Facebook: A High Tech Sandbox
The Wife made an astute observation today. She said that she thought Facebook and other social networking sites were the high-tech equivalent of a sandbox.
When toddlers are playing in a sandbox, there isn’t much interaction between them. Instead each is in his or her own little world, babbling away. Sometimes the worlds of two or three might intersect briefly, but eventually they pull apart and the tots are alone again.
Facebook is quite similar. Most posts are mundane and few garner comment. When there is interaction, it’s usually brief – a comment or two on a particular post. There are a few people who get more attention than most, and there are some celebrities whose every grunt and online fart spawns hundreds of comments from fans. But Facebook is a sea of people babbling away in their own little worlds with little interaction between them.
Chad:
Aren’t blogs about the same thing?
19 May 2009, 11:53 amScott Kirwin:
Pretty much. Blogs can get comments from strangers, but those comments are blocked by design in Facebook.
19 May 2009, 12:10 pmKen:
i hate facebook. when i think of facebook i think of those sea gulls from nemo but instead of repeating “mine mine mine mine” it’s all a bunch of “me me me me me me”
i would disagree with chad about the blogs thing. blogs, unless they are a “me me me blog” are to inform about a topic that will generate thought or conversation, same as with forums. myspace and facebook cater to vain banality.
20 May 2009, 11:24 am