In Review: Social Networking and Staying Connected

Almost everyone has heard of Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or any other sites that I didn't or don't mention, but to those few who haven't, I'd like to say, "Congratulations." I've tried to be more self-conscious of how much time I spent on Facebook, and I can go on intending to check my notifications and I look at my computer's clock to see that it's past midnight. All that time, wasted.

I'm going to sound self-centered, but I've had brilliant ideas for books, for plot lines filled with twists and turns and characters that would make my writing absolutely irresistible (alright, now I'm done), and yet I have no physical writing to show for it. Every attempt to write ends up with me staring at the blank white paper of Microsoft Word, with the sourest of tastes in my mouth, and each and every time I find myself drawn back to the main distracting force: Facebook, Twitter, all of these sites made to distract me from something that could turn a nice profit. I'm proud to say that I've finally deleted my Facebook account, although what frustrates me is the fact that they (the staff of FB), believe that Facebook is my only means of staying connected. Yes, I'm probably one of the most socially awkward people in my school, but I still see more than half of those people daily, and those messages of "So-and-so will miss you!" do nothing but make me hate the site even more.

I remember one commercial from some time ago, where a sullen teenage girl is talking about Facebook. She claims she is really social, having 1000+ friends, and her parents are hypocritical because they have only 60 friends on the same site, of course the images show the parents going out for a bike ride with friends in the mountain. I don't remember who sponsored such a commercial, but I enjoyed seeing that message being spread.

This website is built to connect writers and maybe even a few publishers, what can and will help other fellow writers out, but websites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, so on and so forth, have little to none of that benefit. This website, in a way, is a network built for socializing, so am I being a hypocrite? No, because this site, as well as numerous other forums, is built to construct information on certain points, in this case writing and publishing.

The deterioration of the public's mind is happening quicker than we realize, as we find that simple concepts of socializing and connecting personally is becoming too obsolete for us. Please, take the time to say "Hello" to that friend that you normally only chat with online. An actual smile will do a lot more than will ever do.