Monday, March 30, 2009

Social Networking: Friend or Foe?

"Are you on Twitter?" This is a question my mom asked me via e-mail the other day. And even though I am, I couldn't help but be shocked that my mom would possibly be on it and wondered why. The woman is private and doesn't have that much going on in her life to update her status every 2-5 minutes. (I'm still trying to understand Twitter.. I'm just not there yet).

The world of social networking has taken over the World Wide Web. From blogging, to Facebook to Linked In, you're able to snag a date to possibly snagging a job. However, it's more than that. You get a glimpse into total strangers, associates and even your colleagues' lives. You find out where people kicked it over the weekend, see photos from their most recent vaca, who they're in a relationship with, where they're working, etc, etc. But how much information is too much information?

I heard about this story, listening to the radio the other day and thought "well damn." No information is safe. (I seriously sometimes wonder if the information I put on my own blog will possibly jeopardize some relationships, friendships or my job.) And we should know this by now, but when will people stop divulging information including their inner most thoughts? And will we ever stop caring? Because don't front, you're "stalking" your boo-tential, your frenemies and whoever else's life you want to not care about. I wish we could go back to the old way of communicating. No one e-mails or calls anymore. It's all about messaging, poking and tweeting. Information is misconstrued and people think the random guy I'm hugged up on is my BF while he's just a prop for my photo. And damn the honesty box... why can't you just tell a mutual friend that you got a crush on me, why must I guess???!!

Sitting around with a couple of my girls, one stated that "Facebook and all of these social networking sites are a ploy by the government to know what you're doing at any given moment." As funny and silly as this sounds.. you can't help but think.. is it true?

I've often thought about taking a hiatus from FB and the likes but I won't - as much as I hate that I can't make it through the day without checking in.. still gotta love it.

3 comments:

Reese said...

"Information is misconstrued and people think the random guy I'm hugged up on is my BF while he's just a prop for my photo."

let teh church say amen. that was funny as hell but so true. I also think that social networking sites are dooming for a lot of reasons. I cannot begin to tell you how many times me and the miss have gotten into a tiff about something some girl i know from college posted on my wall about a picture or something like that, its all just words. i mean its cool when you meet people and you become "facebook friends" cause im just not good at keeping up with folk outside of my inner circle anyway. Cool post Pyt

T said...

It's definitely a foe. And LMAO @ fb stalking boo-tentials and frenemies. It wouldn't be funny if it wasn't so true.

I heard Mark Cuban got fined $25,000 for complaining about a Dallas Mavericks ref in his Twitter status. WTF? There's no way Twitter is in his owner contract. WTF happened to freedom of speech.

I'm paranoid about my blog and facebook and I refuse to get on Twitter. Every week I go and erase a fb album thinking everyone who I wanted to see it already saw it, so I might as well let it go. LOL!

Carmen San Diego said...

Such valid points P. My mom and her whole family are on fb... that's one thing... I screen my profile pretty well now anyway. But then I got a request from her for twitter! Get outta here! I don't think I'll ever get into that thing and like you, I def don't understand how she did. lol