I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my last post, so I thought I’d follow it up with some additional thoughts, as well as some ideas that I had at the time but didn’t get out because I was rushing to publish the first entry before it got away from me.
First off, I have no suggestions for what other people ought to do. If you were a friend of mine and I knew a lot about your life, I could probably tell you what I might do in your position. But there aren’t many people like that. For everybody else, I cannot necessarily recommend what I have done, or anything else for that matter. My mother makes great use out of Facebook as it allows her to keep in touch with people from the many different phases of her life. Personally, I have questions about whether those connections through Facebook area good thing, but I don’t doubt that they are, I would simply like to know more. She seems happy, and her face-to-face friendships certainly do not appear to be suffering. That is just one of probably very many examples of people for whom ditching Facebook does not make sense.
What does make sense, regardless of what social networks you use, is questioning how you use them, and how you benefit from using them. Do you get an ego boost from the ability to see the large number of “friends” you have (as I certainly did when I started using Facebook)? Or is your life enriched by the ability to connect with those you know and love in different ways (a promise of the technology that always seemed out of my grasp)? For every user the answer will be different, but the question is always important. What are you getting out of social networking?
In my case, I found I just wasn’t getting anything out of Facebook. There was no benefit to seeing ‘News’ about my loved-one’s personal preferences or daily routines. For me, that information is better related in a one-to-one interaction, like a phonecall, e-mail, or over a cup of coffee. A site like Last.fm allows us to relate to each other in terms of our musical tastes. For the most part, though, I’d rather argue with those whose tastes are opposite my own in person, and use the site as a recommendation engine and way to discover new music. As such, my few friends on Last.fm are people whose musical tastes are highly compatible with my own. Other users might enjoy knowing what their friends are listening to, regardless of compatibility. It’s different for everyone. No matter what, ask yourself how these networks can work for you.
The one universal problem I see with Facebook, comes from the wisdom of my father. His desk was always cluttered by a fax machine, a laser printer, and a scanner. I remember bugging him about why he didn’t get one of those newfangled all-in-one printer/scanner/copiers and save himself some desk space. The reason, he said, was that if the machine broke, he lost the ability to do all three things until the machine was fixed. If the fax broke, he could at least scan a document and e-mail it.
There’s no need to put all our digital eggs in one basket. While it is, of course, convenient and novel to be able to tag our friends in pictures share our family videos, and organize events, all of these things are possible through other sites (Flickr, YouTube and Evite respectively). I find it interesting that a culture that often frowns on companies like Wal-Mart for providing one-stop shopping, is just as happy to go to one site for all online interaction. While on the one hand it’s an “apples and oranges” comparison, on the other, it’s important to ask ourselves if we benefit from using Facebook as a personal all-in-one publishing platform.
Here’s the breakdown for me: as we established, I didn’t really get rid of Facebook, so I treat Facebook like my online directory. I maintain a profile that allows others to find me, and get in touch with me, and allows me to do the same. I use Twitter for “status updates” and for more personal information gathering. I use Google Reader/RSS for news, blogs, etc. I use Flickr for pictures, YouTube for video, Evite, Meetup or TimeBridge for events, meetings and gatherings and I use Skype for messaging.
My universal caveat stands. That kind of system is not for everyone. I understand that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the massive structure that all these technologies and networks create. Sticking to one specific point of departure provides stability and comfort. But I do recommend asking yourself if that comfort is really benefitting you. If you rely on something like Facebook to meet all your networking needs, I recommend asking yourself what you’d do if it went down when you really needed it, or if, for whatever reason, your account was compromised or cancelled.
The fact of the matter is, there’s no right way to do this stuff, the best you can do is constantly check in with yourself about what is working for you, what benefits you and what the potential downfalls of any technology might be. The Next Big Thing is always around the corner. Being reflective about f how you adapt to technological developments is just common sense. No matter what, remember that all of these networks are voluntary and you should only participate as much as feels comfortable for you. There are no rules but the ones your create for yourself. And the Terms of Service, which you shouldn’t violate, cause that would be bad.
