#13 Social Networking - Olivia

The phrase "social networking" sounds redundant to me.  And like it's trying too hard.

I mean, what is networking without a social aspect?  Even with the technological element removed, striking up a conversation with someone because of the mutual benefits one could assume from such a relation, be it connections, job offers, free stuff, or even good advice, isn't that social?  Doesn't it require a smidgen of social graces at least?

And don't tell me when you're casually social that you're not getting anything out of it.

I don't know who makes up this new age media jargon.  But I agree that the shift in communication values has begun with my generation.

The internet has been forged from the fires as a modern day Swiss Army knife of sorts.  Once the ultimate tool of basic survival, the ironically neutral Swiss could make a mean knife.  It kept people alive.

The only difference in the analogy would be that instead of keeping people alive, the knife played by the part of the internet enables a very dependent lifestyle instead.  The internet becomes a survival crutch instead of a survival tool.

It's become that product you can't believe you lived without.

Within the last decade alone, we have seen writing letters, making phone calls, paying for music, and reading the newspaper fall out of normalcy.  Now, it's expected to engage in facebook, texting, downloading, and general internet surfing.

I have always been slightly leery of the changes of technology, only because I know more will come.  Nothing is permanent.  But a greater concern has stepped forward.  I call it the real life social application gap.

Essentially, despite hundreds of ways to contact people these days, it's become increasingly difficult to actually communicate - especially in person.

I recently became friends with someone who teaches seventh grade English.  She told me she was struggling with having her students edit "texting jargon" from their essays.

I hate to say it, but I feel like an old person when I say that those kind of conflicts with general writing boggle my mind.  But if we've learned anything, it's language is a fluid growing thing, so ... maybe they're on to something?  I shudder when I consider the possibilities.

It's one thing to not be able to understand your kids and something else when your kids are speaking a completely different language.

 As a communications major, I feel like I have some real concern for the future of social networking.  If there is no communication, progress stops.  I fear I hear the brakes grinding yet.

I always want to understand people and be personally understood.  I hope that we can progress to a place where expression is once again revered for quality and not efficiency.

And if not, theres always urbandictionary.com.

#13 Social Networking -- Don

A couple of weeks ago I saw the movie about the guy who founded Facebook.  It was a pretty good movie, but it’s one of those films where the conversation is so rapid and barbed that you know you’re listening to the screenwriter who had days to think about how he wanted to phrase things instead of the meager seconds the characters would have had.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that when a movie is supposed to be based on real events, it’s usually the special effects that make you go, “Hmmm,  that would never happen” instead of the dialogue. 

In this movie, the film makers wanted to portray the kid who founded Facebook as a real backstabbing SOB.  The way it’s laid out in this movie, just as the stock was about to be worth millions, he duped his first partner into signing some legal documents that reduced his share from a third of the company to less than one one-hundredth of the company.  Of course, eventually he had to give his former partner (and roommate) a settlement that was worth millions, but the message of the movie is basically that the young billionaire who started the whole Facebook phenomenon needed to be sued by one of the only real friends he ever had.

It’s ironic, see, the guy who made counting your virtual friends trendy (and made himself filthy rich in the process) didn’t know how to treat his own friends in real life.  I’m not saying what happened in the movie didn’t happen, but when film makers decide to bludgeon you over the head with their message, it’s hard not to wonder what the other guy’s perspective is on how things went down.  In one review I read of the film, the screenwriter admitted that he had never met the guy he was writing about because he based the script on a book that had been written about the whole sorted story.  Perhaps if he had known the guy, maybe the main character wouldn’t have come off as both a historically astute businessman and a monumentally inept friend to his former roommate.

As for me, I have to admit that I’ve been slacking on my Facebook reading lately.  There was a time when I was a bit compulsive about checking people’s status updates, and for more than a year, I worked at have having particularly clever things to say in my own updates everyday.  Lately, however, I’ve been going for the better part of a week before checking in, and I rarely find myself reading more than the comments that show up on my first page.

So what has cured my Facebook addiction?  Another addiction, of course.  It’s odd that the time I used to spend on the computer catching up with high school friends, cousins, college buddies, and former students, I’ve been using instead to play a new video game called “Minecraft.”

Minecraft is a video game that drops the player into a world that is basically built out blocks, and the player manipulates the blocks into building shelter before the monsters arrive.  It’s both a creative “let’s see what we can build” type of game and a “on no, here’s comes the zombies again!” kind of game meshed into one.

The irony of this, of course, is that instead of using the computer to connect with other people; I’m using the computer to escape to my own deserted island.  But I guess after a year or so of doing the social networking thing, I was ready for a break.

Don’t get me wrong, I love (well, at least tolerate) all the people on my friends list; it’s just lately the amount of cognitive noise it was generating with “I’m sleeping in today,” or “I’m cooking beans for dinner,” or “I’m about to watch television” type of posts made me long for a place where I could get off and be alone with my own thoughts for awhile.

Of course, my infatuation with Minecraft is not going to really last all that long.  First, there’s only so many castles a guy can build before he’s had enough (even with arrow shooting skeleton’s banging on the door), and second, very soon the multiplayer version of the game is going to take over my life, and I think I’ll find myself back in the virtual loop again.

Up till now I’ve been adamant about skipping the Farmville and other games that people play on Facebook.  I’m not so sure I’ll be able to resist the urge to build castles and kill zombies with my friends.

Who are my real friends?   They’re the ones who care about me even when I go days and days on my lonely tropical island before I get back to them on Facebook.