Social Networking
Apr 1st, 2009 by Larry
Why are sites like My Space and Facebook so popular? A couple years ago I signed up for both My Space and Facebook but after doing so I just let them sit and did nothing with them. I didn’t sign up any friends because I have so few close friends and didn’t think it was worth it, and besides, I’m not a very social person.
About six months ago my wife created an account on Facebook and started playing games like Pirates, Mouehunt, and Horse Racing. She talked about it all the time and was spending exceedingly more time on the computer. She now has friends all over the world. She just recently exchanged a gift with someone in Australia. I thought this was just crazy and couldn’t get my mind around it. I then went into my old Facebook account and started playing a game called, Mafia Wars.
Mafia Wars is a very addictive game where you build your family and fight other families, virtual families that is. I quickly went from no friends to over 300 in a few short weeks. I then started playing Pirates and Vampire Wars too adding even more friends. They say that 5 minutes on Facebook turns into 1 or 2 hours. Whoever they are, it’s true, you just completely lose track of time. I started staying up late and my life started to suffer for it. One of my new friends calls it Face Crack because it’s so addictive. I am now trying to wean myself from the games but it’s not going to be easy to rid myself from them completely.
One thing that I have found from this experience is that some friends that you add, like distant family members, that you don’t have that much in common with will stay that way. I’ve sent private messages to family members and never receive a reply. For me, this takes the social out of Social Networking. Why have these people as friends if they won’t even talk to you. I have since started to delete these family members from my Facebook account, and hopefully I’ll completely wean myself from the games over time.
To me this has been a good experiment but now I want my life back the way it was. I’ll keep the complete strangers that I talk to, even if they live half way around the world, and delete the family that won’t even acknowledge my existence.
Larry
