Social Networking

“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

So, the hottest thing online for the past couple of years has been social networking sites. I suppose it started with Friendster but now includes several, with the big names being Facebook and, of course, the 600 pound gorilla, Myspace. These days even politicians can’t avoid Myspace if they wish to have any identity at all with anyone under 40.

The primary purpose of these sites, notwithstanding all the ballyhoo about socializing and being able to exchange ideas with like-minded folk etc., is meeting guys and meeting girls. How successful they have been in that regard I do not know. I must admit to having met a few girls online whom I very much liked (even dating a couple) and actually having become very close friends with a couple. Of course I have also met some amazingly odd people and some really not so nice ones, including one of the most manipulative and deceitful females I’ve ever had the misfortune of coming across (another story!). The point is, these sites are successful because it is easier to meet more people in a month than it was for an earlier generation to meet in a lifetime - and, without the bother of going to a bar or wherever and playing that depressing game. Direct, simple, and fast results one way or the other.

Of course with the growth of these sites has come problems, the most serious being predatory adults connecting with, influencing and sometimes even meeting children. Why this and other serious problems should surprise people seems strange to me. When you have 50 or 100 million people interacting in any manner you will get all the problems associated with being human. Nutballs and sociopaths abound everywhere, so why not on Myspace et al?

I am thinking of this matter today because earlier I saw an item on CNN that seemed to take online insanity to a new and bizarre level. The story is as follows:

A 13 year old suburban American girl hung herself in her bedroom a year ago. She had seemed relatively well-adjusted and “normal”, so it shocked her family. The lead-up was that the girl had, with her mother’s permission and supervision, started a Myspace account. She quickly befriended and became enamored with a boy who complimented and flattered and flirted with her. Suddenly the boy changed overnight, berating her, insulting her and telling her the world would be a better place if she were not in it. She promply killed herself.

Sad enough on the face of it, but it gets even more bizarre.

It turns out that the “boy” was, in fact, the mother of a neighborhood friend of the girl. She had been trying to find out why the girl and her daughter were having problems. No explanation was given for the sudden change in tone.

When confronted by the parents of the dead girl, the neighbors’ response was something like “Give it a rest.”