{"id":16,"date":"2008-11-26T11:25:55","date_gmt":"2008-11-26T18:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/?p=16"},"modified":"2008-11-26T11:25:55","modified_gmt":"2008-11-26T18:25:55","slug":"social-networking-the-pros-and-cons-of-social-networking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/2008\/11\/social-networking-the-pros-and-cons-of-social-networking\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Networking: The Pros and Cons of Social Networking"},"content":{"rendered":"

(<\/span>This is a duplicate of my original post on Spinning, copied here to keep it with the series)<\/p>\n

We've embraced the wonders of the internet, the amazing opportunities
\nit offers and the world it opens up to every individual with computer
\naccess. We've come a long way from piling into the wagon to drive fifty
\nmiles to Grandma's for a weekend visit. The postal service has improved
\nsince they've been able to use mailtrucks and airplanes instead of
\nhorses and steamships. The telephone added the sense of hearing though
\nthe visual suffered for it. And now the web along with weblogs and twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a> and a dozen different social networking services limits the dark corners to hide in.<\/p>\n

But even the weblog is outdated<\/a>, I've heard, and it's being suggested that we "pull the plug on blogs":  <\/p>\n

The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.<\/div>\n

If you quit now, you're in good company. Notorious chatterbox Jason Calacanis made millions from his Weblogs<\/a> network. But he flat-out retired<\/a>
\nhis own blog in July. "Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and
\nlacks the intimacy that drew me to it," he wrote in his final post.<\/p>\n

Now I've likely just hurt someone's feelings by being less than enthusiastic about joining diigo<\/a>
\nafter sending an email with data to share. I've apologized, and I do
\nunderstand the use of diigo (or I'm trying to) as a tool for sharing,
\nbut it seems that while I've breached a certain code of camaraderie in
\nwanting to pass information to an individual rather than splatter it on
\na website, it does take away even that little smidgen of a personal
\ntouch that email manages to cling to. <\/p>\n

I'll admit that I'm
\neternally grateful to the system, and likely one of the very same type
\nof person I'm here to complain about. "I'm a writer, I'll send you an
\nemail," I say, often staving off the phone conversation that once was
\nan important part of my life. Nowadays, there are only a few friends I
\ntalk to via telephone–and that's actual voice-talking, not text
\nmessaging. Once email and weblogs were invented, I figured I'd found my
\nniche. I've also dabbled in Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Plurk, and now
\ndiigo.<\/p>\n

But there're some drawbacks to the social networking via
\nthe web. It's not something I've done a study on, but I've been getting
\nthe general feeling of a lack of politeness in both the real world and
\nthe semi-real world of the internet. For example, with job postings and
\nresponses done via websites, there are hundreds competing for the same
\njob, so I do understand that response from a prospective employer would
\nbe more difficult, but these days, an applicant never knows if he's
\nbeing considered or got dumped within minutes. Because it's so easy to
\navoid responding, this same thing is happening on weblogs, and in the
\nsocial networking groups. Just for shits, I've written some outrageous
\nthings on twitter or on a blog (and some deeper, more personal
\nsharings) and received absolutely no conversation. You know folks have
\nread it, and yet there's no human reaction as a sign of empathy or
\nsurprise or whatever. While you've made some friends via these means,
\nthe friends that you might ordinarily expect to talk with in person (if
\nthey read your web communications at all), have that option of ignoring
\nwhat they read. <\/p>\n

How would this play out in person? Would they
\nsilently turn around and walk away? See, social networking on the
\ninternet isn't really very social when you look at it that way.  Here's
\nanother viewpoint, from Don Tennant <\/a>at ComputerWorld, referring to another article by Kip Layton<\/a>,
\na school administrator in a tiny town in Alaska regarding email and its
\neffect on handwriing. Don gives us his feelings about snail mail when
\nhis son's computer is down:<\/p>\n

People over 35 generally have lovely handwriting. The 25-to-35 age
\ngroup has decent handwriting. And the under-25 crowd is a legibility
\nlaughingstock. It's all because of computers. And it's kind of a shame.<\/p>\n

(…) I clearly could have written the letters on my computer and printed
\nthem out, but I didn't. I suppose the reason is that I can remember as
\na kid getting letters from my mom and dad and noticing their different
\nstyles of handwriting and appreciating that unique personal expression.<\/p>\n

I wanted my son to see that same expressiveness and individuality and
\npersonality in my correspondence with him, so I've been writing my
\nletters to him longhand.<\/p>\n

Hadn't
\nthought of that; I treasure recipes, notes, cards, little papers where
\nthe writing is clearly that of my mother, or my father, or someone else
\ndear to me. It's not as personal as physical presence, but it's sure a
\nstep above the cold type of an email. <\/p>\n

Now maybe I'm just more
\nbothered by this than most folk, as I'm more the type that have a
\nprecious few close friends and another layer of well, friends, and a
\nlot of acquaintances so I'm not trying to expand either my presence or
\nmy popularity.  But I see more than just a separate society online.
\nFrankly, I see the same avoidance of connection, the rudeness, the same
\ndistancing that expands a circle of friends to global yet moves those
\none would be in contact with via phone or in person to that same level,
\nand that same ease of slipping away that the internet allows creeping
\ninto the realities of face to face living. It need not be that way, but
\nthere's a couple of generations now that have been brought up in this
\nnew world of great possibility and possible dehumanization of society. 
\nAnd some of us, the ones who notice these things, won't be here to
\nremember them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(<\/span>This is a duplicate of my original post on Spinning, copied here to keep it with the series) We've embraced the wonders of the internet, the amazing opportunities it offers and the world it opens up to every individual with computer access. We've come a long way from piling into the wagon to drive fifty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}