My Week With Marilyn, i mean my week with the iPhone 5

Greetings all,

This is my first smart phone ever, the iPhone 5, so i'm loving my new toy.  I have signed up to Instagram, i've actually let out some Tweets & had all sorts of things linked to Pinterest & Facebook automatically.  I have downloaded Apps, APPS!!  No games, i loathe children playing with screens, they should be kicking a ball or climbing a tree!!

Unlike the 7000 people who queued at Apple Canberra last Friday, my husband wandered in on Saturday morning, straight to the counter . . . to drag me into the 21st century of technology.  We bought it for a few reasons, mainly the video camera & my enthusiasm for social media.  My children enjoy leaving me notes & quirky reminders.  It's on my existing $20 plan, with zero data allowance outside the home WiFi, so far that's fine, i really do use the phone as . . . a phone!!  I'd rather email from the Mac desktop, with a life size keyboard, i just fixed my wrists with surgery, poking at a tiny phone pad is ridiculous!!

All accessories sold out immediately, so i was a nervous wreck taking the phone out & about, until i popped along mid week to buy him a leather jacket & screen shade, cool yo?? 

This week i really did hire the My Week With Marilyn movie, oh what a messed up gal she was.  So glamorous & popular, yet insecure & lonely.  A beautifully shot film, especially loved the English countryside & Eton School.  I wonder what mischief & trouble Marilyn Monroe would have created on social media??  Sigh, i digress . . .

so now there are a zillion other ways to get images & snippets of my world . . .

Follow @posieshoots 

  Follow @posietweets

OMG, i've even gone & got myself a Quick Response bar code, i Robot.  Tania McCartney is a new smart phone girl too, she understands technology & social media ten times better & faster than me, so does the research & just links me to what i need to know.  Everyone needs a guru girlfriend who explains in motherly terms what you want, not geek speak.  Seriously folks, scan me . . .

Did you get the new iPhone 5 or can you still love last year's model??  I'm still laughing at the iPhone 5 launch - talking about the camera "the sea is bluer & children look happier!!"  I admit the camera is marvellous.  How much technology & social media can one person handle??  I'm a tad freaked about the price but i've never lost a mobile phone - i've had one stolen in Italy, now living at the bottom of a canal in Venice i guess.  I will be very happy with this phone for a long long time.  Love Posie

social commentary Sunday 'stalkers & security'

Greetings all,
On my drive home from Brisbane, i popped into see my brother, his wife & 4 children, in the country.  We were talking about blogs, on line profiles & their children on FaceBook.  They don't mind their children on FB as two are in boarding school, two are at University, it's a way to keep in touch, although children can naively advertise where they go to school/ university/ socially + full names & birthdays (5 points of identification).  I won't reveal on my blog my husband or children's names or any of our actual birth dates, schools, uniforms + i delay actual times of events involving my children (like sports) to maintain their privacy.  If my husband had his way, i wouldn't have a blog or images of our children.  Anyway, i asked my sister-in-law if any of their teenagers (all social, smart, sporty) had suffered at the fate of stalkers??

She said a resounded "YES, every single one of them".  From varying degrees of on line FB stalking directly, indirectly via 'friends' FB pages & yes, finding out they had been broken-up-with-via-a-FB-status-update . . . all the way to one hunting their eldest son down in Europe!!  This nephew is a catch, friendly, handsome, elite athlete, studying medicine . . . troubled girls find him.  His high school girlfriend was attacked by a girl who was having an imaginery relationship with him (??) & other crazy stalking incidents followed.  What is that saying about a woman scorned "hell hath no fury"??  These are teenagers with hormones, imaginations & the internet!!  We've seen in the news, through real-life-dumb-actions-by-sports-stars . . . mixed with on line social media, professional reputations & careers can be crushed.
We don't plan to allow our children to have FB or on line profiles until they are adults & aware of consequences on what can happen to your information in the big bad world.  I'd rather promote actual telephone calls & seeing friends as their social entertainment.  Once they are home, that is family time, limited emails & internet, no mobiles & no on line chit chat time wasting rubbish which can wait until school the next day!!  Surely with the volume of homework & assignments my children have in junior high & primary school, there isn't enough time for anything other than sport, eating & sleeping when they are full blown teenagers??
I asked my brother if his children were clued in that everything on line - not necessarily on their own profiles, but anything about them in any social media capacity - were they aware it's there forever, for future employers, friends, partners to see & judge, for stalkers to piece together where you live, play, party etc??  What about a new boyfriend who turns out to be jealous psycho & check out your history of parties, holidays & love with ex-boyfriends??  OMG, does anyone think about this??  My brother said teenagers have no clue, they don't think about it, it's teenage impulse of here & now, must share everything immediately & no thought for future consequences. 
Even on our sweet-mummy-crafty-type blogs where we innocently post about holidays, births, events & funny family stories, people can follow your child's history & who knows what crazy things they might use it for, manipulation, connection, research.  I think about this every time i post & try to be vague about details.  Christy from Little Betty was telling me at Sew It Together all sorts of weird sites her blog images have turned up on, some very unsavory weird fetish sites??!!  Yes, eeww.  Christy cleverly doesn't  post her children's names & rarely their cute little faces!!  
You can never be too careful, even in 10 years time, something you post might come back to bite you or your family.  Incredibly scary but it's just not the same world we grew up in, with so much information available at the touch of a button.  Love Posie