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

unavoidable?

[Anonymous Coward]

still haven't joined one. facebook, myspace, hi5... who cares. I know who my friends are.

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?

[Seumas]

Then how do you get your self-esteem, if you aren't using social networks? I do not understand.

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.

"and even look for employment"

[footissimo]

..with the amount of employers looking through social network sites for information on employees...surely that should be "and even look for unemployment"?

Unavoidable?

[Threni]

They're completely easily avoidable. Whenever I get sent a link to one, I reply with a link to http://isolatr.com/. People soon get the idea.

Grrrr... paid journalism...

[friend.ac]

I don't mean to sound like a Troll.. but gotta love those press junkies! That article smacks of a public relations exercise by YUNiTi. I've been approached many many times by people 'offering' to manage our public exposure.. by releasing various stories, even negative ones, to increase the sites exposure. We've even had stories sent to us 'about our site' and placed into comparison with myspace and facebook, that pitched in exactly the same way as this story - and for us to have it released to the major publications / sites would ONLY cost $X per release. Give us back proper journalism!

Re:it makes sense

[phantomlord]

Had a girlfriend/boyfriend in high school whom you lost? Find him/her online. Precisely why I don't use social networking sites. I prefer to be out of sight/out of mind for my stalker ex. She already suckered me in and wasted an extra year of my life once. I'd rather not let her have any way to get interested in my life again. Even if all she can see is my last login date, I prefer to let her wonder whether or not I'm still alive.

Re:In other news, green is the new black!

[sleight82]

No, not really. The afforementioned "college kids who haven't moved on yet" use it to keep in touch. The rest of us still use the phone or email or, wonder-of-wonders, physically meeting one another.

I'd disagree...the fact that I have moved on (2000 miles from where 90% of my friends live) is precisely the reason I use it to keep in touch. It's not a substitute for phone calls, emails, and personal visits, but I can't afford a $300 trip to meet up for coffee with a friend, and time zone differences often makes phone convos difficult with more than immediate family. I think each form of medium has a place along a spectrum of options - personal visits -> video calls -> phone calls -> emails -> social networking blogs -> twitter -> shouting from a mountaintop.

These folks have a rather rude awakening to look forward to... The rest of the world really doesn't give two shakes of a rat's ass about their pathetic little ego-pages. It doesn't care about their blogs, their favorite bands, their pictures of their cat/dog/iguana/fish-named-bob.

But that's the great/worst thing about the Internet - you can put up anything, and whether anyone really cares is a moot point. But undeniably, there is someone is crazy enough to care.

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:Linked In?

[EvilIdler]

>professional social networking crowd
What the hell does that mean? Professional social networking?
Prostitutes? Drug dealers?