How To Be Social(ly Inept)

Continuing with the theme of social networking...

One of the main selling points for a social networking site is that it's easy. Easy to sign up, easy to navigate and easy to connect with people.

Could it all be just a little too easy?

See somebody you find attractive on the subway? Instead of approaching them and striking up a conversation, just post on craigslist missed connections. How about eHarmony? Fill out an online questionnaire (be warned, I hear they take a while) and have a computer spit out "matches" for you to consider. Takes all the guesswork out of dating, doesn't it? (Well, not all. But at the least the part where you actually find the dates.)

Facebook, myspace, Hi5, Tagged... the list goes on for networking sites that help you reconnect with the classmates, colleagues, etc. of your past. I have better relationships with some of my relatives through facebook than I have with them in real life.

Social networking sites make it so easy to connect, reconnect and communicate with those we know, once knew or would like to know in the future.

It's a way of being connected to the world outside without actually going outside.

Something a little different: I'm sure most people are familiar with the Dentyne Ice "make face time" ads. The ads encourage people to spend less time in the online world and more time in the real world. Pretty simple, and yet genius at the same time. Especially their new website that expires after 3 minutes, which they say gives you just enough time "to browse every link, but not a second more." I almost wish Facebook had an application for that...

Single-Minded

Social networking sites boast an easy and efficient way to update many people at one time about your life. However, reading an article about a woman murdered for her Facebook status, gives me more than a moment’s pause – and it should.

I have never included my relationship status as a part of my profile. Why? The way I see it, anyone important enough in my life will likely know my status already (if you don’t and you’re reading this, well, that probably tells you something). It also saves me from all those awkward “what happened?” wall posts that inevitably come when you go from “in a relationship” to the dreaded “single.” Your status might as well read: “single and looking, with absolutely no standards.”

Some things, like a lack of standards, are just meant to be private.

An excellent example: my sister is an intermittent Facebook user (i.e. her profile exists, then all of a sudden it’s gone, only to return again two weeks later. Lather, rinse, repeat.) Upon one of her forays back into the Facebook world her status changed to single and she was met with all those awkward wall posts. And why? Because, as humans, we’re inherently nosy creatures. We have to be all up in each other’s business because we’re sure everyone else’s life is more exciting, more scandalous than our own.

It’s this mentality that social networking sites thrive on. Think about it… how much time have you spent scrolling through other people’s photo albums, reading their witty captions and envying them for their rock star lifestyle? We all do it. Yes, even you. The sad thing is, it’s like a train wreck – you don’t want to look but you just can’t help yourself.

The challenge is, of course, finding that balance between living vicariously through others and actually living.

A welcome, of sorts

Up until about four months ago, I don't think I ever used the words social and media together in a sentence. Sure, I knew what facebook was, I had a profile. I had myspace. Hi5? Yep, once upon a time I had that too. I was familiar with youtube; I think I had heard the word flickr mentioned before. But the term social media was pretty new.

It's now become a term my fellow students and I know, love and use on a regular basis. It's one of the driving forces of our studies right now.

But how and when to use such a far-reaching tool? Ah, this is now the challenge. How to harness the great potential of social media and use it best, without over-doing it? When should we just revert back to the ol' tried-and-true methods of socializing?

That's what this blog is here for. To experiment with various forms of social media, determine what works and what doesn't and maybe even clear up a few misconceptions along the way. Yes, I'm going to attempt to untangle this web called social media. This is purely experimental and, like every good experiment, it will come with a lot of trial and error.

Here we go. No instruction manuals, no prior experience and, most importantly, no safety equipment.