The young generation (and social media)

[Sherlock77]

I'm actually quite antisocial for a "xenial", and most of my online communication is either related to business, school, or special interests. Influencers typically (note I said typically, not all) are either marketing majors and/or highly social extroverts with large social networks backing them. I have yet to hear of an artistic photographer influencing. Usually influencers start out with marketing and then get into photography to improve their photography skills. It's not a job I envy, at all, though - unless you just have the natural knack for it and gain a huge following, the financial gain is almost zilch. Especially when you factor in the middle man companies, that work directly between the advertisers and the influencers. It's very much like doing PPC advertising.

Social photography trips sound horrifying to me. Part of the beauty of photography or any artistic endeavor for me is getting out alone with myself to take my own pace and time to make my own discoveries.

You're not as unusual as you think. Most artists I know like to be alone to create.. not just photographers, and not just older people, and not just aspies.

Thanks... I know what you mean

 

[Tom]

 

[OlLiE]

it's the difference between a mature person who does photography to enjoy what he created,
and immature vacuous people who are just into photography for the likes it can get them

its the difference between an artist and a shallow, vain marketing person whose life its plagued by so much insecurity that they are continuously seeking the approval of others to get through their pointless consumption driven days

 

[tlc]

I don't think it's the age. I know plenty of older folks who live on their phones, including my folks. I'm 42 and don't do facebook, instagram, anything social online besides this site and a few other message boards strictly about projects. I've been online since 1997. I do pay some bills online at the fast and secure connection we have at work, and get things from ebay once in awhile, but that's about it. Other than that, I prefer my old cars, my old satellite dish, my old tapes and CDs, real books. I just have a flip phone that I don't use very often, some days I'll have zero calls or texts and I'm good with that.

Maybe the resistance to change is an aspie thing, maybe not. I stick with what I know and what works, and the newer things get the more skeptical I am of them. Much of it is for good reason.

Like your photography, I do things to please myself, not others. I enjoy looking at stars and planets sometimes, but tried an astromony group once and it was just too much. I get much enjoyment from playing music but don't play in a band. I enjoy fixing cars but don't have a mechanic's license and don't know much about newer cars. I fix appliances and things around the house but only when I need to. I'm good at a lot of things but would rather dabble at my own pace, than go all out to compete with the rest of the world.

 

[SusanLR]

I've never had a Smart Phone and don't get what people seem to be immersed in with them.
If I did have one, the only things I would use it for would be to find the answer to something I wanted
while out, like an address or time a store closes and such and it would come in handy when I want
a map to go somewhere.
I don't use a gps. I think they are annoying.
I would use it to take an occasional picture if I saw something I wanted a photo of.
I don't care about texting. I don't even like talking on a phone, but, it is necessary sometimes.

I have a flip-phone and that is enough. Just in case of an emergency is mainly why I carry it.
Sometimes someone calls or texts and it's in my bag hanging on the door knob to my room.
Well, I don't even know when it's calling there unless I'm in the room with it.
I don't think to check it most days to see if there is anything on it. It may be days before
I see someone called or texted.

My house phone I let voice mail screen the calls. Again, I may not see the blinking light
indicator that someone left a message. I'm very hard to catch via a phone.

 

[Progster]

I do have a smart phone, rather old and outdated now, but I rarely access the internet from it and never use it to watch videos - the screen is just too small. I also can't stand these greedy service providers who are constantly inventing new ways to try to trick you or catch you out to pay more money, changing their deals and packages, or making them a s complicated as possible, charging wildly varying rates for different services or charging extortionate amounts to connect to any network that is not theirs, constantly spamming me and even calling me to buy new products. I can't entirely avoid them if I want a phone, but I want as little to do with them as possible.

 

[BradT]

I just have a little over 30 friends on FB, I went to a private high school and in college I don't really have time to make friends. It's a big university. My question is how the heck do people have over 2000 facebok friends? There is no way they can know that many people in real life or do they do some type of networking?

 

[Mr Allen]

I just have a little over 30 friends on FB, I went to a private high school and in college I don't really have time to make friends. It's a big university. My question is how the heck do people have over 2000 facebok friends? There is no way they can know that many people in real life or do they do some type of networking?

Some people just do the WORST thing you could possibly do on social media IMO, send friend requests to random strangers you don't know who might have "mutual" friends.

 

[Graphin]

I just have a little over 30 friends on FB, I went to a private high school and in college I don't really have time to make friends. It's a big university. My question is how the heck do people have over 2000 facebok friends? There is no way they can know that many people in real life or do they do some type of networking?

30 seems like a very high number to me already.
I really like the wording:
Friends on Facebook ≠ Facebook friends

 

[BradT]

Some people just do the WORST thing you could possibly do on social media IMO, send friend requests to random strangers you don't know who might have "mutual" friends.

lol.

 

[rollerskate]

Well, I for one am grateful the cameras have been so vastly improved on smart phones, because it means I can take pictures when I'm out and see something interesting, without purposefully dragging a DSLR around.

I'm terrible about dissociation while walking. I don't need to be looking down at a phone to do it, either. I have to very purposely focus to keep from just zoning out into my thoughts and getting smacked by a car. My oldest son does the same thing. All I can say is God must be damn determined to keep us alive. ‍

 

[Sherlock77]

Well, I for one am grateful the cameras have been so vastly improved on smart phones, because it means I can take pictures when I'm out and see something interesting, without purposefully dragging a DSLR around.

I'm terrible about dissociation while walking. I don't need to be looking down at a phone to do it, either. I have to very purposely focus to keep from just zoning out into my thoughts and getting smacked by a car. My oldest son does the same thing. All I can say is God must be damn determined to keep us alive. ‍

Just looked at some of your photos in the other thread, some nice work, shows an artistic eye... I merely drag around my much smaller Fuji mirrorless camera to take photos, I do like the smaller size of it...

 

[Annanda]

Well said, I agree with that, smart phones can be very useful, but are easily taken to the extreme

Recently I observed a young mother in the train with her baby. I was deeply touched by the despair in the face of the child. It only faded when his mother connected with him. But she was obsessively occupied with her smartphone. Every know and then she tried to call someone, observed her contacts on social media and so on.
It's not the first time I recognized such kind of parent-child interaction dominated by this little flat box with an integrated high performing microprocessor.
It seems that it will dominate society in a way we could not even imagine.

 

[Progster]

I was in a pizzeria and across from us was a family of two adults and two young children from abroad, obviously on holiday. All four were engrossed in their phones the whole time and not talking to each other. I made me wonder what was the point of their being on holiday at all if that's (nearly) all they were going to do.

 

[Mr Allen]

lol.

Seriously, that's what they teach the kids down at the Lifewise Centre where I used to work, Internet safety, OK the majority of the kids who go there are 10 or 11, too young to even have Facebook accounts, but the accounts are managed probably by their Parents, and they're taught not to accept randoms, only people they know offline like friends from school.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I'm a millennial and I don't use social media much, the only other site I'm on is facebook and I don't use it much.

As someone who is friends with and works with many millennials and Gen Zs I can say that the media portrayal of us all spending all our time on our phones, constantly snapping selfies or all sitting around a table in a pub staring a our phones instead of talking is completely wrong. Don't believe all those BS stereotypes. When I go out with my friends we spend the whole time chatting and laughing together, shocking I know.

Smart phones and social media are tools. It's down to the person how and when they want to use them.

 

[Fino]

I've hated photos since I was a child, alway saying things about them destroying our minds by remembering for us and other dramatic such things. I'm not as dramatic now, but I still dont like them. I think I find them disturbing somehow.

 

[Mr Allen]

I've hated photos since I was a child, alway saying things about them destroying our minds by remembering for us and other dramatic such things. I'm not as dramatic now, but I still dont like them. I think I find them disturbing somehow.

I used to have a thing about people putting photos of me online, after an incident at Karate a few years back where some group of idiots from a forum videoed me training and put it on YouTube without my knowledge or consent under the title "Retard does push ups", thing is, I can do the actual Karate, but I can't do push ups or sit ups to save my life.

I got over it though, and now I'm more open to public photography, having attended stuff like Comic Con every year for about the last 5 years.