Social Networks At A Crossroads

mateuscb writes "A few years ago, social networking Web sites were just some newfangled technology that college students loved. But over time, they have metamorphosed into an unavoidable Internet phenomenon that is changing the way people of all ages keep in touch with friends, find long-lost acquaintances, explore new hobbies and even look for employment."

Comments

Social networking seems kind of over

[Animats]

Social networking sites seem to me to be kind of over. A few years ago I was active on a few of them; Tribe and Nerve were fun. But the fun sites are over. Myspace is just the new AOL.

Phone-based social networking is probably where things are going. Although, interestingly, the iPhone doesn't have social networking. Helio does, but nobody uses Helio.

Re:unavoidable?

[justin12345]

My roommate is like that, he never created an accout on any SN site. He gets really pissed because he never gets invited to parties anymore as all the invites are distributed on MySpace (within our circle of friends). Likewise, he didn't buy a cell phone until 2006, and only then because at that point the cell phone was cheper then a land line. Before that, it annoyed everyone else that he was so hard to reach that even his close friends eventually stopped trying. I've never seen the nobility in not participating in cultural trends. All he ever did was isolate himself and alienate his friends.

Re:unavoidable?

[Bluesman]

This whole social networking (and cell phone proliferation) started as I went through college.

My senior year of high school, cell phones were divided into two classes - "Mobile Phones" which were a brick with a handset attached that you kept in your car, and "Cellular Phones" which looked much like the phones you buy today but four times the size. Nobody who didn't have a full time job as a salesman had one.

Four years later, the mobile brick phones were gone, cell phones were cheap enough that almost everyone I knew had one, and Instant Messaging had become mainstream.

I noticed in that time that when they were constantly available, people became extremely loathe to make any concrete plans at all. Whereas four years before, I could say, "Hey, tonight lets meet at 7 at the club" and expect a yes or no response, after everyone had a cell phone the response was, "Well, uhh, just call me on my cell." Getting a group of people together was no longer a matter of setting a date time, and being able to reasonably expect them to show up, it now required 15,000 phone calls.

I don't know how it happened, but cell phones and IM turned everyone into 14-year-old girls.

Now if I'm expected to check your web site every day to see if you're having a party instead of the courtesy of a phone call or email, thanks, but no thanks.

As such, I don't blame your friend in the least for not wanting to participate in the drama of keeping in touch with people like that.