[dogbreath]

I just love the inconsistency of people who slam twitter critics. We have the right to voice our criticisms and even to make blanket statements, just as people have the right (albeit not inalienable) to use twitter if they wish.
Twitter is a waste of time. So THERE!

[minimalist]

Nobody ever said anything about taking away rights. People have the right to be as ugly as they want to be (and heavens knows they will be on the internet). Question is does any of it do any good and does it really matter?
These rants are as about as effective as a cranky old man yelling for those damn kids to get off his lawn. Meanwhile, the Twitter Facebook and SMS users will just shrug their shoulders and keep on enjoying their tech.

[bettiblue]

In Safari 4 they are on my Mac. FF 3.0 they are fine.

[bettiblue]

Twitter is digital diarrhea of the mouth.

[michaelant]

"I though to my self, I have never seen this level of integration among age groups in America, ever"

Interesting observation, thanks for sharing that.

[michaelant]

try this

http://forums.macwor...m/thread/113432

was messed up for me as well at first

[jmincey]

This is article is utterly bogus. The whole point of social networking sites is that they allow their members to create virtual worlds all their own. I don't see teenagers and twenty-somethings on Facebook because for the most part that's not the world I inhabit. And they don't see me. So how are either of us the poorer for the participation by the other?

This is a complete non-issue.

Jeff Mincey

[macFanDave]

Facebook and Twitter are going to see the same fate as Florida. Once a Sodom and Gomorrah for young people, it has been taken over by old people who want to bake in the sun and wait to die. Often cool things get ruined not by age, but by money, and often the two are correlated. Cool trends are started by young, impoverished bohemians, but when they take off into the mainstream, they become bland and common.

So are you saying that my daily tweets about taking my blood pressure meds may be one reason that no one follows me on Twitter? No one is accepting my invites to Facebook when I tempt them with pictures from my colonoscopy! It sucks to be old!

[bastion]

The Pew quiz/poll did a frankly terrible job on me. The result they came up with was that I'm a borderline technophobe. Reality is that I'm a programmer comfortable on more platforms than most people know exist. The problem is they've conflated technology with communication, when there's quite a lot of space where they don't overlap.

[jmincey]

Facebook makes a great target, but that's where I get announcements from Scientific American, Utne Reader, the ACLU, the BBC, NPR, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Walker Art Center, and many other such sources. A tool is what you make of it.

Jeff Mincey

[mdawson]

It is pretty much par for the course that most technologies have legitimate uses. The problem is that most of these technologies (e.g., Twitter, cell phones, social networks, etc.) are more often abused than used to any real effect. People that think that all of the people on their social networks are really their friends clearly have no idea of what constitutes a friend. A great many people that use their cell phones while driving, are constantly making or receiving personal calls while at work or on the phone engaging in frivolous conversations as they go through their day have issues. I could go on, but you get the point.

[jmincey]

Some of my "Facebook friends" are actually friends, but many are not. Still, even when not a bona fide friend, these are people I find value in networking with. They may be of like mind or a source of knowledge I appreciate. So I don't take the term, friend, seriously in the context of social networking. "Contact" would perhaps be a better, more generic, term.

Jeff Mincey

[ericole]

Will Smith is an idiot:
"Since everyone from my immediate supervisor to the president of my company is in my friend list, there’s potential for bad things to happen."

Unless he only works for very close friends, and they know all of his other friends, he's crazy.

[maxonly]

My experience at least from MySpace to Facebook was the exact opposite! I left MySpace because of all the really young ones, i.e. 14-16 (AKA my kids friends) so I started a Facebook account. Low and behold, now they are all moving to Facebook too! I am getting friend requests from them!