banannie

I’m really enjoying a bunch of new media/web 2.0/social networking sites. My love for Twitter has been well documented. I use del.icio.us for all my bookmarks and to find new sites. My email, my calendar, an increasingly large percentage of my documents, lists, and of course the RSS feeds I read are housed with Google. I pop into Jaiku now and then, and I love checking out the latest photos from my Flickr friends.

Despite all that, there are two huge social networks I’m not jumping into quite so quickly. One is Second Life. The reason here is simple- I know I’d get sucked in and love it, and I just don’t have time for a new obsession right now. I suppose I could drop Twitter, or all the blogs I read, or TV watching (the little that I still do) or reading (again, the few books I read anymore) but better that I just sit out here in First Life for now.

Then there’s the other, Facebook. My son joined Facebook as a college freshman last year, and while I don’t have access to his page, a few of his friends left their’s public so I got a general idea of what they were doing with it. Plus when he’d be home his pc would always be on one of three screens- iTunes, Yahoo Sports, or Facebook. His friends list included cousins, elementary school classmates, friends of friends. It seemed to be a terrific site for kids to stay in touch and keep up with each other’s comings and goings.

A couple months ago a bunch of my new-found Twitter friends signed up for Facebook, and I did, too. We friended each other, and I looked around for other people I might know.

Let’s keep in mind, of course, that I am old.

A check of my email contacts pulled up four names in Facebook. One was my son, one was my nephew and the others were family members my age who never really set up profiles. One used her maiden name for some reason, I think she was probably spying on her kid’s friends :).

A search through my high school class turned up zero hits. A search for the college I graduated from and other I attended briefly turned up zero hits for my class.

I searched under a former employer who isn’t even doing business in this region anymore, just in case… and zero hits. Not sure why that employer was listed, then?

As with Twitter, none of my Real Life friends are interested. I might be able to bring in a few old Internet friends, but I don’t have my hopes up for that.

Then there’s the Mom Factor. Most of the people singing the praises of Facebook don’t have college-aged kids already using it. I joined a few groups like “Facebook Moms” or some such but I still felt like I was that mom- the one who sits down in the middle of the party with her kids? The one who answers a call for her kid then proceeds to pepper the caller with questions, trying to be a buddy? And I’m just not that mom. I don’t have any desire to hang out with my kids’ friends. I like to know what they’re doing, sure, but I don’t necessarily want to do it, too.

Obviously my son agrees, since he rejected my Friend request.

And then there are all the new addons and gadgets and virtual gifts. Cute, fun… useful? I don’t know. Too much clutter, too much pressure to participate. Maybe if I didn’t have this blog, which I use as my virtual life hub, I’d be more attracted to using Facebook that way.

My son’s reaction to all the new bling? It’s too much. He liked logging on, checking his wall, seeing what was going on, and moving on. Now he’s got requests to add applications, his friends pages are so busy he can’t find the basics- he’s losing interest in using it at all. It’s losing it’s effectiveness as a tool, because it takes too much of his time and energy (which he’d obviously rather spend over at Yahoo Sports!)

I’ll hang on to my account, and keep friending people I know. In fact as I’ve been writing this I friended two more Twitter pals! It still functions well as a way to keep in touch, and I bet as time goes on I’ll use it more. I do like that the friending has to be mutual, so I only let in people I actually know somehow. I guess I’m just not sure how useful it is for me.

PS - this is post 100 on this blog! Left the old one and never looked back :).