I keep seeing this in the news and it really makes me sad. What started out as a truly fun and exciting social networking site dedicated to keeping in touch with your friends and family members has turned into a murder and suicidal excuse.
As if we didn't have enough things plaque our world we have to throw in the is idea that with social networking you can be talked to, emailed, called, stalked.. etc. It's just that easy. When I don't have someone's number, I look them up on Facebook, it's almost always posted there.
Just in case you do NOT know what I am talking about. Check out these recent headlines:
Facebook Stalker Paul Bristol Kills Ex Girlfriend
Death on Facebook
YouTube Video
Eeek.. it's all too much. These things make me reconsider being on twitter, facebook, myspace or any social networking site.
What do you think?
The idea of blaming social networking sites for these kinds of crimes has been around for a long time.
ReplyDeleteIt goes back years to IRC chat rooms years ago when occasionally people met each other off the net from the chatroom.
One or two people were murdered.
The internet was new, membership of the net in those days was the preserve of people interested in IT.
The very idea of using dating sites was frowned upon, and if you were such a user you dared not admit it to your colleagues.
As the years have gone by, more and more people realised what the net could do for them and it became such an extremely useful and powerful medium, it no longer could be be used exclusively by one group of people.
But those ideas, that you mustn't meet people from the net, that everyone from the net is a mad axe murderer, those ideas still persist - thankfully to a lesser degree.
I recall conversations I had with people (online) that there are such people in real life, that you'd meet down your local bar, you can't tell who those people are going to be, and you can't just assume that everyone on the net is such, point out the flaw of their logic, that they're on the net too and are they a murderer, that usually results in the conversation being terminated as they hadn't the intelligence to think of it in that way before.
There's bad people everywhere, they're not confined exclusively to the net.
But why should someone's murder spoil one's own enjoyment of the net? Does the net not provide many benefits, pleasures and use?
Your point about looking up people's phone numbers on their social networking sites is an example of naevity.
I came across a person that had posted their resume online, touting for business as a website designer, the young lady had posted her full name and address!
Very risky thing to do, and highly stupid.
People need to be much more careful.
For example, I have two email addresses, one of them I hand out to companies I buy things off, and other people I'm not sure off.
That email address doesn't contain my name! I have another which does contain my name.
I totally agree. Thank you so much for commenting on my page.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time when I am looking up number on Facebook these are regular people that i see for events, fashion shows, photo shoots and such but I never thought to get their number because I could just email them on Facebook. There are times in which I need to ask them something right away and cannot wait for an email back. Simply put, I check out their Facebook and just call them. From there I save them into my number.
I don't that that is a negative thing to do. In fact if these people didn't want others to contact them, they wouldn't post their information for all to see.
I keep my phone number posted on my Facebook for the exact reason that sometimes people need to get a hold of me.
I enjoyed your insight and thanks again for commenting on my page. I look forward to any future advice, comments or suggestions that you have for me.
-Ashton Miyako
The phone number thing is interesting. People evidentally publish it on line so people can get hold of them.
ReplyDeleteContrast this what's almost the complete oppposite in chatrooms years ago.
I met a few people from online, and I gave them my phone number. People were shocked I would give them my phone number.
What I gave them was a mobile number which can't be traced to an address. In the UK, landline phone numbers (if not unlisted) can be traced to an address.
Was I careful, sure was! What's the worst that could happen to me, I get harrased by some girl. What action do I take to stop that? Just change the mobile phone number.
It's a little inconvenient, but people that needed to get hold of me could do so through email or my landline.
But generally, the ladies would not dare give you their number.
There was definitely much more fear among females about handing out their phone number.
You folks in the USA were much more advanced in using the internet to communicate with each other, to arrange meets.
I remember going into a USA chatroom and nearly all the conversations were centred around "anyone from xxx area want to meet up?", where as in the UK that rarely happened.
Whether the distances involved between American towns/cities encouraged them to use the net much for this kind of thing, or whether it was just the UK perception that people that used the net were geeks and there must be something wrong with you.
I noticed a few years back when I was in New York, when I told them what I did for a living, people were really impressed, here in the UK, tell a girl what job I did then and their eyes would gloss over and they automatically regarded you as a geek and the conversation didn't progress much more beyond one sentence.
If you work in technology, if you're clever in the UK, then you're classified a geek with all the negative connotations which that entails.
This is the country where people brag about being bad at maths!