Social Networking

Though I understand that everyone wants to have friends, I am tried of hearing about social networking online. Places like Myspace are very popular, and you may find people with hundreds of friends. The problem with this is the word “friends.” It might give someone a false sense of popularity, but in reality, these people aren’t really friends with anyone. People rack up high numbers of friends, and they don’t care who they are. That seems a little out of whack to me.

Social networking should be a little more personal. I don’t have many on my Myspace list, and that is because I only add people that I know. There are a few people that I admire but don’t know on my list, but that is only about two of them. The rest are people that I know in person, or have known elsewhere online for a while. They aren’t strangers, and I know each of them by name and could tell you a lot about them. My idea of social networking is to find people I have a lot in common with, and then form real friendships.

Everyone likes something different though, and if this type of social networking is what makes someone happy, then I am all for it. I hope they realize though, that when it comes down to knowing who your real friends are, you can probably count them on two hands. Friendship is something that grows, and is not something that happens just because you click ‘accept’ when you get a friend request. Social networking should be about more than numbers.

There are many other of these social networking sites out there, but none are quite as popular as Myspace. I have heard about Face Book, but I have never seen the site or had any reason to do so. It took me quite a while to sign up for Myspace, and I only did that at the urging of friends. I guess perhaps I am too old to be excited about this form of social networking. I would think if it is still around when my daughter gets older, she will want to try it.

I know that I will let her, but I will also keep a very close eye on everything she does whether she likes it or not. I know there are dangers, and no matter what they do to make is safer, those nasty people out there will find ways around it. Parental control is the only thing you can count on.