No, I’m not going to discuss the meaning of life, or the ramifications of some important development in the world, but this so-called “social networking” craze, that seems to be taking full grip of the internet, you know these sites where you bare your soul online for the benefit of total strangers and old and current friends, all in the cause of bringing peace and harmony to the virtual world.
The latest one I’ve signed up to is facebook, which does seem to have it’s advantages in terms of who you can stop seeing your profile info but, apart from that, I can think of sites I have signed up to which share information on what music I listen to, photographs I have taken and which books I read, as well as this blog, a site to try and re-connect with people you meet travelling and myspace. What is the point of it all? Is my willingness to sign up for these things due to a pathological need to be noticed? Or do I just not like to think that I’m missing out on something? Hopefully it’s the latter.
I actually tried to avoid this whole phenomenon for a long time, it was only when I started travelling and kept meeting people who would give me “their myspace” so I could keep tabs on them that I eventually cracked, even then it was only a token half-hearted gesture at first, then I quite got into it, unfortunately when I got to that stage people seemed to have moved on, and everyone was now on facebook, again I resisted until a combination of boredom, nosiness and that feeling of being left out finally caught up with me and I succumbed. My only hope now is that I set the trend for the next big thing and people follow me there, rather than the other way round!
