Social Networking and I

Describe your history with and use of social networking

I began networking socially once we purchased AOL back in the mid 1990's. I remember sitting in front of the computers for hours, listening to the strange "connecting" noises until I would finally have a chance to instant message a friend, and go into chat rooms and make new friends. Following AOL, I had created my first MYSPACE page when that was a big social hit. I no longer use either AOL or MYSPACE. Probably because I now have gmail, and I use Facebook instead since its more about the people and less about noisy graphics and unneccessary advertisments. Other than keeping up with friends back on the East coast through pictures on Facebook and accessing my general email on gmail, I do not go overboard with the digital forms of social networking. I am a people person, and would much rather see someone, meet someone and hang with somoene rather than text, email, call, etc.


For a NEW-TO-ME Social networking site, I decided to join TWITTER under a fictious name (as I will definitely never be accessing this site again)

Twitter, is very much resembling facebook in terms of cosmetics. In fact I had to double check and make sure I was on the right site. Known for its ability to track peopleon the go and give hour by hour reportings of where your friends are, this sure may be (in my opion) more helpful for business's rather than netwroking for the sake of keeping up with friends. The goals of the users on this network is know whats happening RIGHT NOW (key words) around the world, an instant connection to your friends, business contacts and everyone they know.

Digital Social Networking has come a long way since the days of dial-up AOL and chat rooms. I invision that this trend of the "need to know" will only increase and blast through the roof with even more advanced, and more frightening precise ways of contacting past relationships,and knowing more about people than they know about themselves. There are endless possibilities of how this can go, and I look forward to seeing where it ends up, but hoping deep down inside that the world does see the need for a more people-trend, rather than just a digital-trend. I can not emphasize the importantce of seeing and talking to your friends and business contacts alike in person, rather than just digitally.