Instagram, snapchat, twitter, fb

Years ago, when LinkedIn was still fairly new, I had an account where I enjoyed keeping in contact with people I had known from work / monitor posts related to the sectors affecting my sector.  Then it was bought by a different company and the terms and conditions started to keep on changing.  This made it hard to keep changing profile preference settings as they updated them - and the quantity of relentless approaches by overseas "spammers and spoofers" made it more of an aggravation than an overall benefit to me.  So, I closed the account and had to spend quite a lot of effort getting the internet search engines to delete behind the trail of my LinkedIn remnants too.

For family reasons (some people lived and worked in challenging personal safety countries) and professional reasons (some of my roles have been in Teams where everyone is extra thoughtful about what they say online to protect e.g. the product / service / information / safety for colleague location & journey): I have always preferred to have as little a "digital footprint" as possible.  Therefore, I have usually chosen not to have a presence on social media at all.

That said, some years later now, still not being on e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook means there are sometimes barriers or reduced options to how I might be able to engage with the wider Autistic community, FaceTime with friends who are stuck at home or hospital during their medical treatment and for me to be able to follow up with professionals and academics I enjoy encountering.

(I do make use of Zoom and MS Teams to attend online training courses / work from home meetings / virtually attend conferences or interviews).

Thinking about how best to (safely) resolve the LinkedIn & Facebook barrier; I have now booked myself on a 1 to 1 training session with the "Digital Helper" service (later this month) run by our County Library Service.  I have pre-described to them: what / why / how I ideally want to use (but not be abused by) the two platforms. 

Unusually, for me, I did also pre-disclose to the Trainer: my personal style of Autism and also briefly signposted - how my communication / processing / interaction / learning style / potential puzzlement by contorted (non-logical) settings options etc. / potential distraction by my sensory surroundings ...might become obvious to the Trainer on the day.  Having taken this into account, the Trainer has set aside a session of 1 hour 10 minutes; for them to assist me in learning how best to set up the two platform accounts. 

(I will update this thread, later in April or May - when I have had a chance to: a) reflect upon the training experience and b) answer my own two part question: "Will I have been able to use the accounts the way I hoped / intended, plus, could I have done anything differently - with the benefit of hindsight / experience?").

Years ago, when LinkedIn was still fairly new, I had an account where I enjoyed keeping in contact with people I had known from work / monitor posts related to the sectors affecting my sector.  Then it was bought by a different company and the terms and conditions started to keep on changing.  This made it hard to keep changing profile preference settings as they updated them - and the quantity of relentless approaches by overseas "spammers and spoofers" made it more of an aggravation than an overall benefit to me.  So, I closed the account and had to spend quite a lot of effort getting the internet search engines to delete behind the trail of my LinkedIn remnants too.

For family reasons (some people lived and worked in challenging personal safety countries) and professional reasons (some of my roles have been in Teams where everyone is extra thoughtful about what they say online to protect e.g. the product / service / information / safety for colleague location & journey): I have always preferred to have as little a "digital footprint" as possible.  Therefore, I have usually chosen not to have a presence on social media at all.

That said, some years later now, still not being on e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook means there are sometimes barriers or reduced options to how I might be able to engage with the wider Autistic community, FaceTime with friends who are stuck at home or hospital during their medical treatment and for me to be able to follow up with professionals and academics I enjoy encountering.

(I do make use of Zoom and MS Teams to attend online training courses / work from home meetings / virtually attend conferences or interviews).

Thinking about how best to (safely) resolve the LinkedIn & Facebook barrier; I have now booked myself on a 1 to 1 training session with the "Digital Helper" service (later this month) run by our County Library Service.  I have pre-described to them: what / why / how I ideally want to use (but not be abused by) the two platforms. 

Unusually, for me, I did also pre-disclose to the Trainer: my personal style of Autism and also briefly signposted - how my communication / processing / interaction / learning style / potential puzzlement by contorted (non-logical) settings options etc. / potential distraction by my sensory surroundings ...might become obvious to the Trainer on the day.  Having taken this into account, the Trainer has set aside a session of 1 hour 10 minutes; for them to assist me in learning how best to set up the two platform accounts. 

(I will update this thread, later in April or May - when I have had a chance to: a) reflect upon the training experience and b) answer my own two part question: "Will I have been able to use the accounts the way I hoped / intended, plus, could I have done anything differently - with the benefit of hindsight / experience?").

Disappointed to feedback: the session with the Library's "Digital Helper" was ... abysmal.  (Really an unexpected outcome).

I will have to approach this quest from a fresh angle (once I have regrouped / recovered from having expended the energy for so very little return on that investment).