My use of sites for socialization didn’t really start until after Facebook! Although I was convinced by friends to make a MySpace page (so old!) I secretly hated it and only used it a couple times (mostly to look up bands I liked who had free music through MySpace).

When I first started using Facebook I refused to use my real name. Until Facebook using your real name only was a big no-no. Teachers and parents would emphasize the fact that you should never put your true name online with horror stories about teens and preteens who were murdered or abducted after being tracked down online through their name (nowadays we would call this getting doxxed, but back then the term doxxing didn’t exist).

I’ve rapidly expanded my use of social media as new and exciting technological advances and revelations have come about. I now use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and a few others as well as what most people think of as “the basics” (i.e. Facebook and such) and mostly on my smartphone.

I’m very interested in where social media will take us in the future. For example, Goodreads and Netflix are two sites I frequent regularly that don’t seem social at first glance but rely on social media for reviews of books and movies.