Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Technology


Cells phones, tablets, laptops, e-readers. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest. On board? I am… well not on all of the above, but enough to be dangerous.

A friend’s daughter opened a shop on Etsy to sell reproductions of her hand drawn stationery and paintings. Somewhere in the midst of reading her email and looking at her Etsy shop, I stumbled upon her website, and from there, her blog. Curious of course, I clicked my way through the site and came upon paintings of normal sized naked women that reminded me of ancient Greek art, though I had no idea of what they represented or the young woman’s creative process. With her degree in art, I assume the subject matter was part of the curriculum.

Anyway, there were all these little social media buttons at the bottom of the blog post and, you guessed it, I clicked. I chose Pinterest, expecting to be connected to her Pinterest page, account, or whatever. I should have known that you just can’t hop into someone’s private online space without being friends or followers, but I found out. When nothing happened after my click, I had an Aha! moment, along with heat rising through my body. I dashed to my daughter’s room – Girl #2 – to inquire into what just happened, though I was 99.99% certain. I’d posted the naked woman onto my Pinterest page… or would that be, pinned to my board?

During my two second sprint, awkwardness changed to a fit of laughter that lasted at least a minute as I tried to explain what I’d done. Between my tears, snorting, and doubling over, I managed to get the story out. Girl #2 said, “Come on Mommy, let’s see what you’ve done and fix it."

Fortunately, I was able to locate my Pinterest username and password (one of 500 +/- usernames and passwords… an exaggeration, but you get the point), and signed in; whereupon my daughter and I found the naked woman. Because the account is seriously inactive with only three followers, two being my daughters (Girl #2 and Girl #3), I didn’t feel I would have to do any widespread social media damage control. Girl #2 showed me how to delete the image and that was it.

By the way, my young friend’s painting is Art, and definitely not confused with pornography… or there would be no laughing; especially because my third follower is a minor.

I was reminded of this episode while dressing in my bathroom. Our huge mirror over the double sink vanity is a daily poke of life’s imperfections. Today, feeling confident, I was assessing the results of the Christmas cookies. Not too bad, I thought. “Butttt…,” I continued to think, “What you see in a mirror and on a photo is often different,” as I looked at my phone charging near the sink. And then another thought – “Snap a picture to see if your ‘not too bad’ assessment is justified.”

Next thought: “Are you STUPID!!!” Press a wrong button, end up in the cloud, and you’re fried!

How do you feel about technology and social media? Any stories you care to share?

image found here

16 comments:

joeh said...

So your the one posting all those dirty pictures!

LL Cool Joe said...

I'm not on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat but I am on Pinterest. I don't tend to link any of my online activity together for the reason you mentioned, before you know it you've got a random follower on Pinterest, where I have over a 1000 followers reading my blog. That could be okay, but I'd rather keep them separate if I can.

When I was doing my degree in art, I drew hundreds of nudes, and there really was nothing sexy about the whole process at all!

Mari said...

:) :) :) I'm laughing out loud reading this. Sounds like a situation I might find myself in!

ShadowRun300 said...

Oops! Totally sounds like something I would do. I have to run to my daughter for help quite often. Kinda sad really.
I'm on Pinterest and Facebook, but not very often. And I have no idea how any of the other social media forums work, which is fine by me.

Abby said...

HA! I've had that same feeling of, "Wait... what did I just do??"
Like Cool Joe, I like to keep my social media accounts separate. Even if not immediately obvious, I think overlap has problem potential! I have facebook and pinterest and, reluctantly, instagram, and ignore all three quite equally.

Karen said...

This could so be me! I'm laughing WITH you!

Haddock said...

I am/was vary of posting things on public media but now after reading this I am doubly sure that things can go haywire.
I stopped posting pics on my FB unless its a blog post link and that too related to someone where he/she wants publicity.

Midlife Roadtripper said...

I can appreciate this. At the current moment, I can't access my cloud -- even though I don't normally do so. Or do I? No clue.

Linda Hensley said...

I've posted a nudes on my blog in the past. I didn't realize I was just lucky not to get tagged as porn. Besides the blog, I only use FB. I don't really like it, and limit my time on it to see what people are saying and to keep up with some people I don't see very often. I think people are wasting their lives on social media and wish they'd get up and actually go see people in real life.

Hilary said...

You're a hoot. I'm not on TOO many social media platforms but I wouldn't dare use the cell phone to take a selfie. That's what an unattached camera is for... not that I've ever taken a selfie with it either. ;)

Unknown said...

All I can do is laugh out loud at this! I was at the phone store yesterday. My phone is making a loud screeching noise at random times when I am on the phone. The first time I took it in, the guy said it had to do with the towers being worked on. Well two months later its still a problem. I tried to explain it to the guy that it sounded like the sound land lines used to make when there was a problem. He had no clue! Glad to read this and get a laugh for the day.

Barb said...

I would never take a nude photo of myself since even looking in the mirror gives me pause! How did all that wrinkling and sagging happen? One of the reasons I recently made my blogs private is the need to keep writing and photographing in a candid way but not to feel quite so exposed to public scrutiny. I like the connection with people, but often it's a very superficial tie that isn't uplifting in any way. I'm on Facebook but rarely post - again, I'm private about what I put on social media. I'm actually shocked sometimes at what people think is appropriate. Maybe I'm too old! I thought I'd use Instagram more than I do. I have made some connections with other photographes there, and I enjoy studying their work. Again, because I have a public account, I protect my privacy and never post photos of my Grands or anything overly personal. Pinterest can be a real addiction! I go weeks without using it and then find myself wasting hours! It's fun to read your posts again, Anita. Sorry for the ramble, but you always make me think. Hugs from CO.

Arlee Bird said...

there is the good and the bad and the ugly which is that I have a difficult understanding and figuring out much of the new technology. I'd thought about selling some stuff around my house on Ebay or Amazon, but I never seemed to be able to get my accounts set up properly. My patience with such things goes only so far.

Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out

WordsPoeticallyWorth said...

I've just got back on blogger after years of refusal by my computer! On chrome now so have finally got back my access to my account! Tut.

Thanks for sharing. Love love, Andrew. Bye.

betty-NZ said...

Love your story! I'm pretty good at finding my way around the internet but some of the people that I tried to teach at the local SeniorNet classes could never grasp it, no matter how I tried to patiently explain it. One lady just wanted to get pictures from her camera to her computer. She brought the camera in and I showed her, as slowly as I could, how to do it--TWICE. When I saw her a few months later, her pics were still on the camera....I blog and have a Facebook page but that's all. I'm not about having more views or followers than someone else.

Shalet Jimmy said...

This Friday, I am going to attend a workshop on ' The Cloud '...One year ago, I was a journalist who used to use FB, Twitter and even blog, superficially. But destiny had other plans for me, I became a communications Manager. I have to deal with Fb, Twitter, wordpress, LinkedIN, Instagram, flickr, you tube. If you know Hoot Suite , you can manage all the abovementioned simultaneously. I did n't like it at the earliest. But now, I am slowly liking it. But I am a bit tensed about Friday's workshop..

I loved the post.....