Column: Never Forever Alone

The first thing I do when I walk into Safeway is check in on Facebook. But then it occurs to me that this might not have reached everyone it possibly could have, and I would hate to deprive any living soul of this information. So I Tweet my precise location to all of my subscribers too. When I do this I also include my first impressions, but my words fall short. The only logical thing to do is to take a photo and upload it to Photobucket to be dispersed among my 12 social networks so everyone from Deviant Art to Vampire Freaks (don’t judge) can experience this too. Now I can monitor reactions to this breaking development in my life and field questions in real time. I’m not at Safeway. We’re at Safeway.

I don’t actually do any of that (I can barely manage a Facebook account). But when I see the explosion of social networks I come to the conclusion there’s people that do.

So when will the volume of networking sites hit a ceiling? Honestly, the trend that they’re following reminds me a lot of the dot-com bubble and it’s infamous bursting in the late 90’s. If a business model worked for one company, then why can’t a sleuth of other companies replicate it with as much success, as long as demand exists? Everyone believes we’ve finally found a guaranteed, recession proof idea that has virtually no saturation point. But these companies should be wondering just how much attention a human being can possibly have, especially when they’re dividing it between I2 different outlets every day. Of course, a lot of their entrepreneurs couldn’t care less about the long-term success of their would-be brain child. All they need to know is that it will grow big enough to make it an attractive acquisition for one of the bigger fish, and then’s it’s time to cash out.    Now this isn’t to say that there aren’t other areas to expand into in a global way. Since the Facebook switch in the U.S., MySpace has sought greener pastures in China, and Friendster (Ha, my computer’s spell-checker doesn’t even recognize Friendster. How funny is that?) in the Arab sphere and southeast Asia. The point is that if there ever was a limit of social sites and complimentary programs for them, the United States has reached it. My prediction that people will begin a mass dumping of superfluous profiles sometime in the next few years when they realize they’ve signed up for a bit more than they can realistically manage. Once the novelty of the idea has worn off, we’ll realize that being part of a different subculture for every single aspect our personalities is spreading our attention too thin.

I don’t think people will ever get tired of unimportant information though. We no longer have the ability to discern what’s important and what’s not. It’s almost as though people enjoy wading through terabytes of bullshit every time they log on. On one hand, you get a truly valuable source every once in a while that can provide insider information regarding something, but on the other hand you have 10,000 imposters and critics analyzing information, all of whom have no idea what they’re talking about. Information age is kind of a misnomer. We’ve passed it and entered the misinformation age, where as long as you have an internet connection, you’re Dan Rather.