I liked the days of instant messaging. I appreciated how I actually had to get emails from people and ask if they had instant messaging. I could always see when they were online and I could stay on and have a chat. I mean a meaningful chat too. I remember having pages and pages of typed conversations with people - all in real time and without having to use a phone or waiting for an email to come back. Every time I logged online it was an adventure to see who was going to be on or might show up, and what we might talk about. We had Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL messenger - it was a lot to keep track of, but it was fun.
Of course the next big thing after IM was MySpace. The reason I liked MySpace back in its day was due to the way we could customize our profiles, It was truly my space. It was your space. It was everyone's own personal space. It was like saying "Welcome to my life. This is who I am, and this is how I want others to see me as." We could change our background and fonts and colors to what we thought looked good. We could set music or choose not to. We could have our top friends, follow who or what we wanted, and share posts about our everyday life and what was going on. This was instant messaging enhanced. Now we didn't have to wait for someone to be online, we could check out what they were up to, leave comments, and catch up with them whenever.
When Facebook came around, it was a revolution in itself. Not only did it allow the same basic functions as MySpace, but now we all had a nice simple, clean look. And we had gadgets and games. There weren't ads all over the place, we didn't have to "like" things, and our Facebook pages weren't just one constant news feed. We actually had things on our Facebook page that made it unique. We had "bumper sticker" and "flair" on our pages. Our interests were all listed right there on our front page for anyone to see.
Of course once Facebook took over and overshadowed the popular MySpace, this idea of "social networking" came into place. To me social networking means one of two things. One being that it is a fancy name for how companies can target ads at people. The other being a good excuse to say you like someone and then never have to talk to them because you "liked" something they posted last week. Facebook is now one constant news feed application, and has basically become a home for one-liners and sharing cat pictures. Because of Facebook our social interactions have watered down into logging in, posting a few likes, and then getting some ads. That's it.
You know what I dislike most about all this? I don't do "social networking." I'm sure a lot of people don't. I don't want to grow and connect and be part of a crowd. I don't want to have hundreds of followers just for the sake of having them. I don't want my online social interactions to be so empty and thoughtless as just liking random posts and posting a YouTube video. This new Google Plus is out now - I don't even... I mean, how much of a social life does one need to start putting their friends into different groups and managing them depending on how well they know them? If you're into that, then I am sure it is a great tool. For me though, I don't have the need or want to have to ever manage that many people so meticulously and constantly.
The social network machine has become something so cookie-cutter and so unprofessional and impersonal and so full of ads that I really don't want anything to do with it. I want more of an "unsocial network" like the way things used to be. I just want my own personal online space. I want a space me and my close friends can share and the rest of the world can stay out. I want a place I can stay social, but not connected. There used to be a place like that. That place is gone, but I hope someday, some way, somewhere that will come back.
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