No Social Networking for me

MySpace - No way.
Facebook – Forget it.
LinkedIn – Not a chance.
Twitter – No tweeting for me.
Classmates.com – Nope.
Friendster – Not my friend.
SixDegress.com – I am a dead end.

I don't want to put my life up on the internet for the public, or even private circle of friends, to see.
I don't want to broadcast my profession and professional preferences to the world.
I don't have time to constantly post/broadcast short sentences about what I am doing right this second.
I don't want to find my classmates.
Everybody claims to be my friend, and I might like you, but I don't trust you.
I'll take your word for it that everybody could be only six degrees of separation away from me.

Throughout the development of the social networking hype and life cycle, I have always steered clear of these sites. While the concept of social networking sites is intriguing from an academic and social standpoint, I do not want any part of them.

It true that I have heard friends, family, and acquaintances expound upon the networking capabilities of these sites. For example, just this past weekend my family members were joyously chatting about how many people from their past they are catching up with and learning about what happened to them once they had lost touch. Interestingly they were also complaining that their Inboxes were being filled with requests to join the social networking site de jure and wondering where they would find the time to continue to explore their ever growing social network.

Maybe I avoid these sites because I am very paranoid about the harmful computer attack vectors that using these sites expose to my computer and my e-mail accounts. Perhaps, though, I am really stuck in the olden Web world of being an anonymous and autonomous entity on the web. Further proof of my ancient ways is that I liked to frequent BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems) and IRCs (Internet Relay Chat) when I was younger, as I see these types of web technologies as being even pre-Web 1.0. Interestingly, though I only gravitated toward these environments was I was lonely and could not find anybody in the 'real' world to whom I could communicate with at the current moment.

Possibly, though, I think I stray away from social networking sites since I too busy trying to keep up in the real world and I do not have time to setup or keep up my on-line life at the same time.


I was actually surprised at the ever-growing list of social networking sites. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites for a small listing of social networking sites.