Social Networking or Social Not-Working

“Yep, see ya. Have a good weekend. Facebook me! ”

This is the common departure call, across the car park, between myself and my colleague on a Friday as we leave the office. We don’t phone each other any more, we occasionally text – but only if we are not near a computer; we communicate entirely via one of the more popular social networking websites. E-mail is sooooo last year, even though we have to read our e-mail to discover that we have a message waiting on the afore-mentioned network website.

My social life (ha!) is announced via my status update; “Nickie is... .” Oh the PRESSURE! What can I say that isn’t going to sound boring? "Nickie is loading the washing machine". "Nickie is removing 13 pairs of shoes from the front porch". "Nickie is drinking the cup of tea that went cold because she attended to her wifely duties whilst the kids were playing at a friends house". You get the idea.

You know when you are relying on a Social Networking website as entertainment because you log-in several times a day (or even stay logged in permanently, clicking the refresh button hourly) to see if you have been ‘poked’. Oh, don’t worry; it doesn’t hurt. It’s the virtual equivalent to waving at someone you recognise across the street. I tend to average six pokes a day. Any less and I fear that my popularity is waning or convince myself that it’s a busy time of day for my ‘friends’.

Friends on Facebook fall either side of a social boundary. There are Real Life Friends – people who I have actually met and shared common oxygen with - and then there are my Virtual Friends – people whom I have ‘met’ via online forums on the World Wide Web. I profess to have over 200 ‘friends’ but in reality I have probably met approximately 40 of these people. That’s one fifth of my Social Network. It’s not bad, I suppose. I don’t claim to know one fifth of my fellow drinkers in the pub at the weekend. There is a third dimension, but more of that later.

Using the incorporated search facility onsite, I have found a few of my old school chums and a couple of cousins I had lost touch with, I requested a ‘friendship’ with them and they accepted. I swiftly rewarded them by uploading a few old photographs and tagging them (the technical term for naming and shaming individuals on the photograph). I’m sure they were extremely pleased! One bonus is that a school reunion seems to have been organised in recognition of the teaching staff for moulding us into the fine individuals we have become (or something like that!).

Receipts of notifications from friends to join groups that have no relevance to my personal life or interests are littering my notification tab. ‘Give Anton Du Beke A Decent Partner In Strictly Come Dancing’ is one and ‘Nibbles The Hamster Fan Club’ is another. I want to show that friend that I have something in common with them so I join the group. Then I never visit the page again. What is the point in this process? It’s Facebook etiquette, of course.

My profile is cluttered with applications that I have installed in the same way. ‘How Northern Are You?’ asks one. ‘The Their/There/They’re Test’ is another (I passed both with flying colours, just in case you were wondering). There are some great applications buried amongst the crap – I’m addicted to Lexulous (a Scrabble-esque game) but have been known to occasionally use an online dictionary when I can’t make a word out of the letters K, J, P, Z, R, E and B. Sssshhh – don’t tell anyone – they’ll never know unless they have a webcam trained on me. I also now have somewhere to share the photographs of my wonderful family. Each upload is announced on a shared mini-feed so my ever-growing network of ‘friends’ can see the latest addition to my Rogues Gallery. Because they don’t want to appear ignorant they click on the photo and leave a nice or witty comment.

I have been provided with a ‘Wall’ and people are invited to write on it. It’s like a public notice board where you can view messages left for me by my friends. It doesn’t make a lot of sense because it’s like eavesdropping on one side of a conversation. There is always some important snippet of information missing, or the punch line to a joke. Sometimes, no-one writes on my Wall for a couple of weeks. This in itself leads to paranoia. Does no-one like me? Am I not popular enough? So I change my status again and upload another photograph or send someone a message saying “Hi” just to let people know I’m still around. They will know this by reading their mini-feed or the email sent to them notifying them of the fact that they are being stalked by a semi-stranger or someone from their past who they lost touch with 20 years ago for a very good reason.

So, that third dimension I mentioned earlier... what's all that about then? The current trend seems to be to acquire the ‘friendship’ of a noted person. Can you brag that you have invited Ben Shepherd to a challenge your score in a game of Web Sudoku or is Twitter the place to be in touch with the glitterati? I have discovered that Facebook is the easiest of places where almost anyone can create a profile pertaining to be a person of notoriety. If this is a "fan page" then it is widely accepted that the information might not be quite up-to-date. However, there are some zelebrities (sic) that do manage their own profile page and they have seen fit to add me to their extensive list of friends. Such people include Chris Difford, Howard Jones, Jon McClure and Pete Bennett. Certain additions have had to be deleted as they were proven to be fakes - one such one was Adam Ant. I have also found that some celebrities have such a strong fan base that they do not like anyone else entering the "inner sanctum" and feel the need to DEMAND deletions of people who try. These people, for the purpose of this blog, shall remain nameless. *cough*nickheyward*cough*

So now to Twitter... This, in my experience, seems to be the friendliest of all the social networking sites. When you sign up to Twitter you connect with other users through the exchange of short, frequent messages. These short updates are called "Tweets" and will consist of 140 characters (or less). Messages are posted to your profile and can be read by anyone who decides to "follow" you. All messages are sent in real time and there are many applications out there that can deliver these messages to your desktop or mobile phone.

Much excitement ensues when a famous person "follows you back". This just basically means that they can read ALL the random crap that you post but that they've chosen to do that rather than you alert them to the fact.

Dedicated Tweeters include Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross but I am being followed by:
Jenni Falcolner
Guy Clapperton
Kate Beven
India Knight
Russell Grant
Banksy

Andrea Corr
to name but a few. I also have regular conversations with Paul Daniels, Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin.

How do we know they are the real McCoy, I hear you ask! Well, there is a genius little website with strives to make contact with these people and confirm that they are indeed using Twitter. They either confirm or deny and a Tweet is posted by the verification team. Some may call this social networking process "ego stroking" but I like to call it Legal Professional Stalking.

I admit to following the trend for the need to be Socially Networked with... well, anyone, really. But there’s a darker side to Facebook and Twitter. There are the flirty messages between ex-partners who just happened to find each other once more. There is the exposure to cyber-bullying from peers both at school and in the work place. There is the vulnerability you open yourself up to by the information you share on your profile. What is the answer? How do we stop this? Do we join the bunch of lemmings who are committing Facebook Suicide, i.e. delete our accounts en masse in protest of the abuse of this style of networking? Hell, NO! Come and poke me or send me a tweet. Ask me to be your friend and let me demonstrate how pretty my farm is on FarmTown or how witty I can be using only 140 characters. Then you can shower me with compliments on my Wall or become one of my merry band of followers. And I can believe that I am popular within my own Social Network.