5 Reasons Social Networking Doesn't Work
Molly Wood


This article highlights what frustrates me the most about these new social networking forums like myspace, and then of course facebook, those being the two that I am most framiliar with. Wood points out five reasons why there really is no point at all to be using these networks, at least for a period of time longer than "three weeks."

She first admits that there was a time when she was caught up in one of these networks, buckling under peer pressure and joining the network Orkut. She reluctantly tells of how she used it obssessively for three weeks and then suddenly lost interest. Perhaps her five reasons social networking doesn't work can be attributed to why she lost interest all at once.

Perhaps after the three weeks on Orkut, she found that she was asking herself, "What is it that I am actually doing on herer?" And her answer must have been somewhere along the lines of "nothing." There truley is nothing more to do on these networks than look at pictures and talk to people, most of whom you've never seen, or otherwise would have no business talking to. I agree with Wood. I don't have a myspace, and have been constantly fighting the peer pressure to get one. Once i used one of my friend's and found myself asking that question, "What exactly am I doing here?" And nobody had an answer for me.

Two other reasons she gives seem to run along the same lines. Those being 2 and 5. The basic gist of these two is that along with there being nothing to do on these social networks, there is also nothing of any significence to find. If you are looking for information, it is much easier to just look it up on the web rather than go on these social networks and ask "friends" about it. This suggests that as more information becomes available to internet users, the less these users will want to consider a social network as a means for accessing information.

Another reason highlights the money problem these networks have. It seems that the only way these networks can gain any sort of revenue is from advertising. Wood suggests that in order to even have a chance at creating a profitable social network, creators need to go into it with a solid business plan in mind.

And finally, "strangers suck." When discussing this reason, Woods also seems to inadvertently create the idea of a paradox in social networks. She discusses the idea of talking and meeting strangers on line as being one which is not that entertaining. She implements a sort of "too much information" type attitude toward the idea. Conversly, then, she points out that if you only communicate with your close friends on these social networks, then it becomes very dull very quickly, as it is that you could just as easily pick up the phone, text, or actually meet them somewhere face to face, what a novel idea.

This article really touched on a subject that I have a lot of interest in. These reasons seem very legitimate and I find it interesting to think we are living in an era when productivity because of the web is at an all time high, and yet here we have these social networks that seem to be as unproductive as ever. I find it amazing to walk into a college campus library, a place of academics, only to find that 75 percent of people in there are doing nothing more than wasting time on these incredibly unproductive social networks. I wonder what they would say if they were to be asked what it is that they are really doing.