(Not that anyone cares, but:) I'm a 23 year-old without social media or smartphone. I consider myself a science experiment. The world is looking more alien to me every single day.
For example: last night I was watching the Vergecast [1]. The last episode is literally 90 minutes of four adult men bitching about social media smartphone apps! It's insane.
If you're watching the Vergecast and posting about it on HN then you're not that much of an outsider as you think you are. No one of my friends or family your age are on Twitter or Pinterest and maybe half are on Facebook. It's easy to think the whole world is into social media when you're reading about it every day, but the majority of people have no idea what any of this means or are even remotely interested in it.
I was really into MySpace and because of that I just sort of naturally transitioned into Facebook probably somewhere around 2007-2008 (I don't remember exactly). Though MySpace served as a typical teen social tool throughout junior high and high school, it became less interesting to me after graduation (strangely enough, right around the time you start seeing less of your friends in-person) as I spent more time with fewer people (family and my girlfriend, mainly).
Right around the time that my girlfriend and I went off to university together, I pretty much just stopped using it. All of the (little) social interaction I felt I needed was satisfied in-person, and so I didn't really need it anymore. I used Facebook a couple of times (quite literally), but at some point I got fed up with hearing everybody talk about it all the time (I think the foregone conclusion that "everybody has one!" really irked me), so I looked at it all, realized that I really didn't use it, and deleted everything.
Though I still get the occasional friend trying to convince me to come back, I haven't, and I've been OK. I really don't need another Internet distraction, and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything substantial because of it.
Wait till you have kids. Facebook works really well as a "sharing photos of the grand-kids" for all of those grandparents and great-aunts around the country/world
could you tell us something about your friends/family situation (geographic location, socioeconomic situation, education, etc). i know three (!) people who are not on facebook.
Define "not on Facebook." I have a Facebook account, but I haven't actually logged into it in over a year and the last post made to it was probably 3 years ago.
I don't understand this at all. You read hn and yet you think the world looks alien because most people small hand held computers around with them??? To be honest this sounds like some attention seeking gesture, so people ask you about your "radical" smartphone-free lifestyle, especially since you prefixed your comment with "not that anyone cares".
there's nothing alien about using a smartphone. it's a natural progression and people are avid consumers of entertainment, so when it goes hand held it's a no brainer that it will be popular. Not to mention all the useful things they do.
you're not without social media, you're commenting on hn?
>you think the world looks alien because most people small hand held computers around with them???
Alien means different, not magic. This world is alien to the world of 2005, and most of that quality is a result of ubiquitous smartphones. The issues that we are grappling with now around smartphones were only the concern of science-fiction authors 10 years ago. I'm not sure how that could be controversial.
>prefixed your comment with "not that anyone cares".
That's called humility.
>you're not without social media, you're commenting on hn?
Does sending a letter count then?
Sorry for commenting, it's just that they only give me one downvote.
For example: last night I was watching the Vergecast [1]. The last episode is literally 90 minutes of four adult men bitching about social media smartphone apps! It's insane.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/12/5204758/the-vergecast-105...