Social Networking

[Scarlett O'Hara]

Is it a positive or negative impact on today's society? What are your general views on it?

The other part of this thread is to discuss the current social networking sites such as Facebook, myspace etc.

Is Facebook losing its appeal? As Google just jumped on the social networking bandwagon and IMO they've owned it. Great marketing technique (having to be invited by a friend to join - they did this successfully with Gmail), simple layout, great way to split up the people you know into 'circles' to share what you want with whom you want, and the ability to search on the site with easy sharing with friends.

Now I can't stand Facebook for what it's done to the world of networking by absolutely ruining our right to privacy and it's always changing into ****ing stupid layouts. So if you are a person who digs social networking, Google plus might be good for you.

Here's one of the raving reviews:

9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+ | PCWorld

[Zer0]

I'm pretty neutral when it comes to social networking, it has it's pros and cons. Pros being it allows you to keep in regular touch with your close friends, see what they're up to and just have a laugh posting random comments at 3 in the morning. Cons being it is certainly a bit of a distraction to peoples' lives, and also certain people being attention whores and posting mindless garbage every 5 minutes and just being generally annoying.

Facebook has now gone the way of Myspace and Bebo. Facebook seems to be ruined by commericialism and some privacy issues. In the same way that Myspace was ruined by **** random bands spamming you to oblivion and Bebo was ruined by being aimed more and more at teens. I will of course join Google+ just to check it out and if Google+ really takes off it could more than likely result in the downfall of Facebook.

[LoathsomePete]

One of the things that frightens me with social networking and Facebook in particular is the fact that it wants you to connect it with so many other sites. Given the recent hacking binge by LulzSec proving how inefficient a lot of Internet security is, the idea of linking everything to one site, one site that houses personal information seems like a really bad idea.

Besides that (slightly) irrational fear I also don't like the way it makes people think they're activists. "Put a green tint on your profile picture to show that you support Iranian freedom" or "Put up your favorite cartoon character to help end child abuse" stuff really grates me. You're not doing anything to really help a cause by changing your profile picture or liking something.

Twitter is perhaps the worst offender for this idea of "slacktivism" (see what I did there). Here are just a few articles about the media dubbed "Twitter Revolution" in Iran back in 2009 that showcases what I'm talking about.

This article talks about people just changing their location to "Tehran" in order to act like they were taking part in the revolution

This one talks about Westerners tweets and facebook updates causing trouble for the people actually living there, as well as Westerners retweeting propaganda posted by the Iranian government.

I'm not saying that social networking activism can't be a good thing, on the far side of the spectrum Facebook was used to help group together volunteer cleanup crews after the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver this year. Not only that, but a lot of people helped the police find rioters by posting photos they took, tagging people they knew, and taking screen shots of incriminating facebook status updates.

It definitely works on a local or state/provincial level, or maybe even a national level, but as far as international, it just lets people feel like they're taking part in something when in actuality they're not, and I think that instills people with a false sense of achievement.

[captaincaptain]

I think social networking is good for reconnecting old friends/family members. On the other hand, I see the weakening of the meaning of friendship. I see way too many of my friends on Facebook that have over 500+ friends. There is no way you have/or can have a personal relationship with that many people. Personally I have roughly have 180 friends on Facebook. 1/3 are currenty/past co workers, another 1/3 are family members and the last 1/3 are people from high school or are friends I have from other ventures. Below is a post a friend from high school posted last week and is a prime example of what's wrong with social networking.

[Raust]

I honestly can't stand facebook. It has defined a generation and is used throughout popular culture and media. There's really no point to the site other than to keep in touch with people. It kind of reminds me of highschool a bit to. A lot of people starting drama over the dumbest ****. And a lot of lonely individuals out there who use it to post the dumbest stuff to remind them that there life is worth living. People tend to rely on it often and its not healthy. I usually avoid the site and have one up just to keep in touch with friends.

[captaincaptain]

Originally Posted by LoathsomePete

Besides that (slightly) irrational fear I also don't like the way it makes people think they're activists. "Put a green tint on your profile picture to show that you support Iranian freedom" or "Put up your favorite cartoon character to help end child abuse" stuff really grates me. You're not doing anything to really help a cause by changing your profile picture or liking something.

I think this can be harmless and a sign of solidarity at times. Though it can easily delve into laziness or hopping on a bandwagon cause (like Iranian freedom) while the real activists are dying, while all you're doing is changing a profile picture.

[LoathsomePete]

Originally Posted by captaincaptain

I think this can be harmless and a sign of solidarity at times. Though it can easily delve into laziness or hopping on a bandwagon cause (like Iranian freedom) while the real activists are dying, while all you're doing is changing a profile picture.

Yeah I know and I didn't mean to sound as rant-y about it as that post probably read. Sometimes I just see it as you're more interested in being seen as charitable rather than actually caring about the cause. I mean I walk dogs for the Humane Society every Saturday morning, but I don't feel the need to broadcast it to everyone on FB in some attempt to appeal for approval.

What's worse is when people chastise you for not following suit in some of these events. That childhood cartoon default picture earned me a lot of scorn by some of my (former) facebook friends asking me why I wasn't taking part in it. I know not everyone is like that, and I'm probably making broad generalizations about people based on my own personal experiences which isn't right, but god dammit I just don't understand how they think they're helping anything.

[captaincaptain]

Originally Posted by LoathsomePete

Yeah I know and I didn't mean to sound as rant-y about it as that post probably read. Sometimes I just see it as you're more interested in being seen as charitable rather than actually caring about the cause. I mean I walk dogs for the Humane Society every Saturday morning, but I don't feel the need to broadcast it to everyone on FB in some attempt to appeal for approval.

What's worse is when people chastise you for not following suit in some of these events. That childhood cartoon default picture earned me a lot of scorn by some of my (former) facebook friends asking me why I wasn't taking part in it. I know not everyone is like that, and I'm probably making broad generalizations about people based on my own personal experiences which isn't right, but god dammit I just don't understand how they think they're helping anything.

I like the one's that say "all my real friends will repost this" or "97% of you will ignore this while 3% will repost this". If you're basing my friendship off of something as silly as a Facebook post, cya later.

[djchameleon]

The common denominator in most of the scenarios that you have posted are people itself not the tools.

There is nothing wrong with Facebook itself but some of the people that use it.

Sure it had some privacy issues in the past but those are fixed and if people don't know how to use the settings to set up the privacy in the way that they want then that's their fault.

Also all of those silly people playing Farmville and those other apps should actually read what it says when you first sign up that you are willing sharing your private information with third parties again another end user problem not the actual tool itself.

I got an invite to Google+ but I haven't fully explored it yet to see what it is about. I tried to join my friend's hangout session but I guess he wasn't connected when I clicked the link.

[Paedantic Basterd]

Facebook does have some sleazy ways of changing their TOS without notifying users though, and also resetting your privacy settings when they make a change to the layout.

Originally Posted by LoathsomePete

What's worse is when people chastise you for not following suit in some of these events. That childhood cartoon default picture earned me a lot of scorn by some of my (former) facebook friends asking me why I wasn't taking part in it. I know not everyone is like that, and I'm probably making broad generalizations about people based on my own personal experiences which isn't right, but god dammit I just don't understand how they think they're helping anything.

I participated in that event by changing my avatar to pedobear.