It's still there! My Twitter account @lucymelford.
I set it up on 15 October 2012. Three days later I had a problem with my PC, and that led me to deactivate my Twitter account forthwith, on the suspicion (although apparently I was mistaken) that somehow Twitter had introduced something nasty to my PC.
At least I thought that I had deactivated it. In fact I'd merely logged out. I got an email from The Huffington Post (a retweet?) yesterday, which alerted me that my Twitter account was still alive and kicking.
I have now found out how to deactivate the account properly - but I have hesitated.
Does it have a use, a role in my life, that I haven't understood yet?
I really can't see one. But I could be wrong...suppose I get caught up in some breaking news event? Such as being trapped in a tall building as the flames creep upwards? Or hiding from masked terrorists, who have taken over the shopping centre? Or stranded up a tall tower, as the tsunami swirls below? Or dodging a troop of sex-mad bull elephants? I could call for help, before I'm roasted/shot/drowned/gored/rescued.
Supposing I ever wrote that bestselling book? Or appeared on TV? Wouldn't I want to know what the instant public reaction was?
Maybe...
But I don't want to tell the world that I'm eating toast and marmalade for breakfast today. Nor do I want to be a sad person who draws attention to silly newspaper articles, as their sole reason for living. Nor am I capable of terribly witty one-liners, and other oh-so-clever comments. And I certainly don't want to be associated with vitriolic hate campaigns, and other out-of-control bandwagons.
Well, for now my Twitter account is doing no harm, and I've tweaked my settings so that it shouldn't irritate me with unwanted notifications. I will suffer the thing to exist, just in case it's ever useful.
And letting my Twitter account live has prompted me to set up a fresh Facebook account. Amazingly.
But not like the old one. I intend to keep rather quiet about it - none of my Brighton friends read this blog regularly, so they'll never know - and be very careful how I use it. It has a recent photo of me (to prove that I really exist), but the public will see no other personal information whatever.
This new account is not there to promote myself, nor to explain what I think about life, nor to make friends with. It's to let me find out what certain people may know about topics that specially interest me. So I may join one or two special-interest groups, as a friend did. Some of them of an official nature.
I certainly don't want to use it for general 'social networking'. Texts and emails are quite good enough for that, and a good deal more private. And if I want to say anything about my life and attitudes, then there's the blog as always.
As a footnote, I was surprised that I had to set up a fresh Facebook account at all. Although I went through the full deactivation process on my old account at the end of 2012, I harboured a suspicion that my old account would merely be archived. And that when setting up a new one Facebook would say, 'no need to set up a new account, Lucy, here's your old one, which we kept going just in case you ever came back'.
But no, it had really gone, although I suppose there must still be some old photos and posts embedded in other people's Facebook pages. That can't be helped, and it's a kind of awful warning of what can happen.
I set it up on 15 October 2012. Three days later I had a problem with my PC, and that led me to deactivate my Twitter account forthwith, on the suspicion (although apparently I was mistaken) that somehow Twitter had introduced something nasty to my PC.
At least I thought that I had deactivated it. In fact I'd merely logged out. I got an email from The Huffington Post (a retweet?) yesterday, which alerted me that my Twitter account was still alive and kicking.
I have now found out how to deactivate the account properly - but I have hesitated.
Does it have a use, a role in my life, that I haven't understood yet?
I really can't see one. But I could be wrong...suppose I get caught up in some breaking news event? Such as being trapped in a tall building as the flames creep upwards? Or hiding from masked terrorists, who have taken over the shopping centre? Or stranded up a tall tower, as the tsunami swirls below? Or dodging a troop of sex-mad bull elephants? I could call for help, before I'm roasted/shot/drowned/gored/rescued.
Supposing I ever wrote that bestselling book? Or appeared on TV? Wouldn't I want to know what the instant public reaction was?
Maybe...
But I don't want to tell the world that I'm eating toast and marmalade for breakfast today. Nor do I want to be a sad person who draws attention to silly newspaper articles, as their sole reason for living. Nor am I capable of terribly witty one-liners, and other oh-so-clever comments. And I certainly don't want to be associated with vitriolic hate campaigns, and other out-of-control bandwagons.
Well, for now my Twitter account is doing no harm, and I've tweaked my settings so that it shouldn't irritate me with unwanted notifications. I will suffer the thing to exist, just in case it's ever useful.
And letting my Twitter account live has prompted me to set up a fresh Facebook account. Amazingly.
But not like the old one. I intend to keep rather quiet about it - none of my Brighton friends read this blog regularly, so they'll never know - and be very careful how I use it. It has a recent photo of me (to prove that I really exist), but the public will see no other personal information whatever.
This new account is not there to promote myself, nor to explain what I think about life, nor to make friends with. It's to let me find out what certain people may know about topics that specially interest me. So I may join one or two special-interest groups, as a friend did. Some of them of an official nature.
I certainly don't want to use it for general 'social networking'. Texts and emails are quite good enough for that, and a good deal more private. And if I want to say anything about my life and attitudes, then there's the blog as always.
As a footnote, I was surprised that I had to set up a fresh Facebook account at all. Although I went through the full deactivation process on my old account at the end of 2012, I harboured a suspicion that my old account would merely be archived. And that when setting up a new one Facebook would say, 'no need to set up a new account, Lucy, here's your old one, which we kept going just in case you ever came back'.
But no, it had really gone, although I suppose there must still be some old photos and posts embedded in other people's Facebook pages. That can't be helped, and it's a kind of awful warning of what can happen.