Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Dumbing Down of Pointless Sites Such as Facebook

The dumbing down of pointless sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter today seems all too prevalent. Am I the only person who sees it that way? Is it just a local phenomenon, or a global society meltdown?

I remember back in the 90's when chat rooms and dating sites arrived. How exciting! A non-confrontational way to meet people with common interests. Most of my shopping is done online, for better prices and a vastly larger selection. Why should socializing be any different?

Today the dumbing down of Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter makes me sad. These pointless sites had so much potential. Facebook in particular is brilliant. The high tech design and implementation makes it easy to follow your friends and see what's going on in their lives. I hoped to connect with lots of old friends.

Sadly it just didn't turn out that way. Instead, people use these pointless sites to play idiotic farm sims and gangster RPGs. Twitter has been reduced to a wasteland of pointless tweets about everyday tasks such as eating a Big Mac. The dumbing down of social networks kill their own potential; People seem to have time to join hundreds of groups such as, "I'm going to watch the movie 2012 in 2014 and laugh", and yet they don't have time to reply to a hand-crafted message from an old friend.

These pointless sites may ultimately point to a larger truth; It's not just the dumbing down of social sites, but the dumbing down of global society. People seem to be moving away from traditional relationships towards short-term alliances and acquaintances instead.

The rest of the world have their own social sites, such as Hi5 and VkontŠ°kte. I wonder if they are part of this global society meltdown, or am I just crazy?

What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. No, you're actually not crazy. 3 intelligent people I know recently canceled their Facebook accounts because they found that they no longer provide any utility. I followed soon after.

    Meanwhile, a guy I know just added a new cornfield to his farm. You wouldn't believe the size of this compound! Really impressive. The funny thing is that he's not a farmer, he's 42 years old and sits behind a desk all day taking phone calls. I guess if Facebook wants to market to those people then good for them...they're a much more profitable market than you and I!

    ReplyDelete