Topic Tuesday//Designing your online world//Tues. 16 Jan. 7pm - 9pm AEDT

@Lonely_Together Ugh, Facebook and their ever-changing settings! It pays to check regularly, doesn't it? Just in case some new tweak changes how you can be seen.

As an exercise at uni last semester we had to try and fing the lecturer and fellow students online, (from the point of view of potential employers checking us out), I was very pleased that noone was able to find me 😊, particually because I follow a lot of mental health related stuff.

@Determined Wise, especially if it's been trouble in the past. Locking, blocking and being selective is a powerful way to get what you want from social networks without feeling exposed or at risk.

Sounds like a really sensible course to take, @Former-Member. I like the idea of it being a flexible thing -- you can be more or less involved, more or less open as you feel okay with it.

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@Lonely_Together wrote:

@Determined What I struggle with is when I do work (be that paid, volunteer or advocacy) in the mental health space, the lines between professional networking, mutual support and friendship can get a bit blurry.... Especially online...

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@Lonely_Together, my professional networking is on a completely separate platform and is designed around being visible professionally to recruiters and potential employers.

Such a good point, @Former-Member -- your profession can also make a difference to how you share. And I like your standard for who you connect with online!

I'm thinking of trying hard to keep Facebook just for close family & friends, and getting onto Twitter for keeping up to date with things more generally/networking and just not commenting on things that might be controversial (and lead to disagreements) but I'm not sure if I want to expose myself to the potential issues of Twitter... I like the idea of keeping those 2 aspects of my life separate though, so that then I can just tune out from one for a while but without having to go offline altogether.

Anyone here got much experience with Twitter?

That must have been so satisfying, @Determined -- you've got it locked down tight!

Hi all, I've missed the start of this and wanted to join in before reading back all the other posts, so I don't miss it altogether. That said, I use social media a lot, especially for posting my creative work. On FB I really only do that. I've had stalkers and trolls and it's made me personally very withdrawn from sharing anything personal on FB or Twitter. I don't share anything at all about my mental illness on social media, am completely 'in the closet' about it, except for here on the forum. In that sense, I kind of live a 'double life' on social media.

Using different networks differently is clever, @Lonely_Together! I don't use FB much, but I'm on Twitter a lot. And Twitter is such a big sea of stuff -- actually, it leads to the next talking point:

Controlling what you see online

Texts, emails, notifications, tweets, posts: it’s easy to get flooded with information, and that makes me anxious and depressed. I sometimes turn off notifications for email or social media for a while. I also mute terms on Twitter (like names of people or issues I don’t want to hear about).

How do you manage what you do and don’t see, to prevent it becoming overwhelming or upsetting?