« Speaking of "51 Birch Street"... | Main | Google buys YouTube »

Rethinking online social networks

I've seen the article I'm referencing here in a couple of places with different headlines, the gist of which is that young people are having second thoughts about communicating online, but the real story is that they're losing interest in social network sites like MySpace and Facebook. A decision to drop online social networks in favor of face to face encounters isn't the same as a decision to "log off" entirely. As I've said before, online social networks that don't have some point other than hanging out with acquaintances aren't "sticky." Users soon become inactive if there's nothing in particular to do. People will keep coming back to sites like Flickr, where they can share photos; LinkedIn, where they can do business networking; or MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, where they can quest together or kill each other.

The article says there are still many young people hanging out online, but they may be doing less, and not just because they're experiencing social ennui.

They are more wired than ever — but they're also getting warier.

Increasingly, they've had to deal with online bullies, who are posting anything from unflattering photos to online threats.

Privacy issues also are hitting home, most recently when students discovered that personal updates on their Facebook pages were being automatically forwarded to contacts they didn't necessarily want to have the information. Facebook was forced to let users turn off the data stream after they rebelled.

Increasingly, young people also are realizing that things they post on their profiles can come back to haunt them when applying for school or jobs.

jon posted this at 8:56 AM
Share on Facebook| email to a friend

 Subscribe to RSS feed for Weblogsky