I was thinking about social networking sites like twitter and facebook yesterday as I cleared out my friends list on facebook. It was nothing personal but if we have no interaction we don't need to be friends. I shaved off nearly 75 people. There were more than could have gone but either they are related or they are a former student.
Anyhow if you think about it, how many times have you sat there reading someone's twitter feed or facebook and never really had any real interaction with them. I follow someone on twitter whose blog I read regularly. They encourage on their blog to connect with them via social media. I regularly see where they ate lunch, when they are vacationing and even clicked a link to a picture which contained their address. It pretty much puts you in a place where you could easily stalk someone or be stalked by someone. Fortunately in this situation, I the reader, has no desire to stalk this or any person.
That led me to two more thoughts.
1. Twitter and Facebook are like a voyeurs dream.
2. I wonder if on the other hand they serve to build egos?
Even this very blog could be serve as either. I write with the intention of my words being read. I assume that someone is caring enough to read them. On the other hand you could be some sort of creep who just likes to read about random peoples lives. I have no idea who my readership is. This is why I don't share overly personal details on here or any social networking for that matter.
I am not all anti social networking. I actually think it is an amazing tool IF used with care.
Think about it though do we really delude ourselves by thinking people care about every thought we have crammed into 140 characters? Can we even have a profound expression in that little space?
What do you think? Have you ever spent time creeping on twitter or facebook? Do you ever tweet or post status messages just to get a reply? Does this fuel our it's all about me culture?
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