be funny when they're not, and on and on. If someone is way over the line, getting them removed can take an act of Congress. And we all know how slow that will be...
5. Text formatting. This is not really an issue on LinkedIn, but on Facebook you can do just about anything with your posts. They have little graphics that they call "stickers" so you can add a little spice to what you write. They're always tinkering with Facebook; lots of updates and little quirks. But for some reason, they have yet to come up with simple formatting. Being able to bold, italicize, and underline your words would improve things significantly. Get on it, Facebook!
Tomorrow, I'll share my earliest memory. Stay tuned...
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