antisocial networking

What is the deal with Facebook? Everyone's on it now, and seemingly all the time. I thought six-degrees was a super cool idea in the early 90s, but the net was too new, people were still cautious about personal information, and so it never reached a tipping point. A decade later came friendster, which worked really well, but largely was a SF/LA/NY thing. And pretty gay-heavy. (general rule of thumb: if their friendster profile pic is shirtless, they're a whore.)

MySpace blew the doors off of the social networking thing, but still can't compete with friendster for actual "friends."

When everyone's comments are "thanks for the add" and strangers frantically solicit and "accept" each other as friends, it just smacks of insecurity and desperation. Te rule of thumb here: the more "friends" a person has, the more of a loser they are. An inverse-proportional rule to their desire to be seen as popular.

Some people claim to me that they have "thousands of friends on MySpace."
But my answers is "Yeah, but none of them will pick you up at the airport."

That's a pretty good friend determiner.

I have a policy of not accepting any one as a friend on MySpace unless they are an actual friend.

And now Facebook has a seemingly infinite number of widgets and add-ons and apps and dear God won't you people stop inviting me to share my personal information with a thousand invisible companies so I can take a lame ten question test to see what 80's movie character I am?

Seriously? Other than friends (actual friends, who would pick me up at the airport if they had a car) who have day jobs where they are mostly idle and stuck in front of a computer (e.g. receptionist) and students, who has the time to engage in all of this?

Sure, I joined a lot of these as they debuted, and have accounts around the circuit, but I rarely check these and engage even less. All of the notifications from these accounts go to one of my spam Yahoo accounts, so I rarely even know I have outstanding notifications/ invitations/ whatnot. Consequently, those friends who do live by these sites wonder why I'm being such a dick and not responding to any of their messages.

For true friends, I give out the "behind the velvet rope" e-mail address. If you really need me, e- me there. Don't "post on my wall."

One person I know MySpace has worked well for is Nashville Keith. He's successfully networked and made new friends via MySpace. Maybe it's a Nashville/gay thing. Dunno. But it is how Michael found Keith, who introduced him to me, and for that I am grateful. (As I understand it MySpace was originally band- and music-centered, which does make sense.)

Kids I know (high school, college) are into Facebook all the freaking time. And I must admit a generational disconnect. These days, the men and women I know who casually visit the social networking sites do so only to check out potential dates and guys/girls they met in bars or are being set up with. And honestly, these sites work well to this purpose.

But I have about 51 outstanding invitations/notifications on Facebook. And the immersion/reversion of Facebook participation has become common cocktail party conversation. At the Berlin School dinner, Jocelyn, who had just the week prior married her husband Craig, coined the term "Facebook Wedding Effect," wherein after a wedding weekend, you are inundated with invitations to be friends with anyone or everyone who was at the reception. I experienced this after Jeff and Carolina's wedding. Who, incidentally, met over MySpace.

I tend to take an all or nothing approach to Facebook. And in my case, that means nothing. I'm rarely on it, and only go on to check something out or accept an invitation from an old friend. (Heather MacDonald, a friend in SF, found me on Facebook as I was a featured new friend of a girl she taught camp with way back when, and I knew in college. Now there's a six-degrees social networking site in action.)

From LifeHacker comes a primer on how to participate in the social media without it taking over your life.

Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)

Social media is the equivalent of digital food. It's nourishing, tasty and, for many of us, necessary. However, consume too much and you can get sidetracked and create larger consequences. The good news is you can participate in social media in a way that adds value to your life. You just need to know how to manage it so so that it does not devour your attention—the most valuable commodity of the digital age.