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Evengelical Buddhism - Farcebook, twatter, unsocial media etc
lobster
Crusty Veteran
I have reactivated one of my Farcebook accounts ... came across a Familar Face ...
https://www.facebook.com/newbuddhist/
Do you use unsocial phones, tablet farcebooking, twatter etc?
Personally I find advertising very distracting. I just don't like pulp faction. Should I be more linked-inn?
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I just use adblock plus and don't get most ads from any sites. No ads on the NB facebook page for me.
twatter?? LOL
I find Facebook in particular, due to its high profile, particularly intriguing. It has no security to speak of and therefore profiles people with their complicity. The data can be used commercially, criminally, for social control or so I am assured, for fun.
So I am once again trying to find the fun element, just in case it goes beyond posting superficial trivia.
In the past people I had never heard of would asked to be stalked/followed or befriended. In the interests of playing the facebook game, I would follow and befriend but found the degree of shallowness unsatisfying.
I would wipe and start again.
This may be me
https://www.facebook.com/ed.jason.56
... or more likely due to my security settings, it might not be visible publically.
So basically I either don't exist or can not be found. Bit like the alleged Buddhist 'self'.
If you know who you are or how I follow you, then I would be happy to link up. Maybe others too?
Facebook is the spawn of the devil but not as interesting.
Tsk tsk tsk, @SpinyNorman , remember who you're talking to.... @lobster.
Facebook is the PRAWN of the Devil.
And a mighty tasty little bugger he is too....!
I think you have "musseled" in here, but well done for "winkling" out the pun.
I think you have "musseled" in here, but well done for "winkling" out the shellfish pun.
I use it all ;P
its the wave of Dhamma future in the west.
Indeed ...
As a trainee internet Jedi and monk you know the marrying of educating potential with a means of sharing. New wave Buddhism. Is it the fourth or first turning of the Dharma wheel or just spin ...
As I always say to Yoda, 'A muppet be not!'
I am on Facebook and twitter, but have it all out for public display.
Now you're scaring me, @lobster...
Should I narrow down the privacy to "Friends" only?
Why?
Most kids don't. Some linux powered paranoids are convinced that the attempted 'total recording' of all data has been achieved by the Insecurity Services. What if it has?
Some people think number of cyber friends=social status.
I am quite happy to befriend or follow people like yourself or @Jayantha who I talk to on NewBuddhist.
What you need to be aware of is basic internet security. Just common sense.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/0/21259413
I do not keep my FB public (though sometimes I make posts public) because I don't want random FB stalkers from groups I am in to see pics of my family and such. I share pics of my kids with family to keep them updated (hubby has a HUGE family) and it's certainly no on me to invade their privacy by publically posting pictures of them. I actually ask them before I post any photos of them. 75% of my FB use is to keep in touch with distant family. I have about 120 friends, almost all of them I know in person (with a few decades long online friends from distant countries and a couple of NBers).
The other 25% of my use is a few groups, including my Sangha, which runs a FB discussion page and works very well for connecting people under our teacher in MN, Europe and a few people who watch his teachings on youtube. It makes for some really good discussion. It also helps when I have questions in my practice and my teacher is inaccessible which he is half the year while he is in Nepal and Tibet. I belong to a yoga group, a running group, and a cooking group. All of which have been very helpful and have led to new friendships.
Just a tool like anything else. It's not inherently good or evil. It just is. What we do with it and because of it is our doing. People like to blame the internet, FB, and their cell phones for everything. They say "I hate FB, i can never get away from it. I hate my phone, I get so many notifications." When what they really mean is "Instead of changing my routine and priorities and my device settings, I'll blame the problem on anything but my lack of accountability." Which is pretty much par for the course in the US, lol.
Facebook is like to live in house made up of walls of glass.
You have to take lot stress to hide(privacy settings) and worry to look better always as whole world is staring in your house.
Or maybe they just have a neurotic need to be constantly communicating.
More of a neurotic need to feel important and be noticed and to think every random thought we have deserves a voice.
Spewing forth mind vomit isn't really communicating.
Social media has become (especially for this younger generation), a global medium to not only demonstrate delusions/poisons, but also foster and create them.
The mind delusions have always been there in humanity....but the stage and audience was never this big, and that is what has made it a problem, in and of it self.
It's sad to watch this generation unravel....and they not only are unaware of it, but seem to get validation/self worth from announcing it all.
Social media has been a PR rocket for the Self.
Damn, I hope it gets better.
There is a lot of self-indulgent blogging on social media and forums, but I have also noticed that people get addicted to a continual stream of activity, like they don't exist unless they are communicating with somebody, anybody.
Thanks guys,
I think we have all experienced the glued to phone updates generation. However I also feel that useful, insightful, social, friendly even spiritual education and communication is possible with social media.
Each generation goes through total consumption that grows into a mature and balanced intake ... hopefully ...
I would advise that you do, and generally I would advise caution. There are some dubious characters out there in the virtual world, some of them are professional criminals who would love to get hold of your picture, date of birth, personal history and so on.
True.
Gratitude for my online social selection- NB!!!!!
I love this
https://facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1037505972988051&set=a.1035359753202673.1073741827.100001859737842&type=3&theater
I have and due to a vicious hacking incident, I don't use my real name on FB - on advice from police. There is a good side to social media, but like the nursery rhyme, when it's bad, it's rotten
There have also been some amazing things that have come from networking. Look how many people and projects that have been helped with crowd funding. Parents have solved medical problems for their children because of social media. People who have previously felt entirely alone due to quirks now can connect with people like them thanks to forums. In some ways, the internet points out just how special we are not. And perhaps that is where our need to be constantly connected comes from, in part. Every day people can connect with doctors at hospitals, experts on topics, others in their fields. Just by random discussion in a running group on FB I was able to connect my son with a NASA project manager in Texas. They email regularly now.
The internet is what it is because of what people make it. Just like any other type of consumerism, the product is a result of demand. We have to stop sharing, commenting and reacting to stuff that we hate in order to stop seeing stuff that we hate. Yet those are the things we react too the most strongly and argue the most about. The internet loves to be outraged in every corner. Trump and his supporters like to be outraged. And the rest of us like to be outraged at them. And we make ourselves believe our outrage is justified and theirs is not.
Anyhow, there is a lot we can control about what we see and what we click on and comment on etc. We can control the mind garbage that we contribute online. And that which we choose to consume.
I think you have it @karasti
Skilful usage. For example @Jayantha our resident trainee monk is fulfilling a great need to understand the path and nature of the path through his blog and other media communications.
If we look on youtube we find several lifetimes worth of discourses and commentary.
Do we want to join friends, immerse ourself in dharma, contact, encouragement? It is all there to educate and become that most required faceless facebooker facing out from the far shore ...
How wonderful!
Soooo... here I am, bobbing up now and then from the Facebook tide...
After a spell of the strangest friend requests from the strangest freaks available in the FB circus, I have decided to do as @karasti described above: photos are only to be seen by friends and family, posts on Buddhism and miscellanea, open to the public.
Other than that, I can't say I'm addicted to overcommunicating on the net, but FB has become the main link to connect with friends and family faraway, and I have also made some interesting contacts there.
I'm on the lam from my highschool alumni association, which every 5 years or so, as far as I can tell, tries to scour the internet, looking for a way to contact me. I maintain such a low profile that I'm invisible, except for a zen-like grin, like the Cheshire Cat.
Even if I didn't have to hide out, I wouldn't use FB or any of that, because I simply don't have the inclination, nor the time to fiddle with it: updating info, uploading photos (I don't know how), etc. Anything on the internet can become a drain on one's time in a sort of sneaky way, without us realizing it. I try to be mindful of how I spend my time. Life is short. Make every day, if not ever hour, count.