I've never used Facebook or LinkedIn and I'm someone who doesn't feel the urge to sign up. Should I be concerned?
LinkedIn, I still have an active account. But I really don't "get it". The amount of garbage and spam posted by your connections on there, is quickly approaching Facebook levels. I rarely use it, except to clear out inbox requests from head hunters. It's basically a SpaceBook for business people.
1) So I don't get questions about why I'm not on Facebook.
2) To let friends tag me in pictures (and see what pictures are being posted of me).
3) To let friends invite me to parties through Facebook.
4) See pictures of friends' babies.
I think it's good to have a Facebook account. It lets people push stuff to you, and more often I'm seeing invitations coming exclusively through FB. But I personally don't think you're missing anything by not actively using it.
Likewise, LinkedIn can be nice to keep tabs on past colleagues, not those you were close to obviously, but those on your periphery. You don't need to participate in the community to get the biggest benefit, IMO.
It was like removing the carrot-dangling-from-a-stick when I left Facebook.
Not really. If you feel no peer pressure to sign up, great!
For me, I was missing out on events when classmates and even teachers started communicating via Facebook. These days it has died down again in favor of Telegram so I could technically deactivate the account, but I'm keeping it for convenience. Recently saw someone's wedding being announced there, not something I want to be missing out on. I'd have caught on eventually, but this is easier.
It depends how often I check it. If I have lots of stuff I want to do, I might not check it for a month. If I'm bored a lot (i.e. when school begins again after the holidays), I'll probably be on it before Monday morning is out, and be checking it every other day from thereon.
Linkedin:
Depends on your situation and business I'd guess, but as someone with not too much experience with Linkedin, I don't know. I've got it and I actively make connections, but I don't really use it other than that. More of a backup thing.
If so, if someone wants to invite me, I'm sure they can find a way around Mark Zuckerberg to do this. If not, their loss. I'm not a party person though, that might have something to do with it as well. (I do get around to my share of hacker conferences, but they somehow don't seem to use Facebook...)
I find the whole tech platform very promising, and I have a group chat and a couple private chats going on it, but at least in my social circle, we haven't transitioned.
Do you do event invites with it? Do you do family group chats with it? Just wondering.
Anyway, people in my vicinity usually get their healthy dose of paranoia through me so sooner or later, they typically end up installing Telegram. It's not perfect, I have a wishlist, but it's a far cry better from Whatsapp privacy-wise and client-wise (and sticker-wise if that's your thing).
Sometimes it takes a little pushing and inflicting logic (why should I install technically inferior Whatsapp for you, but you not technically superior Telegram for me?), but most people get around to it. Those who don't, I usually just end up losing contact with -- and so far I have no regrets about losing contact with anyone.
> Do you do event invites with it?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "event" invites, but whenever a group needs making (e.g. for project groups), I create it in Telegram and invite everyone that already has it. Sometimes there are one or two people who still need to install it, sometimes grudgingly, but if they have at least a few friends on it, they usually don't go back to Whatsapp anymore afterwards. (They don't switch exclusively, but they'll use both.)
the key is to use it sparingly and not spend too much time, it has some addictive factor in constant news feed that make news sites look like static HTML pages. it can be a good tool but a bad master
linkedin is purely professional, basically your online CV + network of your colleagues. they tried to make it more FB-like but I don't know a single person who is not recruiter who actually ever checks that.
But personally I don't think that you are missing out.
It's a bit like those friends that stubbornly refused to get a mobile phone in the nineties - I just didn't keep in touch with them as much as my friends that had mobiles. Their argument was that they didn't want to be reachable all the time. Fair enough, but the trade off for them is that they're less reachable socially.
Eventually, of course, they got a phone. And eventually I'm sure everyone will be on Facebook too. There's nothing dystopian about sharing news, plans and photos.