Voxpop: Q: What kind of social media do you use? A1: I don’t use a lot of social media. I use Facebook. A2: As a typical one like Facebook. And I guess that’s it. Because I do not use Twitter or something like that. In terms of using social media, Germans are not as enthusiastic as other societies. The by far biggest network used is Facebook, over 50% of the internet users use also actively Facebook. Compared with other European countries, this is below average. The main motivation for using social media is to stay in touch with friends rather than for getting information. Twitter plays also only a minor role and is not widely used. Q: What is an aspect of social media that bothers you? A1: That Facebook is collecting so much data from us. And that’s quite hard. A2: That people don’t talk so much anymore. They just chat and chat instead of getting together. A3: How your personal information is in the Internet and anyone can see it and it will stay there forever and you don’t know what will happen. What is special in Germany is a general skepticism towards social media. According to a poll, 58 % of the Germans don’t trust social media. Reasons are data security and concerns about the protection of privacy. Not only Facebook’s notoriously data-hungry policies, but also the fear that private information can be leaked and has negative effects on their career or private life, concerns people. In fact, the biggest reason according to a study from 2013 is a general conservatism in their media usage: 74% of the people not using Facebook don’t see any sense in using it. A1: I do not use actually any Social Media because I think that’s time waste. And also probably that I am not sure what or who is there behind the Facebook side in my computer. | 