It’s pretty much apparent that Facebook was primarily predicated on an easy way to promote gossip online. This based on the movie when a student asks Mark Zuckerberg to find out whether a female student was single or not. What was hatched in Zuckenberg’s mind was a realization that people were looking for a method of finding the inside scoop on others via the Internet.
Translated, give me the secrets, the dirt on someone, but do it online. Tell me who’s up for a party on Friday night, tell me who’s looking for a hook-up, who has a bad rep, or who are the real total jerks. In this case who needs solace.
Facebook is a focus, a story, now described in a Timeline of our lives transcribed online. It’s now an irreplaceable source of up to date social information which we all instinctively crave.
Facebook Once Similar To A Small Town
Imagine decades ago in those small villages when everyone knew exactly what their neighbors across town were up to. This also wasn’t talk about people who they didn’t know or care about, it was real genuine juice on those who they actually spent face time with.
There was once a time not long too ago when Facebook was much like that little town. It was an isolated online social hub where your closest intimate friends were actual real friends that you knew.
Now the majority of those who post on Facebook with their “look at me and my funny picture” or ” look at my cute puppy or polar bear picture,” are those who you don’t know or never heard of.
If someone who lives across the country happens to read an article, or someone joins a new group, someone comments on their own photo, who cares. Any real value this lends is pretty much non-existent. Facebook has successfully gone from being a cozy “friends” network to becoming a social marketing machine.
Some will tell you that if Facebook hadn’t crossed the barrier of attempting to turn everything that we do into something commercial, then it wouldn’t be such a bore.
Social Networking For Anyone Who Avoids Gossip
For those who never enjoyed useless small talk, whispering behind one’s back which invariably turns into mischievous gossip, Facebook is now the online equivalent. Facebook offers the opportunity for anyone to expose someone online anonymously.
The more direct “face-to-face” approach has always been a better method, but is sadly fading away. Singing the same song together, talking about the mutual paths that real friends take, the events which turned their lives around are no long existent.
Isn’t it better to just go out and seek real conversations which wakes up that dormant sleeping bear of creativity in you. How about taking about honesty and sincerity, talking about the truth, validity which tastes as good as it hurts.
Whatever happened to those real life situations with friends or family, while at the gym or over coffee at the Red Coach. What ever happened to dinner meetings out of necessity, or that walk in the park, talking for hours on the phone. The simplicity of e-mail and text messaging eliminated all that.
No one really needs to know or cares what you had for a snack, or when you’re going to the bathroom. Nobody wants to find out about your new puppy’s biting habits, or the little tiff that you had with your neighbor. Rather give some useful and valuable online nourishment, not pointless trivia.
What The Perfect Social Network Should Be
• You want to learn something completely new, give someone information that they’ve never heard before that could actually help them
• Make someone genuinely laugh
• Make someone surprised with something they just discovered, making them go hmmmm
• Be uplifting, amazing, be provocative
Things You Don’t Want To See On Social Networks
• What time you woke up, what time you went to sleep
• What you ate, down to the exact calorie count
• Where you went or are currently shopping at
• What you and your cat are doing at this precise moment
• The latest thought that popped into your head
We’ve all read and heard, ad nausea, “Be in the moment,” just do exactly what you’re currently doing. That running shoe company branding “Just do it.” All this nonsense is just cluttering up the system when you post useless junk on Facebook, make Tweets about it, or pin it on Pinterest.
If you happen to be doing something, just go ahead and do it. Then thinking about sharing your experience on social media just sullies the entire experience. It takes away something from the mystery of who you are. You really don’t need to post it, pin it, tweet it or blog about it.