Trojan Horses

Are social networking sites overrated?

Forget the horror stories about people who got involved with MySpace or Craigslist. Episodes of that nature have gone on in one way or another for years, mostly without help from the Internet. Leaving the tales of the dangers of social networking sites aside for the sake of this post, I ask this - are social networking sites all that wonderful?

I've met a couple of people through the Internet - I met one friend through Flickr, in fact, if Flickr counts as a social networking site - but most of the people I connect with through MySpace or Facebook are folks I know in the real, non-cyberspace world. I prefer the actual company of people rather than the virtual one - that's why I made the eleven MySpace friends of mine that I have met and know in person my top eleven friends. More often than not, social networking sites are sites for me to go to in order to keep up my "real world" friendships.

I've tried meeting new people through MySpace, for example, but it doesn't usually work out. Case in point: One of my MySpace friends celebrated her birthday this past Monday. I had been trying to meet this woman in person for some time, because she sounds interesting. Anyway, I seized the occasion of her birthday to leave her a comment on her page wishing her a happy birthday, as a friendly gesture. But, because all comments left on this woman's page requires her approval before they're added to her comments page, it wouldn't appear until she looked at it and approved it.

It hasn't appeared at all. She has logged in to her MySpace page since Monday, but she didn't bother to post the comment I left her.

Come to think of it, she rarely approves any of the comments I've left for her photos as well.

So, I tried to meet someone and be nice and friendly and all that, and it didn't happen.

Oh yeah, I have 67 MySpace friends at this posting, and I'm in regular contact with no more than a few of them at a time. There are some MySpace "friends" I am in no contact with at all.

So, given all that, why do I have so many MySpace friends, especially when most of them are friends in name only?

I'm seriously considering dropping a lot of my MySpace friends (including the woman I just mentioned) for the same reason General Motors dropped so many brands - they're superfluous. If I want to meet anyone that badly, I'll do it the old-fashioned way - go to a bar. As for my MySpace page, well, it makes a good personal Web site, and I enjoy posting a different music video on it each week.

More of my Facebook friends, by contrast, are people I know in the real world, so that works out better, especially now that all of the bugs that affected my Facebook screen - part of it was truncated - have been worked out. I don't know about Friendster, though; I tried opening mail on that site and a Trojan virus hijacked my PC and it took me all afternoon to remove it.

Ironically, the chap who introduced me to Friendster met his wife through it.

Me, I get a Trojan from it.

And don't even get me started on Twitter, which I rarely use.