I'm trying to get a better understanding of how tech folks are using social media?

Are you using it to waste time? To advance your career? To meet new people? To learn new things? If so, then please give us some examples?

I only used Facebook for about a month back in 2004 and realized that it was a big waste of time and invasion of privacy. Did myspace for a period of time in 2005 and then closed the account down. There were a few Linux groups that I belonged too there, however there wasn't much activity.

I used Twitter from 2011 till 2015. I had to open an account while living in South Korea to communicate with a telecom's customer service in order to get help. Later, I used to it try and find work, however I really don't think it helped. I found myself checking it all of the time and realized it was taking up alot of my freetime. So I stopped using it.

Looking back, I think social media is a complete time waster and drains you from being productive and real friendship.

I'm starting to think it is destroying how we communicated, in short little blurbs that are all about me, me, me...

Someone once convinced me to open an Linkedin account, took some effort to get rid of all the spam they sent me, do not remember whether I managed to close or disable this account. No other 'social media' for me.

Twitter is my primary source of tech news. Curate the list of people you follow (e.g. not the news outlets but the people who write for them), and it's highly useful. It was there that I found out about three of this week's big tech news items: the Linux Mint hack, the FBI demand to Apple, and Slackware 14.2 becoming available for preorder.

I wouldn't have any credibility without social media. If people are interested in working with me they can learn about me through twitter and browse my content on github.

Most people have diplomas and references so they are stable, I suppose. I never even finished high school or did jobs that require taxes, social media is vital for freelancing. Regardless, I think everyone should be networking as much as possible.

I don't use social media. Social Media is for people who have a profession, business, service or just love to socialize.

I not sure if using a forum is the same as those socail media sites. If it is, I guess I am using social media to some extent.

Family. Nuff said.

I use Twitter for news, Google+ for same plus staying in contact with family. For me, it's far better than Facebook, which I refuse to use. I had a LinkedIn account when I was employed, if fact still have it, but I ignore it. I'll probably cancel the account, but it's still sometimes useful for contacting acquaintances for whom I have no other address. I don't use much else, but then I have no need to be famous or contacted by anyone I don't already know. I stopped needing lots of stuff when I retired.

What are these "social media" of which you speak? Is LinuxQuestions one of them?

/ I don't use Facebook, twitter etc.

I use facebook to look at photo shoots of smoking hot asian models. Oh, and occassionally chat with friends back home. Mostly for the asians though.

I have the same notion as well. But I think LQ is in some way a social media site as we interact with others. Just my opinion or assumption of course.

Seems to me that a lot of 'social media', facebook etc, just infantalizes people, it's just me,me,me all the time, like a five year old jumping up and down on the bed shouting 'look at me! look at me mummy! look what i'm doing!'

I grew up some years ago.
I don't have a facebook or twitter account.

Twitter can be useful. I follow the local emergency management office, traffic on the highway I usually travel, the National Weather Service for hazardous weather, the National Hurricane Center for advance warnings of tropical weather, and several more. No egos involved there. I follow a few people and organizations I find interesting. One shouldn't dismiss everything out of hand without doing at least a cursory investigation.

I'd rather take a shower in Prison than use that crap.

Never used social media. When it started to unroll it was said to have the purpose of finding lost connections between people. This is how I first saw social media and back then I didn't have a need to restore connections. Then later social media changed its narrative and began absorbing people's lifes, accustom people to live in social media rather than in real life, substituting real life. They began collecting as much data about people as possible and so on... All this is so much not my style from the very beginning, so I never considered to participate.

Especially THIS forum