Posted on November 8, 2006
Social Media - Are We Experiencing Too Much of a Good Thing?
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an interesting article about social media sites. A good summary of the article would be to say that many young people are getting burnt out on all this sharing.
The article raises some good points in its discussion of the multitude of social sites that exist today. Social sites are great because they allow you to share with friends an family, help you reconnect with lost friends and acquaintances, and even meet new friends. On the downside, they also require a lot of effort to create and maintain.
The process of filling out an online profile isn't difficult, but if you want to be thorough, it IS time-consuming. What was once a fun, novel way to pass the time has now caused "social networking fatigue". The reasons for this are many:
1) The amount of effort required to completely fill out a new profile.
2) The sheer number of sites out there, many of which people sign up for just for the sake of one or two friends.
3) Keeping the many different sites up to date requires logging in to each one and updating them separately.
4) Unsolicited messages, friend requests, and advertisements often bombard users, adding to the frustration.
As the number of sites increases and the novelty of the phenomenon decreases, we may finally see a drop-off in the number of users. At the very least, only a few will emerge as the leaders, and the rest will drop off into obscurity. Social media has already evolved since arriving on the scene in 2002, and in order to survive, the Chronicle suggests that more "niche" sites will become prevalent rather than "broad, general, catch-all platforms." We may also see social networking aspects become more integrated into other sites.
In the end, as the article quotes, "[Social media has] both been overhyped and underestimated." The giant bubble that has grown around it cannot be sustained in terms of how big all of the existing sites can grow, but the concept as a whole is here to stay and just needs to be refined.
It will be interesting to witness the next generation of social media, and see just how it integrates more and more into our daily lives. There is an intrinsic need among people to stay connected--the trick is to avoid burning out and stick with a select few sites that work for that person's needs for their current time of life.
