Twitter

[Jeremy B]

Call me part of the older "past it" generation here but what's with the Twitter obsession & complaints. I was out with my grandson last night on the train & he was tap tap tap on his phone throughout the journey updating all & sundry on his Twitter account as well as sending some tweet to VTEC about the service. As he proudly showed me his postings I had a look at what others were also posting & I just couldn't believe some of the inane & somewhat petty complaints. Since when was "I've been on this train 15mins & no one has checked my ticket" etc reached the life threatening urgency that some of these complainants feel. I feel so sorry for train staff & other customer service staff being under the glare of the spotlight constantly. The claims of big brother governments rings hollow here when you see what a curtain twitching society we have become :cry:

 

[Aldaniti]

I agree. When used well, I think Twitter has the potential to be a useful tool, but I find too many companies and organisations dilute useful information with utter rubbish, Virgin Trains are a good example. As far as individuals are concerned, all I can say is that some people must lead very sad lives. I've tried it out and lasted a couple of weeks before deleting the account.

 

[507021]

I do agree that when used correctly Twitter is a useful tool

However in the case that Jeremy has described where people are complaining because their ticket hasn't been checked that is nothing other than ridiculous. I think that in particular is a poor use of social media based customer services. People who do that in my view are wasting the time of the social media staff who may end up missing genuine request or complaints (and then they receive more complaints because the initial request/complaint wasn't replied to) because they've been inundated with pointless and needless complaints such as "my ticket hasn't been checked"

I do use Twitter but if I have any requests or complaints (unless they're genuinely urgent) I will either ask a member of staff if any are available or send the company an email instead

 

[455driver]

It makes them feel all important!

When used as a tool Twitter etc can be useful, unfortunately it is used by tools rendering it next than useless when it's most needed!

I think the companies could do more to stop the irrelevant rubbish being posted but they don't want to upset the delicate little wallflowers by telling them where to get off (and I don't mean the Train).

 

[EM2]

As far as individuals are concerned, all I can say is that some people must lead very sad lives. I've tried it out and lasted a couple of weeks before deleting the account.

I find both Twitter and Facebook incredibly useful, as I have friends and relatives in all sorts of places, and coupled with my shift work, it makes it very easy to keep in touch.
Is it really any different to some of the petty whinges we read on here?

 

[Antman]

I find both Twitter and Facebook incredibly useful, as I have friends and relatives in all sorts of places, and coupled with my shift work, it makes it very easy to keep in touch.
Is it really any different to some of the petty whinges we read on here?

I couldn't agree more, I'm part of the 'older generation' but I think Facebook and twitter are brilliant, inevitably some tripe appears but it's more than offset by the useful stuff.

 

[Butts]

It makes them feel all important!

When used as a tool Twitter etc can be useful, unfortunately it is used by tools rendering it next than useless when it's most needed!

I think the companies could do more to stop the irrelevant rubbish being posted but they don't want to upset the delicate little wallflowers by telling them where to get off (and I don't mean the Train).

That is a succinct observation regarding both Twitter and Facebook

 

[Nevillehill]

Call me part of the older "past it" generation here but what's with the Twitter obsession & complaints. I was out with my grandson last night on the train & he was tap tap tap on his phone throughout the journey updating all & sundry on his Twitter account as well as sending some tweet to VTEC about the service. As he proudly showed me his postings I had a look at what others were also posting & I just couldn't believe some of the inane & somewhat petty complaints. Since when was "I've been on this train 15mins & no one has checked my ticket" etc reached the life threatening urgency that some of these complainants feel. I feel so sorry for train staff & other customer service staff being under the glare of the spotlight constantly. The claims of big brother governments rings hollow here when you see what a curtain twitching society we have become :cry:

that's nothing mate compared to my journey on the 18.07 Carlisle to Leeds where a yobbo urinated inside the train, 5 drunken scum put on the train by the BTP, and the conductor never checked the tickets, they got off at Kirkby Stephen all dressed in superman costumes, they have the run of the train with racists remarks.

 

[455driver]

That is a succinct observation regarding both Twitter and Facebook

Just to clarify-
I would say that 90% of Twitter and Facebook users use them as intended, its the other 10% we are talking about!

 

[EM2]

That is a succinct observation regarding both Twitter and Facebook

If you don't like them, don't use them.
They're not all that different to a forum.

 

[yorkie]

If you don't like them, don't use them.
They're not all that different to a forum.

They're very different to most forums, as they're unmoderated and people can get away with all sorts.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

But they still both provide a platform for the exchange of thought and initiation of discussion...

 

[Chew Chew]

Social media is a potentially great tool ruined by the people who use them.

Facebook has the "I'm feeling down", "Awww, what's up bbz", "don't want to talk about it" brigade trying to garner sympathy, twitter has the "I'll abuse anybody I want" brigade and they both have the idiotic "I'll post a picture of my dinner" brigade.

They'd be a lot better, IMO, if they were chargeable services as it would stop a lot of people from using them.

 

[Antman]

Social media is a potentially great tool ruined by the people who use them.

Facebook has the "I'm feeling down", "Awww, what's up bbz", "don't want to talk about it" brigade trying to garner sympathy, twitter has the "I'll abuse anybody I want" brigade and they both have the idiotic "I'll post a picture of my dinner" brigade.

They'd be a lot better, IMO, if they were chargeable services as it would stop a lot of people from using them.

I don't think charging for Facebook or twitter will ever happen and if it did somebody would soon set up a free to use alternative

 

[CC 72100]

Social media is a potentially great tool ruined by the people who use them.

Facebook has the "I'm feeling down", "Awww, what's up bbz", "don't want to talk about it" brigade trying to garner sympathy, twitter has the "I'll abuse anybody I want" brigade and they both have the idiotic "I'll post a picture of my dinner" brigade.

They'd be a lot better, IMO, if they were chargeable services as it would stop a lot of people from using them.

That's what the unfriend or 'hide people from newsfeed' features are for.

 

[Chew Chew]

I don't think charging for Facebook or twitter will ever happen and if it did somebody would soon set up a free to use alternative

I agree, they will never charge and FB have monetise it by adverts millions of people will avoid by using adblock software but most won't.

That's what the unfriend or 'hide people from newsfeed' features are for.

The hide feature is well used at my end.

 

[Clip]

Facebook has the "I'm feeling down", "Awww, what's up bbz", "don't want to talk about it" brigade trying to garner sympathy, twitter has the "I'll abuse anybody I want" brigade and they both have the idiotic "I'll post a picture of my dinner" brigade.
.

This may sound idiotic to you but I know for certain that theres certain groups who do this because of the encouragement of others to stick to what they are eating so why deride them for doing so when they may not get the support from other friends or even family?

I do so every so often so every one knows when I am at Dukes eating the biggest ribs in the world and making them jealous.

 

[Techniquest]

Regarding Twitter, I've seen tons of abuse on there, which is normally as already observed by others to be the sort you wouldn't tolerate face to face. I was going to put that far more bluntly mind!

I do love Twitter though I don't live on there. You might not think that if you follow my Live Trip Reports on there when I'm on a trip, some trips I'm tweeting at least 40 times a day! For the majority of time though, I keep a fairly low presence on there, using it more while bored and curious as to what's going on throughout the country on the railway.

Which incidentally is what I was first using Twitter for, contacting TOCs with questions. It eventually grew on me, after a couple of weeks I got more and more used to it and loved it.

Facebook, well you'd think it was the centre of the universe, that the world revolves it judged by typical conversations at work. They all moan about how there's never anything interesting on there, yet they all still flick through their news feeds all the time. If you don't know about X happening, you'll get "It was on Facebook", or "According to Facebook Y is here for Z months". Then there's "making things Facebook official", as if you have to get their permission before leaving a job, getting engaged etc. :roll:

Of course, there's all the other nonsense people have mentioned like the attention seeking brigade, the food bloggers and so on there too. I got bored silly of people posting non-stop about their kids, with what felt like a million photos a minute being posted. The entire news feed was getting filled to the brim with nonsense I had zero interest in, but for the sake of unity and keeping the peace I didn't dare block or delete the work people doing so. I tried dealing with it by adding as much train stuff as I could to pop up in my news feed, but it was almost like looking for a needle in a haystack with all the nonsense from the veg (in this case, non-rail heads) so I simply got bored of it. I went 48 hours happily without using it, and in that time I'd right royally fallen in love with Twitter.

So it wasn't hard whatsoever to leave Facebook, I've been off there since late January 2015. I had to log in once a few weeks ago to click on accept on a friend's birthday bash, in an attempt to get others to say they were going too, but I reinforced that with another post to say that I wasn't back and where they could find me.

Anyway, as for Twitter, if you ignore the idiots and use it sensibly there's no problems. I do use it for sending positive stuff to TOCs via Twitter if I've had a good journey (not always mind, after all the same thing all the time would get a bit dull), or if there's an issue that needs reporting (no working lavatories, that sort of thing) then a quick tweet goes off.

 

[Chew Chew]

This may sound idiotic to you but I know for certain that theres certain groups who do this because of the encouragement of others to stick to what they are eating so why deride them for doing so when they may not get the support from other friends or even family?

Then they can keep that within the group of people who are giving them encouragement. The nom nom nom brigade do my head in.

I'm 'friends' with someone who went to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant and posted a picture of every course of the taster menu.

The need some people have to share everything instead of just enjoying themselves is rather sad.

And don't get me started on the 'wine o'clock' lot....

 

[Techniquest]

And don't get me started on the 'wine o'clock' lot....

I assume this is the sort that share everything they drink?

 

[Chew Chew]

I assume this is the sort that share everything they drink?

It, in my experience, normally starts with a woman in her late 20s or older making a post of "Wine o'clock with the girlies" and posting a picture of a glass of Rose wine.

From there it descends into the pits of hell where they post drunker and drunker selfies of themselves with trout pouts whilst all their other friends tell them how gorgeous they look.

 

[Techniquest]

It, in my experience, normally starts with a woman in her late 20s or older making a post of "Wine o'clock with the girlies" and posting a picture of a glass of Rose wine.

From there it descends into the pits of hell where they post drunker and drunker selfies of themselves with trout pouts whilst all their other friends tell them how gorgeous they look.

Oh dear, I know the sort of thing you mean. Selfies are the worst thing to come out of the current generation of technology, getting worse now someone invented a selfie stick. Clever idea, admittedly, but we shouldn't need such a thing! I took one 'selfie' (back in the day we'd call them a seminar shot!) a few weeks ago, but that was purely to update my rather out of date (by more than 6 years!) Twitter profile photo. Compare that to the young blond girl on my bus a few months ago who constantly had her phone taking several photos of her face from various slightly different angles, then proudly proclaiming to her friends around her how many selfies she'd taken.:roll:

Never had this problem when digital cameras were first invented, nor when smartphones first entered daily life. For love nor money I cannot figure out why selfies are such a big thing these days, or how it came to be like that.

My drinking log tweets come direct from Untappd, I need to find how to turn that setting off. However I'm not as bad as the example you gave, that's enough to make you shudder and cringe! 'Girlies' is bad enough, what an awful word! Mind you, seeing these photos and so on via social media's not enough close to as bad as being surrounded by such nonsense right next to you in a pub, always when you just want a quiet drink to unwind after work or to celebrate an excellent day away. Not that such idiocy is restricted to the pubs, you get it on the trains too, which infuriates me just as much if not more!

You've got to feel sorry for the poor things really, I mean rose wine? Bleurgh! If that's their taste in alcoholic drinks then just give up and go home, torturing yourself with that sort of horrible stuff is just ridiculous...

Yes, I'm in a bit of a rant-y mood!

 

[Chew Chew]

My drinking log tweets come direct from Untappd

I'd never heard of Untappd until you mentioned it there, at least it is useful.

 

[Techniquest]

Better than making pen and paper notes on your sampled beers/ciders/lagers! Best thing is it's free as well!

 

[Tracked]

The person tweeting VTEC about not having their tickets checked should've tweeted a picture of their ticket for VTEC to check? (unless they have done already).

When I first saw selfie sticks on sale I thought they were something you'd use to beat people taking selfies to death (this is a joke, probably a not very funny one).

A few people I know on Facebook are doing these make-up selling things, pyramid schemes possibly?, and that gets annoying, though not as annoying as the people who've noticed I travel by train quite a lot! :roll: - if it was wall-to-wall train photo's I could understand it, I'd be less surprised if I'd get comments about taking photos of old buildings or whatever part of the countryside I'm walking/cycling through, but the main comments about those I get are "did you go by train?"

 

[Jock]

Twitter has developed into a home of child like consumers whom like to "throw their toys from the pram" (to use a phrase) because nothing goes their way..

 

[WelshBluebird]

Twitter can be very useful though. More than a few times I have been able to find out more information from Twitter than I could from station staff or other "official" sources.

 

[Clip]

Then they can keep that within the group of people who are giving them encouragement. The nom nom nom brigade do my head in.

I'm 'friends' with someone who went to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant and posted a picture of every course of the taster menu.

The need some people have to share everything instead of just enjoying themselves is rather sad.

And don't get me started on the 'wine o'clock' lot....

Im guessing that you have no idea about Social media and that its created for people to share stuff, stuff like that and you would probably be best of staying away from it then.

Then again you use a forum on which people share their stories and pictures and gripes about the railway - how ironic.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

I like it as a customer service tool. Yes there are silly, petty complaints, but it also allows people to see a customer service team actually addressing real issues, where in the past they might have fobbed people off or even gotten away with completely ignoring letters and e-mails.