Your Wall or Mine?

Hi Everybody!

I came across this great article in Metroplus, supplement of 'The Hindu', my favourite Indian newspaper and felt like sharing it with you all. It is about the latest trend -'social networking' and the pros and cons of it. I found it to be very informative and fun to read, with occasional doses of humour. Check it out!

The dilemma of an individual when he finds that the latest ‘status' symbol in life is a wall.

The conversation between the two characters, Before Computers (BC) and After Digital (AD), continues…

BC: I always thought these newfangled sites were designed to make us lazy. But…

AD: Really? I get so much done on Facebook — even as I check my friends out, I handle training programmes.

BC: E-learning?

AD: No, KOC.

BC: K-12 Online Certification?

AD: No, Kingdoms of Camelot.

BC: What's that?

AD: You don't know? It's a craze on Facebook. It's about building cities, raising armies, training them and defending your city from outside attacks.

BC: I'm just too busy defending my wall.

AD: Why, what happened?

BC: Facebook is now writing my updates for me. All my friends are getting weird messages, supposedly sent by me.

AD: Like, ‘Now you really can see who views your profile!' with a link?

BC: Exactly!

AD: What did you do?

BC: Sorry?

AD: Did you click on anything phishy?

BC: Well, I got a message from a friend that said, ‘Hey, what are you doing in this video?'

AD: Listen, stop clicking on everything you see. For instance, there's a message which says, ‘Hey, is this really you in this photo?'

BC: I got that too!

AD: Don't click on it or that might really be you in the photo — in the newspapers.

BC: What do you mean?

AD: Nicolas Sarkozy, Mark Zuckerberg, Paris Hilton and Robert Pattinson made it to the papers recently for a social cause — their social networking accounts were hacked.

BC: So what do I do?

AD: Choose your privacy and security settings wisely. Never settle for the default or recommended option.

BC: But we always choose default settings when we instal any software, don't we?

AD: Software doesn't ask you ‘what's on your mind'. Facebook does, so think for yourself.

BC: Ouch, ok.

AD: And never let apps and games lie dormant.

BC: What am I supposed to do? Play Mafia Wars and exchange chocolate cows all day long?

AD: Mafia Wars and Farmville are passé. I'm into...

BC: You told me... Camels of Kingslot.

AD: Kingdoms of Camelot — you're obviously too old for this. That reminds me; never reveal your date of birth.

BC: I'm too embarrassed to. I can hardly understand the status messages posted by these college kids.

AD: Why?

BC: Can you imagine a status message like ‘How!' getting 24 responses varying from ‘Phat' to ‘YTB' and ‘Yeah, babe', all in an hour? And 17 people ‘liked' the message. Wish there was an ‘unlike' button too…

AD: There is, but I would advise you not to go near it. That's another popular scam that takes control of your account.

BC: Good Lord, at this rate, I'll need a book of dos and don'ts to operate my Facebook account.

AD: There IS a 24-page e-book titled ‘The Holy Grail of Facebook Privacy' that you can buy online.

BC: A book that tells me how to write on other people's walls and not get scammed? I don't believe it!

AD: There are simpler ways to learn these things. Aruna had posted a message with a link that explained everything about security features on Facebook… didn't you read it?

BC: Actually, I didn't click on it.

AD: Why?

BC: Thought it could be spam.

Here is the link: The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : Your wall or mine?