Social Networking essay - Revised

Our Networks, Ourselves

Two years ago, a student I work with told me something terrifying. A recruiter at a job fair had told her she’d never get a job without a MySpace page. She wanted to know how I got a job without a MySpace page. I told her the truth: connections. I knew the person that hired me. I’d worked with him before.

“So, you networked,” she said.

“Um… yeah, I guess.”

She explained that this is what MySpace was for: networking, meeting people and getting jobs. I guess I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t. I don’t get the “networking” value of social networking sites. Social networking sites have given me something valuable: a replacement for my outdated address book, where the entries update themselves and I can always find who I’m looking for. They haven’t connected me with my dream job, or my future soul mate, or even any new friends, so why are they such a big deal?

People with titles like “ethnographic sociological researcher” are trying their best to figure it out, but most of us are out of the loop and behind the times. For example, Danah Boyd just published an essay on class issues in social networking Web sites. In her essay, she gives the history, and shows how it set up the class struggle. In 2003-2004, MySpace went from being a 20-30-something site to a teen site that helped bands promote themselves. In 2004, Facebook started at Harvard University. She doesn’t really touch on the why though. Why are Facebook and MySpace so popular? Before them, Friendster and other social networking sites could show you who you knew, and who they know so you can connect with new people (that’s what networking is, right?). But MySpace and Facebook took off because they had plenty of space for the users to talk about themselves. The theory is that you can list your favorite hobbies, or movies, or books on your profile and make friends with people with the same interests. It doesn’t work that way in practice though. Most people just write about themselves. These sites are called “Social Networking Sites,” but very little social networking really goes around. I can list my friends and you can list yours, and if we have friends in common, it will tell us.

But how is that really changing anything? Are we meeting new people? Are we finding people with similar interests? We can find them, but then we aren’t really making the effort to get to know them. And aren’t these things we could do before the Internet? Meeting people is pretty much the same. You have to make the effort. But now, we can make the effort in a passive way, and a much more creative way. We aren’t exactly tied to the physical and “real-life” attributes of ourselves, and can craft a persona better equipped to “social network” on the Internet.

I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but I’m not exactly the same person on the Internet that I am in real life. It’s not like I’m really a middle-aged man from Indiana in real life, but I’m less polished in person than I am on the Web. I’m sure everyone fibs a little bit, even those who say they aren’t fibbing. The Internet affords one luxury of communication you don’t have in person: time. I have time to cleverly concoct and assemble my lists of likes and dislikes for my social networking profile. It’s like writing your résumé, only it’s not to compete for a job, it’s to compete in the hierarchy of hip. You get to work on it for months, but your interview might only last 10 minutes. Even though I’m not any smarter, I can sound smarter on the Internet.

But it’s not all for the better. If people were trying to network with me based on my interests, though, they might be out of luck. Sure, my Facebook profile may list my favorite movie, but you know what? I lied. My favorite movie is “Caddyshack”; the profile says it’s “The Royal Tenenbaums.” “Tenenbaums” is one of my favorite movies, so it’s not an entire untruth, but it changes my entire online persona. Stoned frat boys like “Caddyshack,” but cool people like “Tenenbaums.” Did I do this consciously? Kind of. I thought of the movie that would give me something in common with the people I know. I didn’t pick the movie because it would help me get a job, or help me meet new people. I didn’t pick the movie that would help me “network.” I picked the movie that would prove I already knew the people I was supposed to know. And I picked the movie that would make me look cool.

But was it the Internet that influenced the decision to fib? Kind of. If I was at a dinner party with my hip, educated friends, I probably wouldn’t admit to be the type of philistine that enjoyed the story of golfers and an overzealous gopher. At a sports bar with my college-football-watching friends, I wouldn’t admit to being the hip poseur that likes “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Everybody fibs. Everybody bends the truth to their advantage, whether it’s in your job interview or your résumé or your MySpace. On your résumé though, it’s to get a better job, on your social networking profile, it’s just to be cool. It’s like that saying; On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re not cool. On the Internet, you can cover up all your insecurities. In Boyd’s research, she found that popularity of these sites peaked with teenagers. Isn’t this when you’re feeling the most insecure about yourself? Isn’t it nice to be able to go on the Web and make yourself cool?

And that’s the draw. That’s the attraction. You can talk endlessly about yourself, and make yourself so cool. And that’s also exactly why these sites aren’t promoting networking — social or employment or otherwise. People are all too busy making themselves look cool, and showing their intelligent and fascinating interests and hobbies, great photos of themselves where they look thin and pretty, and listing how many friends they have. The features that made MySpace and Facebook popular (photo sharing, detailed personal profile pages, etc.) are the exact things that are preventing people from meeting anybody new, from actually “networking.”

So really, the social networking site is the new Narcissus’ pond. I see how it can be so addictive to some people like plastic surgery and makeup and fashion are addictive. It’s just not for me, I guess. I’m content to wait it out, and meet people the old-fashioned way, network the old-fashioned way and even get a job the old-fashioned way. For everyone’s sake, let’s try not to drown ourselves.