Social Networking Sites

THE THINGS YOU OWN BEGIN TO OWN YOU.
Yes, this includes social networking sites.



UPDATED VERSION 2010
You are not how many friends you have on facebook.
You are not your twitter account.
We are the all singing all dancing crap of the world. And apparently that's how we like it.


I am sorry to say that currently I am not a responsible member of global society. I have not a single facebook, twitter, or myspace account.

As such I have found myself to be out of sync with student culture.

Additionally my absence from the social network realm seems more than merely incomprehensible to people. They literally CANNOT believe it. The capability of incorporating my facebookless status (is there a word for not having a facebook account?) is beyond them.

Having an online personal profile is becoming like having a government issue I.D. I guess I am without my standard issue facebook account. It's like not having a cigarette lighter in your car or a cordless phone.

Friend: Did you see my facebook status?
Eric: I told you - I don't have a facebook account.
Friend: Oh yeah. Hey, did you get that facebook message and group invite I sent you?

I did not get rid of my account for security reasons. When I had one it was open to all schools and all non-friends. For me that seemed like the point of "social networking". In all reality all I used it for was to keep in touch with friends. It was and remains a great way to keep in tabs with people. Nor did the endless applications get to me. I don't run the site, and if I don't want the app I don't have to use it.

I deleted my account as an experiment. The experiment then became the norm.

Let me explain.

We are all old enough to remember a time before the proliferation of cellular phones. If someone was not home when you called, you weren't going to get hold of them until they got back. Now it seems inconceivable not to have a cell and to not be able to get in touch with someone and receive a status report at any given time.

Imagine no cell phones.

It was the same way with my facebook account. Until 2005 we were all in the dark. Some of us had myspace accounts, but that was more of a novelty, a toy.

Flash forward five years, and check out the almost accessory-like status facebook has taken in culture. Facebook a borderline personal asset. Soon it will be a tax-write off.

Imagine if you could tally up the amount of time spent staring at a facebook screen doing nothing productive. Essentially goofing off. You could have been studying, building a box kite, or talking to another person face to face.

I have all that back now. It's really quite fantastic.