Today, November 11th, 2008, I have decided to delete my facebook account. Yes it is true. I honestly can not remember the last time I learned something useful or connected with someone that I REALLY wanted to on facebook. Having a roster of “friends” I didn’t talk to in high school or college, doesn’t really help me. The very few friends I communicate with, will call me on my cell phone or visit me in person if they really are a friend. The social networking sites of today have literally stripped young people of their social skills. It has also created an ego-driven feedback loop where people strive to have more “friends” and appear cooler than their peers. It has also given birth to a new addiction that in its strive to bring people together, drives them further apart.
There are many arguments about the benefits of social networking sites. For example, if you live far away from the people you “know” you may justify the use of Facebook to keep in touch. The only problem with that is. Well … are you really keeping in touch? If anything you are further away or removed from that person than you could ever be. The person you think you are keeping up to date with may even have you as the furthest thought buried in the back of their minds. In essence, you create an imaginary world where you feel as if people REALLY want to be associated with you.
According to a book I read a few months ago, Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders, you need to go above and beyond the simple act of “friending” someone on a social networking site if this is your means of “networking”. You really need to connect with that person on a deeper level. Otherwise, you are just adding noise and distractions to your true networking potential. Your REAL-LIFE networking potential.
Wake up. Interact with the people around you. The next wave of Social Networking (Web 3.0-Non Internet Edition) will come about when the social networking of today is so overrun with advertisements that you can’t even read profiles anymore. It will come about when you feel the need to buy products you otherwise wouldn’t think twice about. It will come about when your personal information is captured by indexing software and used for highly sophisticated and precise background checks. It will come about when the feeling of isolation and loneliness is so powerful in our society that we are forced to actually make eye contact with one another.
Here is a collection of interesting Facebook videos:
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Related Article and Discussion found on Tech Crunch, here.
FB image taken from here
Nice post u have here :D Added to my RSS reader
Great post. All true. I see with my students exactly what you are saying, none of go out and play anymore…when we were kids we went out and played Nintendo with friends or ran around nuts playing “guns” now kids just sit and “interact” online. They don’t speak they just write little emoticons and abbreviations.
TJ, you are absolutely right. Having a balance is very important. If you solely rely on communication with friends via the internet, you will become entangled in its difficult so escape web.
If I need to find out what someone is up to I’ll fire up AIM, give someone a call, or at the very very very least, send a txt message. These methods I find a little less robotic than stalking someone on facebook or scrolling through an endless list of news feed photos of party pictures of people I went to high school with whom I spoke with maybe once.
I also agree that some people want to express themselves and the only way they can is through facebook or some other social networking website. They have no knowledge of how blogging or building your own site work, so they have no other choice. And that’s fine. We can only hope that these people unplug for a bit and enjoy life just as often as they login.
I find it hard to believe that I’ll miss something if I’m out of the loop (not on facebook) only because I’ve been on Facebook for a few years and haven’t manage to miss anything yet. I’ll admit I was totally addicted to facebook, but now that I have deleted my account I find my time in front of a computer way more productive and it has only been a day!
I will definitely continue to write about my departure and any tendencies I may have to get back on.
for the technologically inclined, we see the internet in a totally different way. i see it as an encyclopedia and a tool to reach the unreachable. to communicate, we can text, IM, email, create blogs, and websites. all of which, allow us to bridge a gap of thousands of miles.
there are those who aren’t as web-savvy, but want to make their mark. they don’t know how to write html or manipulate css, but they want to share with a broad group and don’t care about google results or the network metrics.
“social networking”, as it is, transforms friendship into business, BUT only if we allow it. unfortunately, it’s too easy. with so many social networking markets, there’s so much pressure to create your “brand” by gaining popularity on the internet. we’re measured by how high up you are in a google search result, or by how many followers/buddies/friends we have.
i took a break from social networking for a short period and felt an extreme sense of clarity. the signal to noise ratio was so much higher. this, however, came at a cost. i removed myself from the loop and missed out on some events that happened in my long distance friends’ lives. nowadays, very few people think to send group emails containing photos or invitations.
facebook becomes the media disposal for those who chose to share the only way they know how. for that reason, i choose to stay on.
my ultimate desire is this: strive for balance. get involved and embrace the digital, but also to remain nurturing the analog. comment on a photo that might put a smile on a friends face, but also surprise them with hand written a letter.
thanks for the post.. i’ll keep reading.
::subscribed::