Are Social Networks Good For You?
I’ve recently been pondering the effects of social networks. I spent a lot of time on Twitter,Facebook,YouTube,Pownce,and although not a social network AIM and Skype.
I’ve been wondering if they are good for you. I really don’t know the effects. I don’t view it as a time waster because the I’d normally be sitting in front of the “economic neutralizer” aka Television I sit in front of one social network or another and interact with real people. Atleast I hope they are real.
I decided to list the first effects that came to my mind both positive and negaitve.
1. Time Waster
2. Meet New People
3. Social Interaction
4. New Business Relationships
5. Time Waster
6. Economic Neutralization
7. End to modern boredom
All in all I see social networks filling a gap that was lost when we quit having public markets and disintegrated our local neighborhoods by moving our front porches to the rear of our houses. So all in all while some people nag me for spending to much time on social networks I see a lot of value in using them.
Yes, you CAN get a lot of value from them, it just depends on HOW you use them. Some people will just browse around for hours looking, and some will interact. There is a huge difference.
By Alex on July 6, 2007 2:46 pm
Most of time social networks are a repetition of the profile you already have somewhere else, so several profiles will hardly boost your onlie status/profile IMO. But a well maintained profile is very wwelcome among webworkers.
By Franky on July 6, 2007 4:54 pm
It depends who you’re networking with. Just like having a beer at a bar can be a waste of time or the reason for a great meeting with a colleague, it all depends.
By Ed Kohler on July 6, 2007 9:10 pm
Good points guys. I guess i tend to interact with guys in my markets or in my interest points. I’d say for the most part its been good but I wish there was a metric for me to evaluate it. You know?
By David Krug on July 7, 2007 12:36 am
Franky has a real good point, when you consider the number of social networks out there and how many people simply migrate from one network to the next. The value of these apps are increasingly diluted as users get lazy in maintaining them and start to replicate the same info through all their accounts.
By Daniel on July 7, 2007 6:46 pm
David, if you’re even having that thought, I guess that you, deep down, know that you’re spending a little too much time on the networks. ;)
By Alex on July 9, 2007 1:32 am
[...] Are Social Networks Good For You? [...]
By anlegen.in on July 9, 2007 10:43 am
I hate how social networking developers think that just having a social network can make anything successful. I think the social aspects can be of huge benefit when it comes to the more popular sites like delicious, flickr, etc, and I also think online collaboration has huge benefits. However, all of that can be taken to extremes, which happens far too often.
By ryan on July 10, 2007 9:10 pm