Fwd: 7ToM: Things you do. As one does.

Lily pads in bloom at the pond near our house

1. In the early Facebook days, I had a set-in-stone rule for myself that I would never click on the ads. It was pretty easy to follow because there was rarely anything I was interested in. I'm not on FB very often anymore, but I have to say their ad-targeting algorithm is a lot better than it used to be. I'm often tempted to click these days, they've got my tastes nailed. (So far, if I'm really interested, I leave FB and google it instead of clicking on the ad, but I'm not so naive as to think that FB isn't figuring that out.)

2. I'm less good about clicking on things in my Google news feed. Partly this is because it can be hard to tell when something is an actual news story and when it's an ad. I try to always notice the source of the headline and only click when it's a source I recognize-- Reuters or AP or CNN or whatever. 

3. But I'm not sure about Buzzfeed. Is it real content, or is it just fancied up ads? (Is there any difference?) I click on their stuff all the time-- 27 highest rated Amazon life hacks, 18 best YA books of 2018, 21 Things Europeans can't believe Americans Do (one of them is wear white sneakers (trainers)-- and I'm having reverse disbelief that this could be a problem. Why wouldn't you?) I've learned about some great stuff from them, like my current favorite gizmo, the Smart Funnel, which makes it easy to salvage the last few drops of your shampoo. Makes my cheapskate little heart go pitter-pat.

4. Here is my favorite Buzzfeed article so far, though: 27 Things Everyone Over the Age of 40 Does For Absolutely No Reason At All. It's my favorite because I am proud to say I only do three of them, maybe three and a half, so it makes me feel not quite so irrelevant. And I'm OK with those three because they're wrong-- why does everyone over the age of 40 think having holes in your jeans is so funny? Because paying for jeans with holes in them is ridiculous. I mean, if you get an artistic rip or hole in your jeans due to wear and tear, of course you wear them. But to PAY for jeans with holes already in them is silly. Amiright?

5. Or #24, why does everyone over the age of 50 hold their phone with two hands? Because aging wrists, obviously. The dang phone gets heavy after awhile. 

6. But I don't love coleslaw, I don't double-click on links, I use my thumbs for texting unless my thumbs are getting sore, and I never dictate my texts (although I confess that is mainly because I have tried and I can't get it to work).  In fact, Siri never works for me. I've always blamed this on MadMax. Once not long after I got my first smartphone, I came upon him and his friends making rude 11-year-old jokes and fart noises to an increasingly confused Siri. I don't think she's ever forgiven me. The only response I ever get from her is some variation of "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that."

7. Here is one thing you should never do: shop for underwear online. My sisters and I have a long-standing tradition of restocking our underwear supply at our every-other-year family reunion. It's in Destin with its enormous outlet mall, and we go to the rhymes-with-hockey outlet and stock up. But for some reason this past year I never made it to that store, and a couple of weeks ago I noticed that my underwear was in tatters. So I went online to the rhymes-with-hockey website and ordered more. Now everywhere I go, my browser is plastered with underwear ads. Just what I wanted.

I'll get back to the mental health topic later. Have a great mental health Monday!