Is social networking a good thing?

fakearms123

I'm sure most people on here have a social networking page be it Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, etc but is social networking a necessity or are we better off without it? I was trying to round up my reasons for having it there yesterday when I realised I spend far too much time on it and worrying about it when I could be doing other valuable things. I mean my friends on facebook can easily be contacted by phone or by email if I want to chat to them, do I really need the rest of the people I know on facebook to read what I have just sent my friend (i know there is mail/private chat on facebook, etc but lets face it, its crap, almost always breaks down). So I have tried to round up the good things and bad things of social networking.

Good:
Easy way to keep in contact with friends.
Share pictures, videos, etc with friends.

Bad:
Bad for future employment.
Can cause a lot of frustration, worry and bitchiness amoung people.

Why do AH peeps use social networking such as facebook, myspace, etc? What do you feel are the good and bad points of it?

dlofnep

Tis dead handy for keeping in touch and finding people you forgot even existed.

Risteard

Surely it's only bad for future employment if you're stupid enough to leave your page public and put up stuff that people could hold against you?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Keep up with friends I'd otherwise lose contact with.

I don;t have it under my real name, don't post **** about people I don't know or companies I work for (that's just stupid if you ask me).

If it's going to cause bitchiness amongst people, my guess is that these people are goign to be bitchy anyway.

astra2000

I Think you have managed to summon up all the good bad points that I can think of. The main problem I have is going on for 15 mins and still been on it an hour later when I have more pressing things to do I wish there was a better way of limiting the time I spend on FB rather than self control!!!!

kfallon

dlofnep wrote: »

Tis dead handy for keeping in touch and finding people you forgot even existed.

If you forgot someone existed why would you bother to get in contact with them again??? It's obvious you didn't particularly get on so well with them or you couldn't give a toss about them.

It's all a load of bollix!

WindSock

Yes. &

lol @ tag :pac:

Banned Account

To be honest, while i'm sure it has it's uses, I'd rather head down the pub or pick up the phone and talk to people. When it begins to encroach on reality it's time to consign it to the scrapheap.

Dermo

The only social network that anybody from work can find or see is my LinkedIn page. Everything else is under a nickname I'm not known as in work and if it did become known I would be privatising/deleting information.

And because of that I find social networks to be a fantastic thing, I don't miss out on events that I wouldn't have known about otherwise, keep up to date with friends I don't see that often/live overseas.

edit: Thanks Fitzcaraldo for pointing my postcount out, now I can't post again!

fakearms123

dlofnep wrote: »

Tis dead handy for keeping in touch and finding people you forgot even existed.

sounds like you didnt really care about them in the first place...

A lot of my friends are abroad longterm so it's useful to keep in touch.
I don't spend much time on it though

Risteard

Actually this reminds me of the time in school where some of the school staff went on to all our bebo pages and anyone in the school that said anything bad about it was suspended. It was havoc that Friday morning about 50 people called out over the intercom.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

To be honest, while i'm sure it has it's uses, I'd rather head down the pub or pick up the phone and talk to people. When it begins to encroach on reality it's time to consign it to the scrapheap.

... said the man posting 12 messages a day on boards.ie!

Banned Account

Dermo wrote: »

The only social network that anybody from work can find or see is my LinkedIn page. Everything else is under a nickname I'm not known as in work and if it did become known I would be privatising/deleting information.

And because of that I find social networks to be a fantastic thing, I don't miss out on events that I wouldn't have known about otherwise, keep up to date with friends I don't see that often/live overseas.

Ignore this - look at the post count - he's obviously the devil!

*runs away screaming - realises how stupid this post will look when he posts again:(*

kfallon

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

To be honest, while i'm sure it has it's uses, I'd rather head down the pub or pick up the phone and talk to people. When it begins to encroach on reality it's time to consign it to the scrapheap.

Well said!

Kasabian

I recently ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while tell me she had been checking to see if I was Facebook as she wanted to get in touch.

I asked her why she hadn't called up to the house and knocked at the door. We live about 2 miles from each other.

Ridiculous the way some people carry on with these social networking sites and forget what real social contact is.

Banned Account

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

... said the man posting 12 messages a day on boards.ie!

Touché sir *doffs hat*

This is my day job - if i wasn't doing this I'd have to do equally unsocial work - the evenings and weekends are my social time - I will not be near a computer then.

Lux23

I just use to mess around with people more than anything but if I didn't have it I think I would feel like I am missing out or something.

storm2811

When plan to go on for 15 mins I only go on for 15 mins,there's feck all to do unless there's someone you want to talk to online.

Found a load of relatives who live abroad on it though that I haven't talked to in ages so it's handy for that stuff.

ScumLord

It's handy for having a way of contacting people outside the country, but I'd use skype to stay in contact with close friends and family abroad. TBH I don't really make much use of facebook, I have people that I met while on holiday on it but never talk to them or even close friends through it.

dlofnep

fakearms123 wrote: »

sounds like you didnt really care about them in the first place...

Not really - the older you get, the more people you meet in life.

To put it mildly,

I've been in 2 primary schools, secondary school, 2 colleges, FÁS - worked in about 9 different places, and have met people through hobbies, politics, irish language circles and so forth.

It is very easy to forget someone that you might have got on well with, but only worked with for 6 months or so. I've worked in the same job for 7 years, with a high turnover rate. If I had a euro for every person I met a couple of years down the line and their face rang a bell from work, I'd be a millionaire.

GavRedKing

Its handy for creeping, thats it :cool:

dlofnep

kfallon wrote: »

If you forgot someone existed why would you bother to get in contact with them again??? It's obvious you didn't particularly get on so well with them or you couldn't give a toss about them.

It's all a load of bollix!

How old are you?

Azureus

I love facebook for the ease of keeping in contact with people, handy for sharing photos, getting event invites, and even stuff like fundraising is made a lot more effective by social networking which has proven very useful to me in the last few months.

As for the negatives listed, I wouldnt use my actual name and I certainly wouldnt put up anything so negative thatd damage my future job prospects. I also never even mention my current job, or anything work related. Social networking being the point!

RolandIRL

i just use facebook to chat with people i'm too lazy to text and too stingy to ring.

WindSock

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

To be honest, while i'm sure it has it's uses, I'd rather head down the pub or pick up the phone and talk to people. When it begins to encroach on reality it's time to consign it to the scrapheap.

I can do all of those things and still have a facekick account though. Having one doesn't restrict you from doing any of those things. In fact, it may even enhance your social life.

There still is only one good tag there. The rest are crap and takes away from the good one :mad:

jester77

fakearms123 wrote: »

Bad:
Bad for future employment.

Depends on how you use them. I get contacted nearly every week regarding prospective jobs.

starbelgrade

I used to have a Facebook account, but it really annoyed me... "Sean is on holidays tomorrow - yipee!", followed by "Cool! Have a great time Sean" etc. Then 2 weeks later, the inevitable photos of Sean, standing on a beach in horrible shorts & bad shades, Sean in an Irish bar, looking like a lobster & half cut etc etc.

I often got the impression that people used Facebook in an attempt to try & prove that their lives were more interesting than they actually are.

And then there's the people who have their first kid & post 20 new photos a day & expect everyone to "coo" over them. It's only a baby. It's not the first one ever born & it won't be the last. Congratulations - your reproductive organs are in working order. Now, get over it.

So, I don't have a "social network" account anymore. My rule is - if I haven't rung you in a long time, it's most likely because I haven't anything to say to you & if I don't post "updates", it's because I'm too busy complaining about you on Boards.

dlofnep

dlofnep wrote: »

Not really - the older you get, the more people you meet in life.

To put it mildly,

I've been in 2 primary schools, secondary school, 2 colleges, FÁS - worked in about 9 different places, and have met people through hobbies, politics, irish language circles and so forth.

It is very easy to forget someone that you might have got on well with, but only worked with for 6 months or so. I've worked in the same job for 7 years, with a high turnover rate. If I had a euro for every person I met a couple of years down the line and their face rang a bell from work, I'd be a millionaire.

I agree. I went to about 6 primary schools, 2 secondary schools and lived on about 10 different estates. It's just impossible to keep contact with everyone, you have the best intentions when you move on, but nobody has the time to constantly write and phone friends from previous schools when you're trying to fit into your latest one. I don't think people who have lived their entire lives in one place will ever get this. I don't have a single lifelong friend, or a group of people I grew up with, I've constantly had to make new ones all my life. I love being able to log onto Facebook now and then and chat to my best friend from 5th class, or the guy I lived next door to when I was 10, or cousins I haven't seen in 4 or 5 years. People can easily share photos on Facebook as well, it's unlikely they'd think to email them to people they knew years ago, but it's great to see what people look like now. I think people are too judgemental about social networking sites. I hardly ever use them to talk to people I know in real life, except for arranging the odd event.

Sea Sharp

As the OP says, it has it's pros & cons.

It helped me get in touch with cousins I've never met but on the down side everybody in my family can see what I post.
Everyone can see the drunken shenanigans etc..

and most of the time you add some1 you haven't talked to in a while and then you suddenly remember why you stopped talking to them.

Mal-Adjusted

As with most things in the world, it's completely neutral & can be used for good or bad. Like the force, just not as bad-ass!

I_AmThe_Walrus

I don't think it is a good thing.

Think about it. We're constantly inventing new ways to communicate without socializing in the physical form. Facebook and others are good for letting those close to you if an organized party or event is upcoming but in general, you lose a lot of privacy.

Every photo you upload to a network site belongs to that site. It's not yours, lawfully anymore. You don't own it. Why would I want the world and it's wife to know, what I'm doing, where I'm working, who I'm seeing or how my scrambled eggs were this morning.

Some people have now gone overboard, treating it as a daily diary.

Pathetic.

And what is this retarded attitude that people have with adding "friends". You've never met these people, you will never meet these people and these people wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. Nobody has 400 friends and the one's you'd really rely on as good people in your life, well, you have their mobile numbers. Perhaps, it's the insecurity we have as humans to feel we are important....

glanman

Dermo wrote: »

The only social network that anybody from work can find or see is my LinkedIn page. Everything else is under a nickname I'm not known as in work and if it did become known I would be privatising/deleting information.

And because of that I find social networks to be a fantastic thing, I don't miss out on events that I wouldn't have known about otherwise, keep up to date with friends I don't see that often/live overseas.

edit: Thanks Fitzcaraldo for pointing my postcount out, now I can't post again!

Is your nickname Dermo??

coffeelover

I think facebook is brilliant to keep in touch with people.
I found loads of my cousins on it that i hadnt talked to in years
But it's way too adictive especially when i'm suppposed to be studying :rolleyes:

Yakult

I know more about random people thru facebook status' than I do of myself nearly.

baltimore sun

At first I used to accept every facebook friend request then it got to almost 300, so i got rid of about 200 and now, I'm only connected with the people I actually wanna talk to

I use twitter a lot and I find it better than facebook, it's better for finding like minded people and that can be helpful socially and professionally for building up contacts and doing/calling in favours

KittyeeTrix

It's like everything else in life.........You have people who like to turn their nose up at what other people do!!!

I use my FB to connect with old friends from school and to coo over pictures of their babies and I don't get why the hell someones nose would be out of joint over that!!

Great for people like myself who live a far distance from their home town and don't get the chance to see the people from their neighbourhood on a daily basis......

It's been a godsend for me in my organising a school reunion at the moment:)

Each to their own I say

gu10

fooking hate it, mostly filled with bitchy types who wouldn't have anywhere near the guts needed to try the ****-stirring they do on those sites in real life.

and its not really networking anymore - message a stranger and its like "omg do I know you in real life? ahh a stalker!" and they proceed to tell their 500 'friends' that they have so many stalkers.

deleted bebo profile today, deleted fb profile a long time ago. bah.

Asphyxia

I only really use Facebook, I enjoy it because I get to stay in touch with my American cousins and friends who have moved abroad.