So while I was away ning became the latest thing, along with a sudden spike in Twitter usage amongst librarians. It could well be the usual effect of returning from a holiday and being overwhelmed by feeds and emails, but I am definitely feeling a sense of Social Network Fatigue.
There are several sites I have joined and no longer used, including Vox, last.fm and MySpace. Partially, I have lingering concerns about ownership and exportability of the data I put there, but also I don’t see a need to use more sites to talk to the same group of people I talk to through email, IM, or whom I see in person.
When I first heard of Twitter through Joi Ito’s site, the first thought that came to mind was billable hours. I have several lawyer friends who bill in minute increments. They have to note what they are doing constantly, and really dislike the amount of time it takes to account for what they are doing all day long.
Over the weekend, I signed up to Twitter and gave it a go. It was frustrating: clicks resulted in frequent errors, ‘tweets’ wouldn’t update. Usual signs of a site undergoing growing pains. But there’s two other things I noticed in my brief time on Twitter:
- I was bored by reading back about what *I’d* Twittered about.
- Of those who I contacted to be ‘friended’, I only heard back from those I’m most connected to anyway, those who I tend to email or IM with. This to me lessens the point of these new networks. Is there really a need to find new ways to talk to those you are already talking to?
So, I deleted my Twitter account, not quite as quickly as I deleted my Facebook account, but so it goes. All the best to those who find new and fun ways to use it, but it’s just not for me.
Hi Fiona. Someone asked me a question about Facebook and it’s value as a social network for Australians after my blog post today, and I pointed her straight to this one of yours. But, when I looked at it ..you’ve really been pinged by spammers - yuk poor you.
I can understand you being bored by your own twitters (not because they are boring - I want to know about your dreams of China… ) - but because I almost de-registered last week. I usually sit at the PC to escape housework and there are only so many ways you can say that. I kept it up because I found other people’s everyday trivia interesting, and wanted to play nicely.
I’ve also been frustrated when the “big kids” haven’t friended me. I need to think more about why.
Eek! Alert to spammers: It’s not ok to copy my posts and put them on your SEO blogs. Ugh.
I have to agree, it’s bewildering how many tools are out there and how few alternate universes there are in which to play with them all! (that’s not a dig at SL, I really do need two bodies.)
I spent a little time over at Adobe Labs once playing with a thing called JamJar. I got onto the computer last week intending to ‘write’, and what did I do? set up a Pageflakes account (which is very nice actually). Two days later I did a Google Personalised Homepage and went back to compare it with the quick one I bunged up on Yahoo another time. It’s not Twitter, I know - but I guess the point I am making is that it is really easy to get drawn into trying things out, even if I promise myself ‘I’m Evaluating It’ in an important librarian’s voice.
And you’re right on the money, Fiona, there are tools we use to talk to the same people (mine is the comments box mostly), so if they work all right, we probably don’t need the others. I think Twitter sounds like it is brilliantly named, though. (And I am enjoying Google Reader enormously, though Gmail and the Reader took a big dive over Easter and we don’t know why.)
I’m going to add myself to the growing chorus of people singing ‘yes’ on this one.
I decided against twitter because I just couldn’t see myself caring enough about any of the other twits (user of twitter = twit, right?) nor could I work out why anyone would care that I was on the reference desk at 11am or that I was at lunch from 1pm and so on.
Myspace? bleh, I pop into the library’s space every few days and accept friends or deny spammers.
Even ning (which had such a flurry) has slowed down a lot especially with the chatterwalls, which was the bit I was enjoying the most. You know, mindless disconnected conversations in lieu of having to think.
Plus, I have some sort of social networking disorder, where I find it difficult/strange/uncomfortable or something to ask people to be my friend. Odd, because I love it when people ask me but I don’t tend to ask them. Buggered if I know why, but it makes the social networks a bit less social.
If we already have effective ways to connect with all those with whom we want to connect then another kind of connection service is hardly necessary.
So I guess I’d only bother with Twitter if someone else I know who doesn’t (or can’t afford to) connect with me in other ways asked me to. Just like I have IM with google talk because an uncle had gmail, and with msn messenger because a friend used it a lot (and we loved the games), and meebo now so I can monitor both of those more easily while I’m in my browser.
adhd librarian: is there a name for that social networking disorder? ’cause I have it too, although I do know why in my case.
Hi Fiona, thanks for the very interesting post. For my part, I like to balance some skepticism about the value of these social networks with curiousity to try the occasional new thing, just in case it happens to be good. More often than not, it doesn’t take off. I guess I view a small investment of my time and energy in a new social network thing as a low risk gamble. I can live with the probability that the whole thing may fizzle out, after all everything is impermanent, so long as it’s fun or somehow beneficial while it lasts or it’s not too demanding of me.