Jul 04 2009
Anti-Social Networking
Sites like MySpace and Facebook are gaining popularity, and the simplistic Twitter is taking mobile phone Internet access to a new level. While these sites are great for keeping in touch with friends and family who live far away, I find that they hamper my day-to-day life with other friends by creating unnecessary drama. Does it really matter who I put on my “top friends”? Can I post a lyric from a song in my head without people assuming there’s some great crisis in my life? Can I actually have a quick crisis without people broadcasting it online?
At first I just thought that these sites were a tribute to hubris. Apparently I’m enough of a narcissist that I need not one, not two, but three web sites devoted to me (three web sites that all essentially say the same thing). We justify it by saying that we need to use as many sites as possible to keep up with a wide selection of friends - not everyone uses MySpace. But whatever happened to picking up the phone or writing a letter? Are those practices really so obsolete? I don’t know about you, but checking the snail mail is the highlight of my day sometimes; I never know who might send me something.
Of course, I’ve taken this personal problem of mine and posted it on a blog which I’ve reserved more for public ideas than for personal rants. I’ve used the Internet as a medium upon which to rant about my misgivings regarding the Internet. I’m unsure if this is ironic or simply hypocritical, so I’m going to stop this tangent now and get back to business with my next post.
Great post! I have both myspace and facebook, but refuse to get sucked into Twitter (for now). I’m pretty selective of what I post on either site, but some people post rather intimate details of their lives, stuff I really don’t need or want to know.
I do love snail mail (except for when it’s all bills!) and I enjoyed a nice chat with my cousin today whom I have not seen in a few years. It was great to catch up with him and I really should do that more often.
Thanks for the response!
I find that I have to water down the already-censored online version of myself in order to keep people from blowing things completely out of proportion. Also, my friend and I learned last week that you should be careful about posting updates about your plans for the evening - random people will invite themselves along for the ride.
Ironically, these tools which were designed to enable communication actually hinder it.
You pose some interesting questions. I am among those who have a facebook page and I do use twitter. However, I am new to both of these and have not really gotten into how they work. I feel that I am talented enough to use the computer but am unsure how some of these networking sites really work. Thank you for sharing this post.
www.wantingtowork.today.com