Toad’s Stool

Have you heard about Facebook?

Posted on 31. Dec, 2010 by Toad in Social Experiment

Every year about this time people prepare their New Year’s resolution.  Some do it out of an earnest desire to change while others do it just because that’s what you do for the new year.  Me, I’ve never really been into that whole tradition.  I read a statistic somewhere that over 50% of people give up on their New Year’s resolution by February.  That says a lot about how serious people take their resolutions.

Well, this year i’m going to make a resolution.  I Josh Leeth resolve to use social networking platforms such as Facebook , Twitter and others to find the benefit of social networking.  I know that sounds like a stupid resolution but for me it really will be difficult.  You see, i have never really been a socially forward person. I prefer to sit home with my computer and my PS3 rather than go out with friends.  As akward and antisocial as that may sound, it’s true.

Out of my social awkwardness has grown a desire to avoid all things social networking.  I have had a twitter account for some time but it was done mostly as a land grab.  I wanted to make sure that i got @leeth.  Beyond that I have had very little use for social sites like Twitter and Facebook because of the social pressure they cause.  I dont want to feel pressured to accept a person as a friend if i really dont think their my friend or if I don’t care what they have to say.  So to avoid these pressures I have avoided social networking as a whole.

So when i started thinking about doing this I decided to set fourth a few ground rules.  First, when possible, i will set all of my information and posts to be private except for people I am friends with.  The whole world doesn’t need to know what is going on in my life 24/7.  I also don’t like the idea of my profile information being made public for the world to see.

Second I need to determine who I am going to be friends with.  The first and easiest rule for me is no one under 18.  I’m not being mean but in my mind a man of my age has no reason to befriend people under the age of 18 unless they are blood relation.  I also will not friend or follow anyone who I do not consider to be a genuine friend.  Social networking seems to blur the lines between acquaintance and friend.  I have no desire to know what my wife’s cousine’s dog just did.  I want to use these tools to keep in touch with real friends both current and past.

Third, I feel like these sites have a lot to offer if you can cut through all of the crap.  I have no intention of getting caught up in virtual farming or virtual organized crime.  If I receive an inordinate amount of posts from a single person regarding any of these worthless topics I will block them.  I want to discover these tools for the utility that they can be.

Lastly, I plan on using them every day.  Whether it’s to post a cool link or just a word or two about what I’m doing, I want to post every day.  I don’t want to be a person who just likes to snoop on other people and never offer any information myself.  To use make use fo these tools you need to actually use them.

So i guess i’m going to give this a try.  I already have my account set up and I have a few request waiting for that midnight deadline.  In the end I may be one of the 50% that give up in the first month but I hope that through this I will be able to figure out what all the hype is really about.