socialnetwork
You are viewing stuff tagged with socialnetwork.
You are viewing stuff tagged with socialnetwork.
Recently, I realized that the problem with Facebook is that you can’t actually discuss the problems with Facebook on Facebook. By “can’t”, I mean the discourse has dropped to the lowest common denominator (Cf. “eternal September”). So, in a place where everyone is showing selected pieces of their lives to give an aura of grandeur, carefree frivolity, success, beauty, ease… there’s no time for subtlety, considered introspection, gentle humor. The problem, set in terms of one of my typically strained metaphors: if you’re staring at neon signs all day and then someone shows you a watercolor, it’s going to be boring.
“Facebook [brings out] our weakest traits as humans. We love to think of ourselves as something we want to be. We trade our true feelings to be included. We want to be popular. We want our taste in music and art to be [valued]. We crave for external success.”
— kunjaan
The Wilson Quarterly: America: Land of Loners? by Daniel Akst (via HN) describes the value of friendship, and the modern American man’s increasing refusal to maintain friendships. (Sidenote: I’m getting really sick of question-mark-titles. You either believe whole-heartedly in what you are writing and you are setting out to support it, or you are debunking a myth. You can’t launch a very effective piece of writing by saying “hey, maybe we could think this!”) This friendship-abondoning really made me feel rather sad because I’ve done a horse crap job of maintaining my friendships. I’m looking to improve that, salvage what I have left. Anyhow, on the whole, we don’t have people to talk to:
Farmville is even more of a bummer than I’d originally thought. Cultivated Play: Farmville:
The most important thing to recognize here is that, whether we like it or not, seventy-three million people are playing Farmville: a boring, repetitive, and potentially dangerous activity that barely qualifies as a game. Seventy-three million people are obligated to a company that holds no reciprocal ethical obligation toward those people.
I haven’t read an article in a long time with such a gigantic vocabulary. Lot of dictionary use on this one. It is still very understandable, though — so I submit to you The Meaning of Information Technology:
As promised: extremely heartening piece declaring online social networking as the beginning of the end of conspicuous consumption, and the start of something significantly more environmentally sustainable. Conspicuous, but not Consuming, by Stephen Linaweaver:
You may have all read the mainstream media blip two years back about an extensive thread on a message board simply called “i am lonely will anyone speak to me.” In fact, over three years after it’s creation, you can still read the thousands and thousands of responses to one person’s plea for a human connection. The stark reality is that three years ago, many of the most active citizens of the internet were technologically minded, shy individuals. So, from this preponderance of socially awkward people, there was bound to come a post like this, with a corresponding outpouring of responses. Naturally, as the demographics of the internet have evolved, the responses have also diversified. However, the central point remains: the cold online world still feels lonely to many people. A 2004 article in the New Yorker, called, “Hello, Loneliness” put forth a good summary:
I really enjoyed this comment about the changing place of email in today’s digital communication landscape.
“A ‘social network’ is next to useless for building professional contacts if it’s just full of other dumbass teenagers texting OMG WTF BBQ at each other all day.”
As a result of the internet, we have more friends and much fewer close ones - I wonder how the children of the future (two decades from now) will interact with one another.
Why did I join the facebook? (For a quick definition of facebook: it’s like an interactive yearbook spanning your high school and college careers). Anyhow, the above question sprang into my mind today as I looked at my “confirm friends” page and realized that the two people listed on it are not people I would call friends and are either (a) insecure folk who simply are trying to increase the number of people listed under their “is friends with” column; or are (b) random celebrities listed by people too bored to do something constructive and original with their spare time. I joined facebook because everyone else did, I admit it. Sometimes I wish there were bandwagons for reading good books or learning to paint or something. Just think of the thousands of hours wasted by people clicking around on facebook when they could have been learning something. People are crazy.