The power of social media

Yesterday morning on my way to work I stopped at a local convenience store, Royal Farms, to get something to drink and a few other items on my way to the office.

As I went to pay for my items I noticed someone already waiting to be checked out.

Then I noticed the cashier was paying more attention to her cellphone and not ringing us up.

So I decided to say something to Royal Farms and I decided to use Twitter:

Not long after I got the following response:

Not really interested in coupons. Just wanted to let them know about this unprofessional treatment at one of their stores.

I’m sure someone got this message to store management, this is their only store in Chesapeake at this time.

This is where social media can give you, the consumer, power to address problems you encounter in the business world.

So far so good.

I am not missing all the noise on my phone today. I have logged into Facebook once and that was on my desktop.

I did have an article to share and I had to login to Google Plus to share. When Facebook tried to log me in, I cancelled.

So today the only two active social media platforms on my phone have been Instagram and Twitter.

Turning off the noise

A few hours ago I logged out of Facebook on my phone. I have the messenger app installed so someone is able to hit me up for a chat but all the streaming nonsense is off. Wait… Someone has a birthday tomorrow so I may have to go in long enough to wish them a happy birthday… can do that on the computer. Whew!

Then I signed off Google Plus. Next came Google Talk.

My Twitter app doesn’t let you sign out but that’s not pestering me like Facebook does.

Not going to check in and say that I’m here stuffing my face.

Facebook I’m getting tired of and don’t really care to check it much during the day but I figured what the hell! Try turning all social media off for the day and see how I manage.

People that are actual friends know they can text my phone, send an email or actually dial my number.

Instagram? I will have to stop by and see what photos are in my stream. This one I love. Some of the photos that are posted are really amazing!

Maybe write something for the blog…. who knows.

Might be hard for me, I am an admitted technology geek. That includes social media.

I’ll let you know how I do. I’m just looking to have some actual human contact that involves being with actual people, not their digital counterparts.

With all of the technology advances that I love I can’t help but feel it has become to easy to fall into the online trap and forgetting what real interaction is like.

The religion of peace

I’ve debated posting this. A large part of it has been due to fear. However, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself right?

After a week of watching the bombings in Boston and the manhunt that followed, someone shared the following photo with me on Google Plus after the second bomber had been captured:

I shared it with my group of followers. It wasn’t too long after I had this response:

This response was from someone that lives in my general area that I’ve never met or actually had any conversations with so I haven’t lost a friend. This is someone I knew nothing about their background. He is a person who is involved in the game Ingress that I’ve been participating in and he followed me from there.

I think the fear of posting this comes from the world of political correctness we now live in and frankly I’m tired of it! There is also a small fear that this person lives in my community. Are there people who would do things like in Boston here? Does this person know a lot about me from social media?

I’m tired of being preached to that Islam is the religion of peace and most are peaceful. That may very well be true. However, how many attacks have people who have been brainwashed by radical followers of this peaceful religion?

If you’re a muslim and this has you upset well I’m upset at the constant attacks on civilians and the killings in the name of your God!

How about you make changes in your community to get rid of these bad people?

For the most part I try to keep quiet in these things and if someone isn’t bothering me I don’t care what they do. Maybe that’s the problem here anymore. People can’t point out problems without the worry you’re going to offend someone or be called names.

The next time I see a cross put in a jar of urine and it is called art I will make sure and make note the number of attacks that Christians or followers of other religions make against society when they have been insulted.

So far I only see one.

Facebook Home

Friday Facebook released their launcher for Android phones called Facebook home.  For anyone that does not know, on your Android phone the screen you see with the different windows is called a launcher.

Facebook home takes over the launcher and replaces it with their content. You see a constant stream of posts from people you follow, etc. They also updated Facebook messenger to have the floating heads when you receive messages. 

I had to turn off the Facebook home feature. I guess if you are a teenager who only uses Facebook then maybe this is for them.  For me it was a pain in the butt! Especially when going for features such as the camera. I was trying to pair the phone with a Bluetooth system and it was a major pain in the rear.  It interferred with me setting up the phone. Also it appears you lose the ability to use widgets, etc. It hides your notification bar so you didn’t see at a glance what emails, text messages, etc.  you had waiting for you.

The messenger floating heads is not too bad of an idea and I kept that feature turned on.

I am pretty sure that what Facebook is looking to do is use this launcher to start pushing advertising right to the main screen of your phone.  No thanks!  I’m bombarded enough with advertising thoughout the day and really don’t want to have to deal with Facebook trying to sell me stuff I don’t need nor want.

That’s my two cents on this change.   Have you tried Facebook home yet?  Any thoughts you care to share please feel free to do so.