Week Seven: Internet

On wikipedia, there are 280 social networking sites listed, and out of all those, i've heard of blogster, buzznet, cafemom, classmates.com, deviantART, facebook, flixster, flickr, friendster, gaiaonline, imeem, last.fm, linkedin, livejournal, myheritage, myspace, stickam, tumblr, twitter, and xanga--only twenty. The sites I've heard of that aren't listed are stickydrama and formspring, a current favorite for drama crazed teens. Absolutepunk, a music networking site, also wasn't listed. A site I have never heard of: Amie Street. It was created by Brown University students and serves as an online music store/social networking site.

I mainly use social networking just to keep in contact with friends, but I've found that it's seldom anything but trouble. Recently, after a low key falling out with some friends, I blocked the people involved to keep things calm (I didn't want to read their negative statuses about me, nor did I want them to twist my own statuses into something about them). This plan backfired. Hours after I did this, one of the girls involved found out and was extremely offended. She commented my best friends default picture with an insult directed towards me and tried to tell me off through other means of social networking (insults over formspring, AIM, etc). She became so frustrated, she eventually showed up to my house. Regardless, I still log in daily and waste plenty of time that would otherwise be spent studying.