Facebook is very scary.

[Marco]

Mmm... The jury's out for me on that one, judging by amount of time that some of them spend on there, posting idiotic 'selfies', or similar banal nonsense, to folk every two minutes. It wouldn't leave much time for anything else!

Marco.

[montesquieu]

Never had Facebook, looked at it when it first started to be popular and though no chance. It's got worse and worse too, this tagged pics nonsense these days.

I don't ever sign into google either - I had to set myself up once when I got an android phone cheap for when I was travelling in Taiwan and Japan, and my iPhone was tied to a contract. Even though you can shut off tracking I still don't trust the buggers.

Remember if a service is free then ***YOU*** are the product, your data to be bought and sold with little control. Europe is a bit better (thanks to EU Data Protection regulations) but America is outrageous - it's possible to buy information with up to 5000 datapoints on each of 200 million individual consumers, which is a frightening amount of information.

GDPR may help but ultimately they'll find a way to make you click through stuff and give them permission to buy and sell you.

With ubiquitous computing and the internet of things - sensors in everything including your car, communicating it back to base - this can only get worse. Goods that you theoretically own but where the provider of the software can impose restrictions - such as Tesla outlawing their cars to be used for ride sharing, or farm vehicles that can effectively only be serviced by particular dealers (not great if your in some village in Nebraska 200 miles from the nearest outlet).

Needless to say I won't be buying any of these Alexa-type devices that listen to your conversations and attempt to fulfill your 'needs'. Actually I think at some point people will get heartily sick of all this.

http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/w...06-gx5zvj.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...ut-of-my-face/

[walpurgis]

I have a pal who is on Facebook every day. The mind shrivelling rubbish he involves himself with is unbelievable.

[Minstrel SE]

I suspect a lot of the people on FB have very active social lives in the real world, that just isn't enough for them for some reason.

Thats a deep point actually Martin and very true. They seem to be out and active all the time but always seem to be trying to keep in touch/show off with a wider circle as if the present moment is not enough..Sheena said this or heres a picture of my meal....really who cares?

There was something on telly last night where a young woman had kissed someone then blatantly put it on facebook so her boyfriend saw it. They are living their truly unremarkable lives out on some sort of stage and thats what irks me the most.

I feel like saying you are with us tonight so stop looking at your phone. Luckily I dont hang about with many of the facebook addicts.

My aunt is getting pretty bad with a tablet device. She was always over chatty but now she has all the holiday snaps and instant messaging to hand.

I can understand it for more isolated old sods like me but I do like my privacy and wouldnt dare to presume anybody was interested in the minutiae of my life.

[Marco]

They are living their truly unremarkable lives out on some sort of stage and thats what irks me the most.

I feel like saying you are with us tonight so stop looking at your phone.

Me too. It's the utter banality of it all that gets me, and you just feel like giving them a shake! You have to wonder what's inside their heads, other than perhaps some stale air?

In terms of the last bit, I would have done - and in no uncertain terms either. But then our friends are neither 'iPhone zombies', or likely to behave so rudely in our company.

Marco.

[hifinutt]

recently joined facebook to keep up with old work colleagues who i miss . its been brilliant , caught up with loads of old friends i havn`t had contact with . helped build relationships with distant rels . i know there is lots of rubbish but there is some good . recently homebase fined me 60 quid for staying at their store for 15 mins too long [limit 1hour] which i did not realise . put it on their facebook page and within approx 5 mins the manager had rung me re the matter