Social networking

Bored by Facebook?

This is a guest post by Daisy Atkinson. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.

This is something I’ve been hearing a lot lately, and just mentioning the name to a friend while he was excitedly tapping away on Twitter, seemed to bring him up short. ‘Well, I never really use Facebook these days, there’s no need.’

Now this really shocked me. Throughout school and university we, like everyone else we knew, had communicated tirelessly through Facebook. The popularity of which caused some people to shut down their profiles during exam time just to avoid failing from ‘Facebook addiction’.

So why is interest for the network now waning? Facebook engulfed the popularity that Myspace once had, but now, with the advent of an entirely new generation of social networking tools, each with their own unique selling point, has Facebook had its day?

Survey and Statistics
A poll conducted by Ipsos, taken from a sample of 1,032 Americans, revealed that just over a third were using Facebook with less frequency than they did six months before. Those polled described the reason for this being that Facebook had, for them, become ‘boring’, ‘not relevant’, and even, ‘not useful’. This is a shocking report when, in a digital age, the importance of social networks
has never been so apparent for communication, marketing and research both at work and at home. What is even more surprising is the idea that the most prominent social network of this digital era is now losing clients.

According to another survey of 1000 Americans, an astonishing 80% also admitted to never having bought products as a result of advertising on Facebook. From a business perspective, this is an extremely worrying statistic, especially for the thousands of companies using Facebook for the purposes of e-commerce.

It is to be expected that Facebook’s most popular age bracket for users is 18-34, as this encompasses the generation in which it began, however, what is slightly surprising is that Facebook retains its popularity with this demographic when there are far more complex social networks available to what I would consider to be the age bracket most fluent in social networking.

Complaints about the network often concern the enormous catalogues of photos that stagnate on profiles, or vast amounts of spam from the variety of games available on a network that was never designed to be an interactive gaming site. I must admit that I recently fell victim to Tetris on Facebook one boring Tuesday evening, but with my attention now firmly turned towards the burgeoning social networks, neither has held my attention in recent months.

There are other options out there that are not necessarily bigger than Facebook, but a hell of a lot better in satisfying your specific needs.

Twitter
Even one of Twitter’s directors recently stated that he still hadn’t figured out the basis of Twitter’s appeal, but in my opinion the key lies in its constant state of flux. The ability to post photos, videos, comments, links, and likes cover a lot of the popular aspects of Facebook but with much faster and simpler processes.

Instagram And Facebook
Instagram is the new and more interesting approach to photo media, as it allows the user to have a more interactive relationship with their product by altering the outlook of photos. Facebook has played a blinder by getting involved with this application, as it has revolutionised the users’ approach to storytelling through photos, and has enabled Facebook to adapt to its requirements through Timeline, making the photos more accessible according to date and event.

Before the arrival of Instagram, unless there had been a particularly interesting event in the last few days, Facebook didn’t produce anything more appealing, visually or textually, than any other social network.

Of course the simplicity and size of Facebook has attracted, and will continue to attract even older generations wishing to publicise their antics online, but the functionality and appearance leave a lot to be desired for the more discerning social networker.

Facebook chat for instance, while reaping the benefits of its new arrival during what I consider to be its most progressive stage, is still one of the most limited real time conversation applications around today.

Despite its relative drawbacks, the social network has successfully retained a global following for a number of years, and through some trial and error periods spent optimising layout, has stayed ahead of the social networking game since its
creation in 2004.

If Facebook continues to create connections with developing applications like Instagram it may survive a little longer, but my prediction is that this generation of more demanding social networkers will flock to something new and shiny for a piece of the action.

Author Bio
Daisy Atkinson is an English graduate from The University of Liverpool. She currently works as an online marketing intern at Quick Lingo, for whom she
writes articles, manages their news portal, The Daily Polyglot, and operates their various social media platforms. Daisy also writes for FE News and for a number of other online publications.

Orkut adds a Family Friendly Feature – “Safety Filter”

Social networking site is a place where we can connect with people and have a good, healthy relationship with. If these sites become like porn sites, then where is the meaning for social networking ?

Its good that Google has come forward to implement this feature in its famous social networking site Orkut.

Google is changing things in Orkut so fast and its improving almost day by day. And We can say that Orkut would surly be a tough competitor for Top 1 place in social networking sites, in the coming days.

This “SAFETY FILTER” feature is automatically turned on in all profiles and you can turn it off anytime by going to “settings”. You turn it off or on, orkut’s tough policies against explicit content will still be in place.

The new “Safety Filter” automatically screens for content that may not violate Orkut Community Standards. With the “Safety Filter” on, whenever you come across a page with photos or text that you might be bothered by (such as sexually suggestive phrases or images) , you’ll receive a warning and the mature content will be replaced by special icons. No filter is 100% accurate, so if you see a page that you think should be blocked, just flag it as always and let the Orkut team know about it.

Orkut has been criticized and even sued in courts of India, not so much for sexually explicit content, but for political content, including communities on the site that criticize the country or some of its politicians.

The filter in Orkut is however oriented to filtering out sexual content and not political content. Filtering political content is far more difficult as there is always a gray area as to when the filter would come in the way of freedom of speech, – said Rahul Kulkarni, product manager at Google India, on Thursday.

Netizens take care of your health and increase productivity

Studies have shown that more and more people are getting addicted to internet now a days.Money making strategies and success stories have made more people to look around the web to see what made those rich and successful.So we can wildly guess that, these internet edicts are mainly educated and socially aware people.

Many people spend their time online by involving themself in playing online games, viewing pornography, emailing, chatting and in social networking sites.

And we have also observed many bloggers, staring at the monitor from morning till evening and some times it will even continue to late nights.

Netizens spending unhealthy amounts of time online have more chances of forgetting to eat or forgetting that they have already eaten 2 to 3 times, sleeplessness, have more arguments(trying to stand by their opinion) and start feeling isolated from society at some point of time.

Fatigueness would always hont Netizens and bloggers, which is sure to reduce the performance.Bloggers can’t comeup with a killer post and students can’t concentrate on their studies.
Porn videos create stickiness to the web, until one decides to leave it.Middle age ( teen age ) guys and girls commonly get addicted to pron videos at some point of time.

So, almost all net edicts will have some of these problems in common:-

Eye strain, hair loss, backpain, neck pain, Fatigue, stress, isolation, and some sort of psycological disorders may also occur.

How to avoid these things?

Eye strain :- Don’t keep staring at the monitor for longer time.And don’t forget to blink your eyes.Keep blinking your eyes frequently.This will relax retina.

At regular intervals, do eye exercises.Rotate your eye bolls 360 degree.See to maximum left and maximum right.This will give a nice massage feeling to your eyes.

And after 1hr of internet use, just close your eyes with your hands(washed hands), such that no light rays fall on your eye lid.Make it fully dark, by covering your eyes entirely by your both hands.But don’t touch your palms to your eye lids.Just surround the eyes and don’t touch it or don’t press it.hold it for 2 to 3 minutes.This will give a full healing power to your eyes.This technique is called Relaxation technique.

And do not wash your eyes with water, as soon as you getup from long hour of internet use.First do the above mentioned exercise and then wash the eyes.

Avoid light rays falling on your eyes directly.Always see that there is sufficient light on the object which you are looking at.

Try to use anti-glare glasses (spectacles), it will avoid some extra glare on your eyes.

If possible invest in an LCD monitor.LCD monitors are less stressful on eyes.

Do not rub your eyes when you feel itching, just follow the relaxation technique and then wast your eyes with pure water.Use of eye drops(prescribed by your physician) is always good and recommended.

If you get pain in your eyes and/or some rashes start appearing inside your eyes means, immediately stop all your works and contact your doctor(preferably your family doctor).

Intake more vegetables and leafy(green) items in your diet.

A myth : – Looking at greenery( garden, forest etc) will improve the eye sight.

Remember that your eyes are more precious then you think.

Just think of a person who is suffering from eye sight problem or a person who is not able to see the 7 wonders on this earth(atleast in the photographs).Think of those who are by birth blind, who even can’t imagine about the surrounding they are leaving in.Remember those who lost their eye sights in accidents etc.They all regret about it.Now, why would you get to their situation even after reading this post.

Hair loss, stress, strain, sleeplessness all these are kind of brothers and sisters.They all belong to the same family.They are interdependent and interconnected.We all know that, Hairloss is mainly due to hereditary inheritance( ! ).But we are more pron to get bald faster(even faster then the hereditary problems start) if we get more stress, strain and if we have an unhealthy lifestyle( latenight blogging, day-and-night online gaming etc).Hair loss, stress, strain, sleeplessness may also cause headache and eye problems.

So take regular breaks from your internet works.Move yourself from your computer chair and do some stretching exercises.Take regular nap, and come back refreshed.This will increase your productivity and decreases the risk of getting into the trap of health hazards.

Backpain, Neck pain, Ankle pain are common, but neglecting it may increase the problem.So do regular execersis to keep yourself healthy and fit.

And to avoid isolation, there are plenty of ways.Infact the feeling of isolation is psychological.Get in contact with friends(hmm…not in IM or in Social Networking sites).Goto to party with them.Watch your favorite movie with your friends and family.Discuss about any matter, let it be about internet(if you don’t know anything else).Just interact with people more face to face.This will eventually kill the feeling of isolation.

Along with yoga, exercise..also try to practice regular meditation.This will increase your brain power and is an excellent solution for all sort of problems.

Click here to read an effective meditation technique that should be an ingredient of every persons life.

Caution:- In the way to get rid of isolation, don’t try to hang out with your IM buddies.Don’t try to meet them personally for dating or any other kind of stuffs.Because you never know who is the person, how is the person.In many cases, we take lot of time to know about our friends and after some days, we again feel, that we were wrong in knowing him properly.When such is the situation, then how can you trust an stranger ?

I urge you, I beg you all….please take care of your eyes and health.Because we all know that, health is wealth.In fact, health is more important then wealth.

And we all know a fact that, everyone on this earth will surly die one day, so you may ask- where is the point in maintaining health ?

But I feel that, we should even maintain our health inorder to die properly, orelse we need to die in a worst way.

Please share your opinion and experiences regarding any issues of health….

And also share with us, some of the tips that you may be knowing, to maintain good health.Mainly for the internet addicts.