I'm on Facebook, and have about 1000 friends, but the vast majority of them I don't know, they are only friends because of the games I play on there. There is little personal info there, and few photographs. I do see postings by my grandaughter on there, and she details everything she is doing, as does my daughter in law.

Exactly, I never said that was the fault of facebook as you claim, but clearly the fault of the muppets who chuck their personal information around like confetti and are too dumb to take full advantage of the security options,for whatever they're worth.

The loose or broad usage of the word "friends" is one of the things that gets up my nose.
Many of them woudn't really know each other from Adam, and could count on the fingers of one hand, rather than in the thousands they brag about, those who are true friends and would be there to drag them out of the crap in serious times of trouble.

Don't you think this is just one step on from mobile phones - it has always amazed me that people will have the most personal of conversations, at high volume, in a train carriage or other public place, surrounded by strangers. And don't even mention the people who ring someone from the supermarket with such inane questions as "they haven't got the large size of Product X... what shall I do?". How the hell did they make such earth-shattering decisions before mobile phones were invented?

I only succumbed to having a mobile phone when I moved to Spain as we don't have a landline. It is very rarely used and it takes me about half an hour to send a text message, so you can tell how much of a luddite I am.

Touch typing I can do, computers OK but don't ask me what to do if it goes wrong. OH always asks me, how did you cope at work, and I say I had staff to do that sort of thing!

Shh.... I'm bored of talking to you, its hurting my brain.

I have to answer in defence of facebook at least.I dont know much about twitter and OH says he dosent either.

I dont use facebook at all so know little but what I do know is that that it has earnt us money through our main income website.In other words its a good advertising place for free.

Many people do it now including large companies.

Its not just another forum type thing.

OH put a small note on facebook over xmas about lliria.Now there are nearly 50 people signed to it including spanish people and they can advertise for free.

Fb is on the news a lot saying it's been targeted yet again by hackers and 1000's of accounts were hacked, I also saw on Sky news that the guy that started FB is 29 years old and has made about 29 million quid.

The other thing that I have noticed that I don't like is, these smart phone are linked to Fb and any other site you may be a member of (if you accept it, that is).

Regarding some of the free apps you can download, has anybody seen what they sometimes ask as the conditions that you must accept to use them, an example may be, this app has access to mail, position, contacts and phone usage, Now what do they want all that for?

I guess its a very intense tool and you use it to your needs.

If you use it wisely then I dont see any prob.

I don't think he would like to hear that figure.

He is worth $12.5 Billion

I was thinking the same myself... don't suppose you have seen the film? I saw a "snide" version and it was OK.... I'd not pay money to watch it but passable.

Now there's a surprise..

Whoooops sorry about that, I knew it was a lot, I bet he makes more with every click too

Probably - I edited my post from $6.9bn to $12.5bn just to reflect the increase since last autumn!

I remember reading the Sultan of Omans total went up 8000 dollars a second.

Looks like he'd better start sharing it out if he doesn't want to end up like Gaddafi.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12590588