Can I opt out? Of, well, everything?

[pbray]

Is it me, or does every form of social media seem intent on making their service as annoying as possible?


I have a Yahoo mail account I use for various writing groups, which worked fine until Yahoo decided to force all users to upgrade to the new version of Yahoo mail. This new version automatically signs you on to the messenger service when you log on, and the default setting for messenger is to accept messages from anyone. Which means that within sixty seconds of signing on to the new version of mail for the first time, I had a half-dozen instant messages on my screen. The one on top advertised porn, I didn't click through to see the rest. I then had to hunt through the settings to figure out how to permanently turn off the messenger service, as more instant messages kept popping up. All the while I wasn't thinking of how cool Yahoo's new mail looked, I was thinking "Should I just kill this account?"

No, I don't want Linkedin to use my private information to advertise their services. No, I don't want Facebook to share details of my life with the entire internet, or to harvest information about me and sell it to third party companies. I'm not interested in being invited to play games, take surveys, or sign up for online deals. I'm sure that whatever you have to say on Twitter is fascinating, but I can't be bothered to have an account. I understand Google has a new thing that is just like Facebook except not, but I haven't the time or the interest to sign up. I'm only on Facebook in the first place so I can keep up with pictures of my nieces.

There is much about the internet that I love, and I can't imagine my life without it. But some days, I'm tempted to go back to pen and paper, and picking up a (landline) telephone when I need to talk to you today.

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm kind of with you there, some days...

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm with you every day. It's nice to keep in touch with people you already know. I have met some very nice people online, but sometimes it's a total pain to, you know, talk to them. For instance, I will get hit with an ad once I hit "post." And there are trolls everywhere. This is actually one of the better sites to avoid that stuff. You can even close the ads -- don't tell the advertisers.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been feeling like that lately, too. Especially yesterday, when I tried to add one thing to the reading list I've been keeping since January and LJ devoured the whole thing and then smugly burped (I know, I know: my own fault for not backing up more often), and then someone spammed me in Hebrew :P

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Which spam, alas, you could read. Why, oh why, didn't they attack you with Farsi?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, the account for my website is constantly hit with Spanish language spam. Hebrew spam would make an interesting change :-)

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'm constantly getting the Russian spam. Someone should invent a spam filter for "if it's not in my language, I don't care how thoughtful and considered a post it is, to me it's spam"

[slweippert.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that awful default setting in Yahoo has been around a while. Surprises me they haven't fixed it yet. The only reason I have a yahoo account is because I'm a member of several groups there, certainty not their mail server and even less their messenger service.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

What you're seeing are these social media sites attempting to make more money. If membership stalls and formerly meteoric profits stagnate, they have to push somehow to make up for those differences.

No, I don't like them either, and I refuse to sign up for FB because of their shenanigans. Yeah, I've got a LinkedIn account, but it's not even close to as demanding as FB is. Thankfully.