When Social Networks become a Nuisance

Posted by: Ian Angell

I’ve just logged off Facebook, having wasted nearly forty-five minutes. There were 27 requests asking to be my friend, but I only knew about half of them. I can’t imagine why the other half would want to be my friends.

There were stupid virtual gifts, offers of a virtual knighthood, adverts for stuff I wouldn’t want in a million years, tedious facile applications and surveys (do I really care what proportion of the brain-dead prefer Pepsi to Coke?). I’ve been shown lists of favourite books, and what passes for music: bands with daft names like Flatulent Freddie and the Snot Nosed Psychopaths droning some tuneless ditty.

Personally, I use Facebook as a private personal network. During the odd break I like to find out how ex-students are getting on with their lives. I’m looking for the odd short message telling me of how their lives/careers are progressing – the odd photo of their families or on vacation is fun. It’s perfectly OK to ask me for a reference (although strangely they seem only come in LinkedIn, not Facebook!) I am not interested in friends of friends; one degree of separation is as far as I want to travel. {The next 2 sentences were added after I read the comment from Govind.} One aspect of social networks that is often forgotten is exclusivity. Far from inviting everybody in, many network members want to keep everyone else out - and why not?

Yet most of what I see are lists of superficial facts, invites to parties (where they play the junk music), adolescent ‘I hate Manchester United’ jibes shared with the world, and facile comments about ‘what I’m feeling now!’ The scale of garbage postings seems to be increasing exponentially. Don’t people realise that this drivel is being read by HR departments – postings say far more about you than your CV ever does.

How do we filter out this overload? It seems we’ve lost track of what the network is for. If we’re not careful we’ll throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m already seeing a sharp rise in postings like ‘X is withdrawing from Facebook until further notice.’ This is only to be expected when social networks become a nuisance.