Social NET-working

“Come on, Ces! Get Twitter na!” I have heard this exact statement and several other variations of it from a lot of my friends over the past few months. At first I didn’t see the point of it. And after signing up for an account, I still don’t see the point of it. In fact, I don’t even use it. I’ve checked it maybe once or twice. I’ve posted something on it once. Then that was it. What’s the big deal about it anyway?

Let me make things a bit clearer. I was the girl who only joined facebook a little over a year ago, months after most of her friends had joined. And the same arguments popped into my head as they did then. What was I going to do with all these social networking sites? Did I even need them? Before Facebook, I had MySpace. And before that, Friendster. Needless to say, I am easily swayed. So now, I am stuck with several of these accounts, the latter two of which I do not even update or check on any longer.

I didn’t even use these sites for social networking. I signed up for an account because my friends had one. That was pretty much it. I used them more as a depository for my pictures than for anything else. Given all the horror stories about stalkers on the internet and identity theft, I was understandably wary of adding or accepting invitations from people I didn’t know. That probably went against the whole concept of these sites but they have no one to blame but the internet itself.

I started out with Friendster. I think I was in high school at this time. It was the “in” thing then. So of course, everyone had a Friendster account. I dabbled in it somewhat. I dutifully uploaded pictures that I could use as my profile pic, and changed these every so often. I wasn’t that much into pictures then. What I was really after were the testimonials from friends. They were the highlight of my Friendster era.

Next came MySpace. I’m sorry but I don’t actually remember much from this time of my Internet life. Oh well... Moving on.

And we have Facebook. At present, Facebook is the site that I most frequent. Some say that this is the site that replaced Friendster. Maybe so. It does offer more features than the original Friendster. It has wall posts - which give you a glimpse into the thoughts of other people - games, alerts, online chats, etc. it’s actually fairly interactive. It gives people the opportunity to interact, as it is, on the Internet. True, you don’t really do much while on it. You pretty much just post something then read what other people posted, maybe comment a bit here and there… and that’s it. It’s amazing how time-consuming it can be.

As with anything, with the good comes the bad. In fact, the site has been blocked in several countries and several places of work to discourage people from wasting their time. There are also some privacy issues that have cropped up because it actually serves as a forum for stalking. Imagine that. And I don’t mean just in the creepy sense of the word, but also in the oops-my-parents-found-out-what-I-was-up-to-last-weekend-coz-my-friend-posted-the-pictures-from-the-party kind of way.

Yes, unfortunately (or fortunately?), but interestingly, Facebook is also very inter-generational. I don’t think that I’ve ever encountered my uncles, aunts and the parents of my friends adding me. To tell you the truth, it’s a bit weird. I’ve seen a lot of posts which I wouldn’t want anyone in the older generations to see. I can just imagine them shaking their heads, with looks of shock and/or horror on their faces, wondering just what happened to these young people.

I swear, it is amazing, the things that people come up with nowadays. It’s actually gotten to the point where you don’t even have to leave your house. Just log on to one of these sites, see what people are up to and just entertain yourself. Perhaps the era of actually using your vocal chords to talk to someone is nearing the end?