|
The Top 5 Problems with Social Networking Sites By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman This is actually a primer article as I’m going to talking about a more personal experience with social networking sites in the near future. In case you don’t know what a social networking site is, they’re those sites where you look up old friends that you never really cared about to begin with (otherwise you would have done some non-digital footwork and found them) and compile a myriad of social contacts that you don’t really need. Even though I speak of these types of sites with a slightly cynical tongue, they’re actually an entertaining way to pass the time or to further keep you from drafting a web-magazine article by deadline. Recently, I started an account on facebook.com and while I have had a myspace profile for several years; joining facebook reminded me of the stupid quirks and problems associated with trying to add and find new people via these social networking sites. Doing what I do best on this site, I made top 5 list ranking the annoyances one must deal with trying to get in touch with old friends. 5) Embedded songs and videos on auto-play: The ability to share and showcase songs and videos on one's personal page is quite an amazing innovation. It can add a personal touch to one’s profile or even allow a person to give podcast style updates about their lives; unless of course such media is crammed down your throat in almost a clockwork orange fashion. I can speak from experience, as I often cringe going onto several friends' myspace profiles; for I know I'll be greeted to a loop of Twisted Sister's “I Wanna Rock” or the Extreme Foam Party Saturdays audio/video promotion (which I'll admit, I actually watched and enjoyed the “cinematography” the FIRST time I saw it). I find it presumptuous to think that everyone has the same tastes in music or video as me or that I should be there to “enlighten” people with my song or video du jour. 4) Blocked profiles: Honestly, I can see one reason (with 2 subsets) to do this: either the person is a minor or they have pictures of their kids or some other people's kids (why that would be? I don't know) on their profile. To say that one is doing such to protect themselves and their privacy is quite dubious. As anyone who is remotely net savvy will know not to put any personal information, unless they care to deal with implications. However, maybe there are dumb people in this world that write their own phone numbers on bathroom stall walls. While some services actually make the default profile setting private, I find it somewhat hard to know who I'm trying to add. Especially, since I went to a high school in which there were so many asian kids with similar or even the same names. 3) Applications: These would actually rank much higher if they weren't so benign. However, I do find them quite annoying. Applications are various games, quiz bots, survey collection scripts, etc that one can add to their profile. They're much like the “widgets” available on yahoo, apple OS, windows vista, and other platforms. Admittedly, they do add quite a bit of fun in browsing a friend's profile. However, they also add quite a bit of aesthetic clutter. Thus, navigating through some profiles can be downright hellish; some have so many pieces of digital flair that it's hard to distinguish where one application ends and another begins. There are also a good number of applications that are pointless. One that immediately comes to mind is this ridiculous custom group my sister has on her page. I see absolutely no point in this and can find nothing wrong with (or different than) making a group on the main server and listing it as private. 2) Scams and spam: Even though this is quite a common thing whenever one uses some facet on the net that allows them to interact with others; I have never seen spam and scam attempts so bountiful anywhere else (actually, my alternate email's inbox might top that, but I only use my alternate name to sign up for dumb offers and trial game account stuff). If botted spam isn't bad enough, there are also user created ads flooding my comment box, bulletins and inbox. From the Extreme Foam Party ad mentioned above to this one asshole with a pretty nice site, asking everyone to join its street team; these people have made themselves out to be like giant billboards littering the internet skies. 1) The “WoW” factor: I'll admit that I never played World of Warcraft or any MMORPG (yes, I know I'm part of a “guild,” but we were playing a tank shooter game with SD/chibi-anime styled graphics), guest writer Ron has and it is sometimes a bitch to get that guy away from that game. I guess the same can be said about the time I spend fooling around on social networking sites. Checking messages, trying to find people I knew somewhere down the line, playing with those stupid applications mentioned above; have all become ridiculous little tasks I catch myself doing to pass the time. I will admit, I do find myself trying to pass the time in this way quite a bit, even when I shouldn’t be. The addictive factor of social networking sites is in itself somewhat of a double edged sword. While people are establishing bonds and making new or old contacts, they’re also just wasting time with a myriad of inane: games, surveys, and browsing.
Disclaimer: While I do seem to bash these types of sites quite a bit this is more an “extreme” view rant… With that being said, I need to check to see if that one cutesy asian girl added me as her friend yet.
|
