- Myspace
- Facebook
- Linked in
- Twitter
- Orkut
- Buzz
- yahoo 360
- Hi5
- friendster
... and it's not even 10 % of the list! (for complete list, check out the following link)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
the Social Networking Sites (SNS) have become an integrated part of our lives today. almost every individual who has access to the internet is a part of atleast a couple of SNSs.
its always good to have a platform to connect with your friends, but having your own virtual farm, growing pigs in it, spending half the time doing that, now 'THATTTT' is lame...
Every person from the age group of 15 - 35 wakes up to switch on their laptop/PC/phone and then immediately log on to their facebook or myspace page. And mind you, this activity happens even before they brush their teeth or perform that 'food associated metabolic activity'...
A survey has shown that one of the reasons for the growing number of divorces among young couples these days, is that the wives are upset about their husbands spending very little quality time with them and a lot of time tweeting and updating their facebook profiles from their blackberrys!!! If this is not a valid reason for a divorce then what is???
The whole concept of SNS is an excellent idea... helps people in a lot of ways. but the way it's used these days, is what makes it completely lame. rather it makes the users 'LAME-O's. And I need not mention the problems created by these sites these days... ooops!, am not talking politics here. but we all know the truth. Rich people/celebrities/famous people use the Social Networking Sites as a tool, not to express their thoughts, (which is the very purpose), instead to gain some cheap publicity and create problems.
When an actor tweets "i took a long and comfortable ride in my new xxxxxx car today", and for which the company which owns the brand xxxxx pays the actor (which happens btw), that is an absolutely acceptable healtthy marketing strategy the company is following. No problems with that. But when the celebrities are 'over expressive' in expressing their thoughts etc which could have an adverse effect on the society and hence create chaos, confusion etc, then it becomes a problem...!
The worst hit are the young people, who are already sucked into these SNSs. Anything is acceptable when taken/done in moderation. this is applicable for almost everything. Food, alcohol, medicine, advice etc. perhaps, after a certain point we lose interest in it. say the feeling when we are eating the 9th chapathi or the 9th slice of pizza in a row. This is the concept of 'diminishing marginal utility'. But this theory does not seem to apply in the case of SNS. the more, people use it, the more, they want to use it...! The only thing which can make people lose interest in a networking site is, another new networking site!
If you are a part of any Social Networking Site (say facebook or orkut or twitter) and if you have not done any of the following (even one), then congratulations! you are not a Lame-O:
- change your profile pic more than 5 times a month
- post something on your wall, and then keep coming back to the page repeatedly to see if somebody has replied/commented on it... (this is the worst)
- keep checking out the photo albums of friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends etc, for the sake of doing it
- mindlessly wasting time building your own virtual farm, growing pigs, crops etc and doing it a lot.
- playing a lot of online games through these sites (Zynga will probably be the biggest company in terms of turn-over by the end of 2015)
- posting something with the only aim of getting some comments (ex: "I am planning to delete my profile, wat say you people?" or "I hate life" or "wat is the meaning of life", c'mon buddy, like really? you din't worry about that for 20 years and now you bring that up on facebook? how lame are u?)
- uploading whole folder full of pictures and doing it after every time you take new photos.
- taking new fotos for the sake of posting
- (this is my favorite) taking a picture of yourself, to be your profile/display pic or something. If we notice carefully, many people have their profile picture in which eithet their left or right hand will be missing!!! oh yeah, its holding the camera. (I call this self publicity at its peak)
- adding people you dont even know (possible reasons are: you want more friends, you want to play some silly game and it requires certain number of people to be on you list, you are pathetic etc)
- begging other people to write you a testimonial or something :-) (apparently, some people think that, the more testimonials, recommendations they have, the more cool they are)
- having a fake profile
- if you are a multiple SNS user, copy-pasting the same post in all the sites and that too, every time!!!
If you have not done even one of the above mentioned things, then you are using SNSs the way it is meant to be. please dont change.
Readers may add more to the above list...
