The Real Problem with Blogger, Myspace and Facebook

I read a great article in Psychology Today this week - "The Privacy Paradox," by Nando Pelusi, Ph.D. (Psychology Today, Dec. 2007, pg. 66-67) In it, Dr. Pelusi describes our human need to connect with other people, since we are social animals. We ignore this need, however, because so many of us want privacy so badly. We develop feelings of disconnection and estrangement with the world because we spend our days locked away in offices, working with people we only know in a transitory sense. We come home and lock ourselves away within our walls, seeing only the faces of immediate family and David Letterman for the rest of the night. We may possibly even pass hundreds of people a day on the sidewalk or in the subway without ever meeting them. As more and more of us fall into this kind of behavior, it's easy to understand the promise of social networking. You get on your computer, still locked away in your home or office, and blog, message or comment with your "friends," who you may not have ever actually met. It's scarcely a replacement for actually spending time with friends, of course, but for a society hungry for interaction with others, social networking becomes an easy fallback option. You know, last year there was a news story in China about a baby food manufacturer that was selling baby food that didn't have any nutritional content whatsoever. Several babies died of malnutrition as a result. I think the same thing could be said of our need for our blogs or profile pages - we want to interact with others, we no longer know where to go to meet others... and so we sign up on Facebook. I think this is what social networking will be made or broken upon. If I am right, social networks could become a dangerous addiction people need to be broken from. Or, it could be their wake-up call to go outside and start meeting others. On the other hand, I could be completely wrong, and people with plenty of friends use these services - social networks simply become an extension of their personal lives, the same as with our phones and e-mail. So the question becomes: Which scenario will come true? That our favorite social sites become just another way to interact with the world, or our crutch to help us through a life of continued disconnection with the world?

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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