Online Social Network

Is Online Social Network A Complete Waste of Time?

Have your efforts in online social networks like Six Degrees in the '90s, and Friendster, MySpace, and now Facebook in the 2000s really paid off? Or are you basically just going round in circles when you could easily stay in contact with your old friends via email or simply by calling them over the phone?

Call me a low tech, high touch kinda person, but I believe that you can't win unless you are at the table (i.e. interacting with people face to face). This is something the likes of Facebook etc can never do. Yes, there may be an odd, fleeting success but is it worth it?

The Darkside of Social Networks

Several weeks back, there was an article on Wordpress by Tech Geek blogger Robert Scoble who was barred from the online social network - Facebook because he was running scripts on his Facebook account. When he was locked out of his account, he could not migrate his friends out of the Facebook network into another social network. This is of great concern to all of us as this means that whatever contribution we make to the social network site doesn't really belong to us. It permanently belongs to the provider of the social network system like Facebook, even your own identity.

So, this is why online Social Networks are a complete waste of time:

• you don't own the URL of your profile - you are just an unpaid information provider. You will need to login to get into your social network account which means you have to get past a gate-keeper who can lock you out if you breach any of their rules. Major Disadvantage: You cannot migrate your contacts out of the social network for whatever reason (you will have to keep separate manual records of your social network friends);


• you can't take it down - it has an afterlife of its own, even after you have canceled your account. Think I'm being paranoid? Read the New York Times 11 February 2008 article: "How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free". It is like the Eagles' song about junk addiction "Hotel California - "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave";


• you don't own whatever you do on it - it is doubtful they can provide you the same level of copyright protection like the website and blog communities;


• you don't really learn anything useful - it is comparable to a dumb-down and strait-jacketed program. It doesn't teach you how to self-publish yourself over the Net or even how to improve your social skills. In fact, the opposite may be true;


• you are robbed of your identity - people are dehumanized, become faceless digits in a large organization and forced to play "games" dictated by controlling groups. Such a system is opened to potential abuse as you are profiled and, your private information & habits can be harvested for advertisers etc. You have no control as to how your private information is being used and broad casted for the whole world to see if you are not careful with your security settings;


• it reproduces everything - you have to duplicate everything from your handphones / PDAs, diaries, organizers, email accounts, websites, blogs, YouTube accounts, lists etc etc without necessarily replacing any of these far more crucial items;


• you can't stop people (you don't really know personally) from cannibalizing your contacts;


• it takes up a lot of precious time without really achieving the main objectives as to why you joined the social network in the first place. Its major disadvantage is: it is not a productivity tool it is touted to be. Social networks like Facebook, MySpace etc don't really help you to find long lost friends through their "networks". You are, instead asked to build your own network by recycling your email contact lists and "make friends" with these people who are already your friends in real life;


• strangers who become your social network friends are just virtual friends - you can't interact with them in a meaningful way, have mutually beneficial shared experiences & commitments and they can't help you like real friends can. Such genuine personal relationships are rare on the Net;


• it gives your kids (teens and net-savvy younger kids) a false sense of pride as they waste their lives away believing they are doing something constructive with supposedly long term "real world" benefits. There is a danger they may neglect their childhood friends for Net friends who they will never meet in their lifetimes. And if they do meet them, what if these "friends" are actually online predators?;


• you can possibly get penalized if your employers find out what you are up to or what you say about your employer in such sites;


• there is no guarantee these social networks will last a lifetime or even remain fashionable for a decade - so you end up doing repetitive, time-wasting energy-zapping tasks, all for the sake of the elusive social networking goals.

Worse still, you are continually bombarded by advertisements and are asked to buy a whole lot of things you don't really need (most of these are virtual toys which have no commercial or real sentimental value).

You are also asked to install countless numbers of marginal applications which takes time to install, are pretty useless and sometimes even a tad creepy exposing yourselves to online predators (if you are too lax with your social network security settings). Next, you will have to manage all the stuff generated by these programs which goes on back and forth endlessly until you are overwhelmed by the information overload and email clutter. If you don't participate, you may lose your friends to other people who enjoy doing such repetitive tasks on social networks. Either way, you are damned;

If you are using online social networks for dating purposes, the risk is even greater. You may be subject to cyberbullying, online stalking, identity theft etc on the Net if you allow people to easily access your personal information. (Kids, for your online safety, ask a trusted adult if you don't know what these terms means. Yes, it is possible for unsavoury people to fake their identities online - sometimes even possibly on social networks!). On the other hand, if your security settings are too high, you are virtually guaranteed to be "friendless" and inaccessible.

As they say, it is easy to build an online profile but it is difficult erase it even when you press the "delete" button. If you are not careful with what you say or do on the Net, it could come back and haunt you later on. It is not uncommon for future employers, clients, potential business partners and other authority figures to "google" your name on the Net so they can find out something (incriminating) about you.

It is significant to note a report (below) that Bill Gates has closed his Facebook account months after Microsoft had sanked $240 million into the Facebook company. Waaaassup, Bill?

The beginning of the end for Facebook? Read this compelling article "Facebook Toast? Hot Today, Dead Tomorrow--Like AOL?"

This is not an isolated case. It was reported that activity on social networking programs are on a downtrend and this is of no surprise as it gets pretty boring after the initial novelty of it has worn out and your objectives have not been met by a very wide margin.

Copy and paste this link onto your web browser to read a short article about the Growing Social Network Exodus:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080208/064718209.shtml

Well, I've said my piece. You can send me as much hate mail as you like, but that will only reinforce my views as to why I hate Social Network online.

So, to my friends on social networks like Facebook, MySpace etc, please forgive me if I don't respond to you at such sites. It is not that I don't like or love you. I do! The reason is, let's face it, that online social networking is simply no fun and in my humble opinion, just a waste of time.

Get Real Friends and Stay in the Real World.

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