Kirk blAug

I have been attempting to change some of my social networking habits lately. One of the things I have decided that needed to change was my use of that button which gives me an all too easy way to tell the poster, "Yes, I read your post. Yes, I was somewhere between slightly amused and having an epiphany. No, I cannot be bothered to do more than a single click in response." On Google+ this is the "+1" button and on Facebook the counterpart is the "Like" button. Pretty much every other social network has one too. Often a star or a heart. They all function the same though: confirmation without engagement. I do not think that I am saying that the confirmation without engagement (CWE) button is necessarily a bad thing. I know that if someone pushes that button on something I post, that confirmation is useful to me. I am not saying that anyone else should stop using it or that I necessarily will forever, although I may. This is a personal thing for me. I

I sort of despise Facebook. I am not sure exactly what it is. Sure the privacy issues irk me. The format of the website has most recently been more annoying than innovative. The mobile application has been barely functional on both iOS and Android. While those things bother me, I am not sure exactly what it is that makes me want to flee it. It is probably a bunch of little things like those listed above. There are some likes I have within the world of Facebook. All of them are entities that also exist outside of Facebook. That is to say, I like the users that I am connected with on Facebook. In fact that is what keeps me and, as far I can tell from the chatter among the internet, most everyone else there too. I do have to confess though, that I am liking one of their recent products. Chat Heads is a new feature for Facebook's messaging platform on Android devices (and in a very limited fashion on iOS devices). It came out with a more prominent product that I never see myse

I have heard this phrase from a couple of people lately. It is said with a tone of surprise. As if, when most of your friends and family are on a certain social networking site, there is some better way of announcing news such as, "our baby was born", or "we are moving". Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the people in question do not even have a Facebook account and thereby did not really hear about it on Facebook, and go through the scenario step by step. Baby is born. Parents are very excited and want to revel in the joy the addition to the family. I make a single post on this blog about the event. I share it on various social networks to inform my friends and family and anyone else who might care. Done. This process, because the blog post was pre-drafted with blanks to fill in, takes less than a minute. Now I can spend time with my family. Now comes along some asshole who expects me to go old school and spend the first half hour of my child's life w

Since I started staying home with Jupiter a couple years ago, my social media usage has gone way up. The thing is, being a stay at-home parent can be lonely. Social media counters that nicely. I first discovered Twitter while I was still working, but it gained new value once it was the majority of my social interaction. I made a lot of friends with it. Most of them local. I would later meet many of them in person. Many of them, I noticed, we're parents as well. I had used my Facebook account for years and there is a huge mix of people on it. During the day there are many parents on it too, however I did not really connect with new people through Facebook. Facebook has always been a tool that I use to connect with people I already know. Google+ has entered the arena recently. I have found that it is the best social network for connecting with people who fit a certain group, such as "Stay At-Home Dads" for me. The other night after a single search for that term, I have a &q