Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My Social Network


As a member of Gen-Y I am a proud user and advocator of Facebook, Twitter and the like. But recently, I have questioned where the future of social networking and my personal use of these tools are headed.
            I never had a Myspace, I was a late Facebooker, and now I am an avid Tweeter. But as all things in this world, social networking has evolved.
            My Facebook journey began as a natural curiosity, soon became a terrible obsession and as of late has been a gigantic waste of time.
            I was a junior in high school when I first discovered the fun of putting silly statuses and looking at pictures online. I still appreciate the picture aspect of Facebook. Facebook was a way to stay in touch with friends after we spent six hours of the day together at school.
As I went to college I thought Facebook would be a good way to stay in touch with others. It was a great way to see what my family members were up to, how my fellow high school classmates were fairing in college and who was up to what. But the worst part, is that even though these people willingly told me they had joined a sorority, got an A on an exam or went on vacation, they weren’t telling me specifically. They were telling cyberspace and anyone who happened upon that slice of information.
I still think of Facebook as my way to keep tabs on people I don’t even want to talk to anymore. Let’s go back to good old email.
I just finished a teen fiction novel called “The Future of Us.” This story revolves around two high schoolers in 1996 who by some supernatural mistake can see their Facebook profiles 15 years in the future. They can see who they marry, where they live in the future and their children. The concept is one I’ve thought about a lot. It would be incredibly tempting to look into the future to see if I was happy and successful. But the fun of life is that it is so unexpected.
I also think Facebook is being phased out. The people I really care about rarely post anything anymore. I never post anything either, as you can tell by my poor upkeep of this blog this semester. It’s not that I’m so busy I can’t put up a post now and then. It’s that the audience I want to know things about my life will know because I will tell them in person.
Twitter is a much more intimate and small venue for personal postings. Twitter allows me to be clever with what I tweet and hashtag. Twitter is more fun than Facebook and not nearly as overwhelming. But I suspect that just as Myspace, AIM and Facebook, Twitter will find its place in social networking history one day.
Now the question is what will I do to fill my time that I spent on Facebook? Perhaps I’ll study more, exercise more or read more books. It’s probably better that way anyway.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!