Social Networks are Stupid
Although I often endup breaking and disjointing stuff in order to see how they work, a huge part of my life is based around building and innovating new things. This is the reason why I would like to draw your attention on why I believe that social networks are stupid, hopping that my words will motivate you to pursue different ideas/concepts instead of sticking to whatever concepts someone’s lack of ideas head has come up with in order to keep the masses in mental prison. Think for yourself!
Social Networks, in their current form, are organized around the group. This is the only point I would like to cover as I am afraid that this post can quickly turn into a rant, which is definitely not my intention. Social Networks are organized around the group. For example, each social network follows a directory like structure. The root of the directory is the network itself, considered also as the universe. Then, there are several subtrees that represent either different social groups or in general different kinds of entities, which combine people into groups. Finally, after too much nesting, we find the individual, which is at the bottom as being the consumer. If you study economics and research on VAT (a tax levied on the difference between a commodity’s price before taxes and its cost of production) you will see that the end consumer is the actual body that pays the price. Social Networks are very similar to what VAT is to economics.
However, the problem here is that this type of structure is not only stupid but also against what social networks are supposed to be. It is true that people conglomerate around shared interests however, they don’t work as a whole. Instead, each one of them contributes to the whole in unintended ways and each one of them perceives the group in a different way, their own personal way if you like. For example, if I am a hacker and also a cool hunter, then social network will perceive me as such but looking from the top as being part of these groups. However, I don’t look at my status in the same way as I am also part groups unknown to the social network and also unknown to myself. Therefore, if social networks are the mechanism that will free me from the burden to connect with like-minded, how that can be done when even I, the individual/consumer, do not know where I belong and will that deficiency in the way social networks are structured a fundamental glitch that will prevent people from expanding their potentials and perception? I think so!
Therefore, social networks are stupid and they are nothing more but a system that collects, analyzes and resells personal data, whether that will be in a direct way or indrectly though ads or whatever. They wont help you expand or keep up with friends but simply make you build your online profile which does not represent your true identity as they are not organized around the idea to enable the user/individual. Not to mention that your data is not yours anymore as it cannot leave the network that it belongs to.
Me
is represented by what you reed here. It is also the person that visits those conferences and does that kind of research. Me
is also the guy that collaborates with those and those and me
is the chaos in what I am supposed to be made of. Putting an organism around me
(my virtual self) is like locking myself in an apartment with only people that my frontdoor decides are suitable for my likings, not knowing what I really want. Therefore, free yourself of the social networks. Look around yourself. Opportunities are laying around.
comments
i agree with you! and want to add that i was invited a few times to social networks, and when i asked - “for what reason? what it will give me?” - inviter didn’t answer anything! really, if someone know what soc.net can give - please - tell me? but i think that for *market-people* it can give very good *market sector*… well, if you want to sell something - you need to find people interested in that *something*.. so you look for social network related to *something* and… ;-)
blah blah..
pdp, my respects to you, ‘cos you are not only “my only interest is computer”, and it is good example that hacking is not only computer-related topic. stay tuned!
Right now you and me are in a social network if you think about it. And the medium of communications is the Web. Why subdividing and emulating that? Every single social network asks you to store data that they wont give it back to you. What’s the point? I like to refer to the human race as social butterflies. We simply jump from one Data Hive to another. Why don’t we enable that? OpenID is a good start, although security-wise it may introduce new challenges.
“Me” “me” “meeeee”, stfu, you :) As usually, a bag full of shit for your ego, stop looking at yourself, stop thinking that people don’t think, help yourself: commit suicide.
you, English is not my native language but you are apparently illiterate. The last paragraph is in 3rd person but I guess there is no point explaining that now. moreover, your comment is completely irrelevant as you cannot stick behind your words, posting anonymously. so what’s your real point/agenda, you?
help yourself: commit suicide.
I hope I haven’t missunderstood your entry, but I think people just like the opportunity to have another life where they try to be what they think they should be, just look at second life, it’s the same as social networks. the web just dont give the opportunities to rebuilt your whole identity yet and if you wanna ’socialize’ with someone you have to look at the whole person.
you, I am delighted by your lack of constructive commentary :) keep on dude.
I think the key word is “social” in Social networking. ;)
But I think primarily the use of the networks are subjective to the one who wants to participate in the network.
some, such as you would look to find a like minded people. Social networks would only be “stupid” if they did not fulfill the intended purpose of joining the network. If someone has not gained or benefited from the network. It has wasted life and then become a stupid and fruitless venture.
and true,
by “buying” into a third party network you sell your privacy on some level to a “system that collects” but following that logic you would have to say the entire Internet can be classified as “stupid”
Social Networks are stupid, I agree with you! I maintained for a long time a Hi5 & a Facebook Profile & someday I realized that It’s just loss of time.. I won’t find my “Dream Woman” inside this virtual world & I can be very well with my friends & without having these Profiles.. I got annoyed that I had people as “friends” from my College that in the REAL world we didn’t knew each other… That sucks! I freed myself from these and am very happy now.. Now I prefer on my “online” time to deal with my College’s Forum as I’m a Moderator to it.. It has much more fun because I don’t give my personal details to people that I don’t want to. My friends know me! ;)
A Free Spirit from Greece