I was talking with some co-workers the other day and I came up with this question… “Do we really need all these social networking avenues?” Their answers were various but what it comes down to is this question… “Why do we need all these social networking avenues?” Why do we need an account for Twitter, Blog(s), Facebook, Digg, etc. on top of using IM, Email, and IRC(do people still use it?)? Surely we are setting ourselves up for some sort of “Social Networking Overload”. There are nights that I sit down to do some programming and get caught up reading emails, reading what people said on Facebook, reading articles that come up from Digg, reading snippets of what people are doing now (Reading, eating, commenting on…) on Twitter and reading blogs. Not to mention all the writing we do in order to participate in the conversations or offer opinions.

I remember back in the day when you woke up, ate breakfast, went to school or work, got home, went outside to play or do yard work then went to bed…and I’m not that old. Interaction with others was either in person, via mail or on the telephone. Looking back life seemed a lot simpler then. (Cue daydream sequence) I don’t remember ever being overwhelmed with information even when routing through an encyclopedia for research. The most overload you may have felt was reading the paper while watching the news while listening to a baseball game on the radio. Now it seems peoples eyes are glued to their computer monitors and typing updates about what they are doing while living vicariously through others.

Feeding fuel to the fire are evaluations being done that say people that use social networking at work are more productive. Are you kidding me? Is it even possible to browse in “moderation”? Are they that bent on making social networking an acceptable part of your work day? Unless you’re managing social networking for a living I simply do not see how it can make you more productive. Unplugging from the computer and getting some fresh air while giving your eyes and mind a rest might do better…don’t you think? Are we going to eventually go the route of those portly folks in the movie Wall-E? We already appear to be sitting in our comfy chairs, consuming carbs and sweets oblivious to the world around us.

No doubt there have been some great advancements in technology over the last few years. And now more than ever we have the opportunity to connect with people we probably wouldn’t know existed. But do we really need to ‘connect’ so much that I’m following you on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, your blog and whatever future technology that comes around the bend?

I for one am going to go outside, get a breath of fresh air and absorb what nature has to offer. I’m not buying into the idea that you need to ride this wave to success or drown trying to catch up. First, I’m going to catch up on my tweet backlog then look out nature, here I come.

Tags: social networking

This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.