Most of the members of my board are middle-aged and up (not all, but most), so we are the first generation not just for tv but computers, but we're still not young enough to be glued to our phones. I'm 62, and I have noticed that most people I know who are, ahem, mature mostly use their phones for pictures of their grandkids. Talk about a techno divide!

Acuriousfish and I met in my group. DS was utterly life-changing for me. I healed from my loss, fell in love again, we got married, and I moved to England. It all began here. I joined DS in 2007, became a CL in 2011. I try not to think too much about the old DS and how much I miss it.

Love and Hugs....

Wow, cliffskat, your DS life-changing experience is the best testimonial to support group success EVER. So glad you got a whole knew life, love, and even country of residence out of it. It's amazing.

I joined 5 years after you did, and became a CL 5 years after that, so I'm comparatively a newbie. I try to stay in the present about DS these days, too.

Thanks for filling me in. Hugs back atcha!

I know that the purchase by Sharecare was all about IT and phones but wouldn't a lot of people come back using laptops or other computers if we got back a couple of the good old features??… Do you think?

I don't know. A lot of us miss the chat feature, but it was problematic. For instance, I loved being able to chat in real time to my friends anywhere in the world -- Australia, England, USA, Costa Rica, etc. - I remember being in Florida drinking an early morning coffee while chatting to a friend sipping an after work evening glass of wine in Australia. And when I moved to England (in 2010) it made me feel a whole lot less isolated to be able to chat with friends in New Hampshire or CA or wherever. It was great for people like me.

However, it was also great for all the creepy sexual predators and pedophiles who would pop up in my group and the teen groups (and Bipolar, too, as you will recall) looking for vulnerable people. What the legal liability picture would be for DS nowadays for that, I do not know, but my guess is that would influence any decisions about a return of that kind of feature.

I stopped posting my photos here, another popular feature and a way to get to know each other, when I realized that I couldn't keep them from being copied and used elsewhere. Mark got very good at tracking down fake profiles where people were using other people's photos as avatars. I didn't want a photo of my face used by some love scammer! That's why I have the glamorous kitty photo now.

I am not sure that it's the features that are the issue. I think the site is hard to use and very impersonal. I have two tons of white space on my screen, with the threads in a narrow column - just as you would see a list on a smartphone. The avatars are tiny. The white space is overwhelming. It's about as welcoming as a refrigerator. On a computer, this is an ugly site. On a laptop, this is an ugly site. On a tablet, this is an ugly site. But I guess if you're on a phone, it's just right.

If you're used to the internet, you can rummage around and figure out how to use the site. If you're a newbie, good luck. I am sensitive to this issue, because a lot of my folks are newbies. For example, I have had a lot of people come and post in journals and then get very upset because no one replies nd they aren't getting any support. They don't realize they are writing in the wrong spot, that they should be posting on the board.

I don't have the answers for all this. I wish I did.

Love and Hugs,
Martha

Hm, as a CL it's true that I do notice less of those you mention here, cliffskat, those "creepy sexual predators and pedophiles who would pop up in my group and the teen groups (and Bipolar, too, as you will recall) looking for vulnerable people." They were a problem in DS PTSD before the format change, since sexual assault is the trauma that brought many of our members to us. For some reason those "creepy sexual predators and pedophiles" were drawn to our site for that very ironic reason. Now less so.

We did have a lot of that with chat for sure Muji….. Really bizarre stuff as well..... I didn't like chat and barely used it however a lot of people really did like it and I know several people from here use it on FB

Meebo or chat Muji had to be turned on for people to use it or you'd have to be willing to 'chat' on here... When it wasn't turned on I think most people left it alone

The avatars you can barely see.... I don't know who came up with some of the visions for the 'newer' DS.... I sure wish we could bring some of the old back

I miss so many of the 'oldies' that became good friends on here

Thanx for your thoughts Martha and Muji!!…. xo