When VT shared the below tweet with me, I wasn’t surprised. Indians have taken social media by storm. For good or for bad, there is no stopping of sharing the forwards, tagging children or writing contact numbers on the wall.
If you are not an Indian, it’s okay. I understand your confusion. I have had to tell my folks to watch out for privacy settings and not click on every random link on Facebook.
Their rationale?
Well, the neighbour’s aunt’s son’s friend tagged me and he is a good guy. I did not know it was a spam. I looked but couldn’t find ‘spam‘ written on the link. Also, many people were tagged on that post so how can it be spam?
What started with being friends with children on Facebook transformed to making friends with everyone who sends a friend request and why not? After all, they want to be friends.
Facebook users by country, 2018. (millions)
India: 270
US: 240
Indonesia: 140
Brazil: 130
Mexico: 85
Philippines: 69
Vietnam: 58
Turkey: 52
UK: 45— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) August 20, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
What do you think? If you are in Indian, would you agree? If you not an Indian, how is the usage in your country?
Writing for #MicroblogMondays #208 today.
happiness and food 
I am not Indian, but I feel like the struggle with older family members joining social media and not realizing the dangers of loose security IS REAL! 🙂 My MIL clicks on every single thing and shares things that are obviously not true (and probably viruses), but I do have to say that she has never put my contact number (or anyone else’s) on there. Yikes! It does make me giggle when she starts a conversation about what we are having for dinner in a comment on a picture of, say, my garden. I feel like Facebook use skews older in the US — the younger people are on Instagram and Snapchat far more often, so I guess now I am in the “older” category, ha! My students say “Facebook is for parents and grandparents now.” Oh well.
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So this is real in terms of content that is shared. I know what you mean about generations. I never liked Snapchat. I feel something like that transient doesn’t fit my criteria of sharing in social media. Thanks for stopping by, Jess.
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I got a message just last night from a friend who had been hacked on FBk, and his account had been copied. I knew it wasn’t him as soon as he said “I’ve been having a great time lately.” That didn’t sound like him at all! Sigh. He’s a semi-public figure, and it looks as if he hadn’t kept his friends list private. Argh.
I find the people who are the ones who don’t understand social media privacy issues are often people my age (middle-aged) who let their kids do all the tech stuff, and the millenials who don’t care about privacy – or perhaps understand the implications.
I had to laugh at the comment, “I looked but couldn’t find ‘spam’ written on the list.” I know people who might have said that!
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Oh no! Sad for him. My Papa got his account hacked and then someone on his friend list even reported it. So imagine!!
Thanks for that honest comment!
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One of the reasons our numbers are high is because of our population. If one takes percentage I am sure we are not so much.
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Good point! You are right.
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Yeah, most of us are now dwelling in Facebook! 😛 Sharing anything and everything for the attention it gets us..the Likes….the 10 seconds to fame and happiness! Tch tch…
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Ha ha! I know what you mean Shilpa.
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For many, Life revolves around only fb, clicking pic keeping fb profile pic in mind, check ins and status updates everything for fb…Realism is fading way.
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Yeah! You are right Vartika. For many, life revolves around FB
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Facebook and WhatsApp became so popular in India now. Everyone has it and along comes the privacy issues. I see my mom and mom in law violating privacy by uploading photos of our kids photos as their profile pictures. They don’t understand what they are doing even the educated ones, so clicking on suspicious links becomes normal. Also believing anything that is forwarded on WhatsApp to their accounts. I’m sure India is leading in Facebook usage with all these people competing to share the breaking news first and rushing to get the blessings by forwarding god’s photos.
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So true, Vinitha. Couldn’t agree more.
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Ohh all these things are really scary sometimes. indeed, it is important to take care of our privacy. especially with kids.
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Totally agree!
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Facebook has become a part and parcel of our lives. While we may know about privacy settings, spam messages etc, our kids and parents may not be aware of the same. And that is truly scary and risky!!
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It is! We need to protect data and even millennials don’t understand that part.
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For me, personally, I have all but stopped using FB for personal reasons unless it is for sharing important updates. And most of my family are not on social media or if they are, they are way less active than I am.
But as a generic rule, yes, people don’t check the veracity of anything(both on FB and Whatsapp) and forward them. A little bit of discretion can go a long way.
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Agree. I have also distanced myself.
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These are some interesting stats. I want to share here that one of my friends 75 year old grand mother too is using facebook and whatsapp. So what you say and what the other comments mention holds all good. As hilarious as it may sound, it is the reality
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It is! What makes me happy though is how the older generation is able to learn and adapt. Sure they miss out on many things but hey, they are learning 🙂
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I don’t live in India but belong to whatsaap groups from schooldays. There are some very active members that post anything and everything. And then there are the FB pros who post an hour by hour account of their lives. Each to their own I guess.
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Yes, each to it’s own.
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