System 13

I’ve been watching the hype over social networking sites this year (and before, in fact), and I must say: I don’t get it. The social networking sites don’t do anything for me. For a while I had a MySpace page, which I admittedly neglected; I have since deleted my account there. I now have a Facebook page, which I rarely look at; I have a Twitter account, which I’ve not used for about a month; a friend (hi, Nils) recently offered me an invitation to Pownce, which I politely turned down. Why? More of the same – and that doesn’t amount to much.

Perhaps I’m being pessimistic; perhaps I’m being an old “stick in the mud.” But the idea of, for lack of a better word, collecting friends on these sites doesn’t appeal to me. It’s almost as if friendships aren’t the key point; the key point is to collect friends, to increase your number of contacts. Have you known this person your whole life? Add them as a friend. Have you talked to this person a few times at work? Add ‘em as a friend. Did you bump into this person while walking to the store four months ago, and you’ve not seen them since? Add them as a friend!

All of the social networking sites I’ve used have had a similar quality to them, and that quality, I think, is hollowness. There’s lots of flash – everyone has their little mood indicators, their 16×16 avatars, their favorite song listed. But am I really coming to know these people through all of that crap? I don’t really think so; or rather, I could come to know them a lot better through another medium, say, email. With email, people can send me messages, and I can send them messages; the difference here is that when I send them an email, they don’t get an email saying that I sent them an email, requesting them to go to a different website to login to read my email. The email is just there. And, if you don’t know what I’m alluding to, sign up at Facebook or MySpace, and have someone send you a message. You have to go through that nonsense every single time. This can become exceedingly irritating when you and another person are sending fairly short messages back and forth to each other. It’s always nice to spend a few minutes going to another site, logging in, clicking on Inbox, just to read “haha, yeah” or something similar.

To be fair, Twitter was fun for a while; for a few days, I was twittering (tweeting?) like mad, and so were all of my contacts / friends. But then I came to see Twitter as just another timesink. Sure, it could be fun, but if I really wanted to communicate with my friends, I think I’d be better off hitting them up on an IM or through email. No middle-men websites required. Especially middle-men that dictate 140 characters or less.

But, like I said, maybe it’s just me. Clearly, the sites have something going for them, otherwise they wouldn’t be such smash hits. But I personally don’t enjoy them. I don’t find them filling. Real friendships, real communication, real discussion – these things are like a full mean, with steak, baked potato, some broccoli and carrots, and a bit of dessert. Twitter, MySpace, Facebook – popcorn. Tastes alright, but is certainly not filling at all.

By the way, a hat tip to Nils, who wrote this post, which is what got me thinking about this topic. His post is quite good, so go read it. Go on. Get outta’ here.