When we speak of social networking, what are the few things that come to our minds? Facebook…? MySpace…? Twitter…? Orkut…? I think there is an endless list of such social networking websites. If I start listing them one by one, it will take up all my hosting space. So, do you think social networking is limited to a few neat looking websites who want to know everything I do from the morning until the moment I sleep? What happened to the times when people physically met and socialized? Every new day, a new social app/website is being created.. to do what? To make our already plugged lives more bizarre? So what is this concept of social networking? A fad, trend or just another bandwagon to hop on? I know that networking has its own advantages, but do you think that telling my friends what I ate, what I am reading, or how much I slept will make any difference in their lives? Oh yes, it will certainly make a difference to someone who wants to steal my information.
When I was little, I used to be very shy of making new friends. I used to tell my mom if I wanted to befriend someone in the neighborhood, and then she helped me out. But what now? Anyone can just sit on the computer and add a thousand friends to his already long list of the so-called friends, without even knowing that there can be a stalker, a murderer or even a rapist in that queue. But hey, its all part of the social networking gimmick! Isn’t it? Let me socialize some more and one fine day..oops.. I am dead.
Don’t you think that we are already missing our lives between e-mails, cellphones, blogs, Internet, instant messaging that now we have to resort to these lame social networking websites. Now, we have more ways of getting in touch with each other but we are spending less time in actual communication. Someone comes along every few months and launches a new social networking website. For heaven’s sake, aren’t there too many already? I played around with Cell phones a lot when they first came out. You know what? I like to be unreachable. Gather up your thoughts and send me an e-mail, please.
To actually quote the benefits of such social networking websites, let me describe them to you. I do not have accounts on any social networking websites except Orkut where my intent was to find my old school friends as its a website specially targeted for Indian audience. I did manage to find some of my old school friends but guess what? After a few scrap exchanges and acting surprised (I can’t even say if that surprise was genuine), everything came back to ground zero. To add to my misery, I even thought of calling up one of my “very good” high-school buddies. So, when I called him, he was busy in some very important meeting with his client. He did recognize me, so I expected at least a callback for courtesy sake! But nothing. And this is what I learned from this incident – Life goes on and I am a fool! Now, I am even planning to delete that account which I hold on Orkut. I’ve never felt anything missing in my life without these social networking websites. Then again, I’m a person who likes privacy and it seems, these days, I am greatly outnumbered.
A new trend that is developing nowadays with every social website copying each other, is the use of applications. So, what are these applications? Stupid flash games, countdown timers, IQ tests, chat applications… No thanks! I guess I will just watch the grass grow in my lawn or maybe look at a wall all day. To my amusement, I recently found out that people are making a lot of money developing and selling these retarded applications. So why don’t you give it a try? Maybe this is your path to the hall of rich jerks!
You think this is a rant on social networking websites? You are right. It is. I have even made a new category in my blog called “rants” 🙂
Update : While constructing the picture for this particular post, I went to Myspace.com website to steal their logo and what do I see? They have a corny header graphic on their homepage that says :- Sign-up just got shorter! See for yourself, how desperate they have become (do they have any members left anymore?? And.. what is that white splash.. LOL) :-
44 replies on “Social Networking Sucks?”
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In July, 1887, a software was heard inside Clermont Warden’s Court to get a reef claim 200 yards west of Hurley’s Dam, as well as the ‘Telegram’ states:. Scores of reefs are lying idle in Queensland from which tremendous yields were obtained at the surface, but that have been abandoned for want of capital. Just because your swelling falls a bit in reply towards the diuretic doesn’t imply you are receiving better.
In July, 1887, a software was heard inside Clermont Warden’s Court to get a reef claim 200 yards west of Hurley’s Dam,
as well as the ‘Telegram’ states:. Scores of reefs are lying idle in Queensland from which tremendous
yields were obtained at the surface, but that have been
abandoned for want of capital. Just because your swelling falls a bit in
reply towards the diuretic doesn’t imply you are receiving better.
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Damn Right Man………..I Am Also Pissed Of This Social Networking Shit……..But This Is The Symptoms Of Our Future……..Humans Are Becoming Lazy Day By Day…….
Very good list and I certainly use most of these, although there are a couple that are new to me.
complete agreeance over here! social media is destroying relationships and gives people the mistaken idea that there are no consequences for their behaviour.
hei,bloger your blogs’ style i like it,and the post is also interesting.
You’re bitching about social networking sites yet, you have a sharing bar at the bottom of your article? Fucking hypocrite.
Never registering on one of those and i never will.. as far as i can see in the future.
yeah, 100% agree. bravo bloggers, go to hell facebookers. please don’t get angry because I copy your pics to my site….^^V
social network sucks?? it’s great!
Nice rant! I’ve recently unplugged from the matrix myself. It feels good to be back.
I don’t like to pay attention for social networking site.. Aggree with You
Regard
Adney
right now i have stop using either myspace, friendster, facebook and many more i like to register before.
what can i say is? as i grow up i don’t have much time to find friends on the social site. what i do is? the social site is use for finding my old school friend and then get their mobile number and call or text them. its more realistic rather than sending testimonial or comment
John, about your comment about deleting your accounts, that’s the feeling of a lot of people.
However, there is a phrase that says something like: “Once you put anything on Internet, it do not go away from it”. And it is actually true despite you can delete your “accounts”.
Once you put information on Internet, there are crawlers, caches, archives, people who stole the information, companies that sells the information, other companies that purchase the information, and so on.
So, before putting a photo with funny friends, girls, or whatever lifestream stuff, please think if you want your future employers to see these photos once their search your name in Google to see how you look.
I totally agree with you and this post.
I think this is a great post, BUT, let’s think outside of the box for a second. For groups like bands, video game companies, Hollywood studios, etc. that want to keep thier fans updated, tools like Twitter and Facebook are amazing. I currently follow my favorite bands around on Twitter just because I like to see how thier shows went and where they are going next. I think the whole feature that lets people know what you are constantly doing sets a personal fix, i.e. if I posted “Nick is hating life right now.” and my friend Jenny gets on and comments “What’s wrong, Nick?” I believe it would let me know that people care and would make me feel better. I do agree, however, that some people take it to the next level. Cheers.
…you’re not a fool! You are a romantic naive… 🙂
This post is excellent. I browse a lot of websites, blogs, etc. And almost 90% of these sites contain the same line: “follow us on twitter”. WTF is twitter?! So I opened up to see a twitter page. Doing this, doing that. I’m currently looking at whatever and thinking of whomever. Fo’ what?! I want to read what you are thinking about something in more than 160 characters! So I said, F twitter! It’s BS!
Bottom line, I agree with you completely!
P.S. Perhaps you saw WALL-E. The people of the future were sitting in a chair all day, ‘communicating’ with each other online, not even noticing the world and the people around them… WE ARE ALREADY LIKE THAT!
Very good post! Good luck!
100% agreed. 100% original thoughts and righteous approach to describe the facts about this all social media craze. These are cyber social media. A virtual social media platform. All fake. Everybody is there for shouting for what he is being doing and going to do or want to do or even fake about what he has done. That is not social life. For example at Twitter the only purpose of people is to grow their list. Nothing else. This article is 100% exact and genuine image of what exactly social media platforms are. Thumbs up.
Im also no fan, it really can be dangerous but anyway the real point is you will never get real friends over the net, its the same with long distant buddy’s with time it is also not the same. some social networks are ok but those are also not made with all this friends and stuff its just a place talk about interests
I agree to some extent. I think the real issue is that people allow the social networking crave to be their life 24/7. Social networking is like video games. If you are not careful, you spend hours and hours of your time when you could be doing something more productive.
I know I’m in the minority on this one, and I feel I’m going against the flow, but I think online privacy is what’s cool, not full disclosure. Just like in the real world, genuinely cool, hip, interesting people are an enigma. They have an air of mystery about them and they never go on and on about themselves – that would make them an utter bore!. Why do people think its any different online? Social networking is just a collection of narcissists, mundane individuals, and attention seekers.
– BC.
I could not agree more with this article, I have felt the same about this some time ago but left those confusions hanging somewhere.
Social Networks are real Social Killers, more time on the internet, less time in real life, exactly that’s how it is.
That’s why I’m choosy with Social Networks that I join and leave it to Plurk and Facebook only.
It’s really crazy how other people even come to CRY because their Social Network Accounts like Friendster for example got hacked, how it changes their lives. I mean hellow, you lost a social network account but you don’tneed to suicide beause of that or not even think of doing that.
Its true that there are way too many social networking sites but as an internet marketer, what do you do? You kind of have to just roll with it and try to “be everywhere”. Makes for a very time consuming job though 🙁
Hi
I use orkut and face book only to connect my old buddies and my family members who are living at some other place. these website are made for this purpose only but people are wasting time in making 1000’s of relations. that is awful…………
I kind of agree with Moobsuk.
“go out and get a “real” social life!!!”
Good to have somebody ranting about so-called “social media stuff”! Where does “social” fit in that term today? I see no reason to sign up for stupid things like myspace – ok, I did already a few years ago but I can´t delete my account and my mails to HAVE it deleted are ignored. So I stay with myspace and I use it rarely. And yes, they are really desperate…
btw: I totally agree with Moobsuk: Lighten up!
Facebook is ok in small doses, but to be honest far to many people seem to take facebook way to seriously! lighten up and go out and get a “real” social life!
I kind of agree with Rarst.
(introvert/extrovert thing)
It might be also related to your age, where you live (in your home country?), and what is your job.
Apparently, you are not in the target group of social networking web sites 🙂
I like Facebook and Twitter, but in love with none. I can see the uses of both for myself. I like seeing what my high school friend or my ex-lover has been doing in the period that I haven’t seen them. There’s nothing wrong with it.
And when I like to share… e-mails won’t do it, because some of my friends hate writing. Just like in those times most of them didn’t like writing letters, most of them don’t like “think about what to write, open an e-mail client, write, add the address, send it, wait, hope that it reached, hope that it didn’t end up in spam folder, hope that his bbrowser/computer didn’t crash…” and so on.
You should try to see why these are so hype, not the reasons why they are not good for you – you’ve already figured that out for yourself already.
I think about deleting my “social” accounts every single day. Ned Ludd may be my new hero.
Good Post/…
You gave me a matter to think about @ bedtime:P
Hi there,
Truly spoken like a blogger. I feel that social networking sites are not meeting up to my expectations. I feel the purpose of what is called a social networking site is almost lost. People add you to their profile but are never in contact with you. You hardly receive message or info or business or anything for that matter. Social networking sites are used more like a marketing tools to send out viral info that reaches mass people at a straight. People forget to socialize and make business contact.
Cheers,
Eddie Gear
Well said. I’m on the social networks so people can find me if they want. I don’t need to contact many people anonymously, I already have contact info for the people I talk with often, so I consider social networking mostly a business service.
Take care.
finally, your first rants!
some of them are quite true.
i hate when all of my friends spend their time facebooking and answering quizzes..
I didn’t like what you write
first time a writer had write something productive for thinkers who always keep eyes on social networks, hope you keep write more…
Richie
I was too “old” to join MySpace so I thought FaceBook would be a good place to hang out. Actually, hang out is not the right term. Connect? But so many people hang out there all day to do the apps and tag each other that I feel like I am back in high school where I didn’t fit it to begin with. At least there are no sneers or giggles behind my back that I can see.
It’s important to note that social sites are completely aimed at extraverts. Both concepts and mechanics seem mostly weird and unpleasant to introverts like me and some of your thoughts basically mirror mine (and plenty more of introverts I am sure).
I do use Twitter actively because it is probably most flexible social media tool. Instead of drowning in apps crap I can form my own strategy which is mostly interacting with my blog’s readers.
My advice is – instead of doing what crowds does calmly compare social stuff and select tools that you can use in way you find useful. Works for me. 🙂
Quote: “an be a stalker, a murderer or even a rapist in that queue. ” – interesting 🙂 hahaha
I had the same feeling as your toward those endless social networking websites, copying each others idea and so on, but now I know why they exist and people use it, there are a market for “fun”, imagine if porno are legal in every country, there will be endless porn site, perhaps every site will be considered porn site.
Bryan
Uh, there are endless porn sites. Where you been at, slick!?