Facebook

Same here - it's too easy to keep adding 'friends' and then regret that it's become impersonal. Mine is restricted to about 15 family and friends and I use it for enjoying photos and keeping up with what they are all doing. How amazing that photos and litte videos can be uploaded and shared in an instant, so I can watch my grandchildren playing even when we are not together.

I have found several old friends from my school days in Canada and my time in New York. My son posts photos and videos of my 2 GDs and friends who live abroad do the same. So for me it's great and enjoyable. I to have to stop myself from correcting spelling mistakes [many people use text-speak on their comments] and of course the mis-use of the dreaded apostrophe. To say that poor grammar and punctuation doesn't matter is wrong I'm afraid - it does matter, it can make a lot of difference in writing letters, threads etc. A poorly constructed letter or comments could be completely misconstrued - it's also just plain laziness.

My beloved iPad loves to correct everything I write which means the occasional unwanted apostrophe if I am not careful; it can also mean some very strange words if I don't check! On the very rare occasion (and it is rare) I might mention a mistake and that is the time I make an even bigger mistake myself

You can tell your iPad to stop correcting things for you via Settings – General – Keyboard.

Then all mistakes are your own and not the machine's.

Dorset - a Gransnetter after my own heart!! It's not just spelling mistakes/typos/grammatical mistakes which make me bang my head againt the wall though- yesterday I heard a BBC newsreader say how the dogs who killed a pensioner in his garden "were beaten off with a golf stick"!!! Presumably to distinguish it from a cricket club or a tennis bat?

Thanks Bags. I did this on my telephone but never thought about it on the iPad. Mind you, what excuse will I have then?

In the times at the weekend AA Gill was slating the Disney caff in Harrod's(well he would wouldn't he?)but he wrote about children (presumably not his) shoving food in their gaping mores. Loved it. He was at the same time complaining there was no interaction between the said children and their parents/nannies as they were all prodding their iPhones.

I think spellcheckers are responsible for most of the worst errors of the AA Gill kind. The computer will accept any old rubbish as long as it's a real word. I wonder if homophones will disappear as a result? I've recently seen 'bow' for 'bough' among many I can't remember.

Regarding Facebook, would you, if you're a grandma, send a 'Friend Request' notice to your 17 year old grandaughter who lives in another country? I'd really like to but haven't because, well, if I was the gd would I really want my grandma as my Facebook friend? Would it stop me from being myself? I use FB with people my own age but with the young ones, would you? Kiwibird

My 21-year-old GD doesn't live in another country, but we are friends on FB. I don't comment on her activities - well, only in private - but I do 'like' photographs she puts on. I have warned her not to be too revealing about her clubbing experiences!

I have had several invitations to become "friends" on FB, but have resisted anything to do with it ever since there was a paedophile ring somewhere like Portsmouth, which was apparently facilitated by FB. Daft maybe, but there you go.
According to DD, re. FB, another of our relatives tells everybody what she has eaten for breakfast and what she plans for dinner and other interesting snippets.
No, gn is enough internet for me. I like my privacy too much.

Rosey I agree with your original post, it does matter, putting the apostrophy in the wrong place or not at all can change the whole context and meaning of a sentence.
As for facebook, no thank you or any other so called social network site, it's how my ex met up with someone else and left me and moved straight in with him in as long as it too to drive there (50 minutes or so) in my car! so no thank you.
I await the day when insurance companies will not pay out on burgled homes whose occupiers announced they were abroad for two weeks from a given day. I have never understood that one or the fact that so and so is off to the hairdresser's on Saturday for a couple of hours and I really have no interest in what the pet canary ate for its last meal today. 90% drivel and unadulterated diarrhoea with a scattering of family picture to connect with.
Sorry, just my view and I appreciate the argument that billions use it so cannot be wrong but again millions of flies eat faeces does that make them right? Just asking?

I have met some very nice people and -one for the pedants- play several games of Scrabble. Kiwibird I have been 'Friends' with my Godchildren for some while and they can 'block' me on some posts if they don't want me to see their comments. Likewise I can 'block' them if I write anything unsuitable

I like to keep up with distant friends and family via Facebook and have access to some wonderful photos. They tend not to write the kind of drivel mentioned by PS which I agree is tedious
I'm pleased to have confirmed my suspicions that you are male PS which I'd suspected.

I have been friends with my granddaughter for a couple of years now, although I think she blocks me from some things! Like annodomini I tend to just "like" comments and don't say much in public. Now 19 and at uni, she doesn't go on there so much, I think she's more of a Twitter person now, and I have no intention of going there!

It can take a while to learn how to get the best use out of fb, but I started using it originally to stay in contact with family all over the world. We 'speak' far more often than we would if we had to pick up a phone. Also now that my daughter has children she posts photos of them most days, because we only see each other three times a year. You can learn how to hide adverts on your page, block twenty zillion dogs that need rehoming, block your mother-in-law from seeing when you are on fb so that she doesn't always phone just as you are settling down for a session but you have to be brave and prepared to click on a few things to see what happens. There is a help section, too.

My son speaks an entirely different language on fb, but my daughter stays the same, unlike many of her friends. I have a beautifully-spoken niece but can't understand a word of what she posts.

I have a friend who wants to be able to keep up with her son when he goes away to Uni this year, I am going over to give her a lesson some time soon. I think the worst aspect of it is that, (apart from its efforts to advertise) like many other sites recently, its tools are not all visible until you hover over them with your cursor.