Social Networking sites, like any of the 2.0 tools discussed thus far, are what you make of them.  For some, they are a portal to their friends, family, and beyond or a place where they can share aspects of themselves they thought they could share with no one else. For me, it has mostly meant lurking. No, I don’t mean “someone waiting in concealment”—that seems kind of disturbing and gross. I mean, “a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely participates”. I’m afraid this has been me until relatively recently. But I’m learning…and growing. Taking an already quiet and reserved person and plopping them down on Facebook does not create a social butterfly—at least in my case. I have been on social networking sites for awhile. I joined MySpace about 5 years ago and Facebook more recently as a way to keep in touch with friends who live far away. While MySpace has now adopted many aspects of Facebook, what I most like about Facebook is the newsfeed showing what my friends are doing and/or saying. It is almost forcing me to keep up. I don’t have to go to each person’s page—the information comes directly to me. Social networking can certainly be overwhelming, but this sort of RSS feed helps keep most of it under control. Until you add another social networking site.

I joined SLISLife back when it was released (maybe a year or so ago). I had already been in the SLIS program for awhile and was happy to see something created that could stimulate and foster a real community. But it hasn’t exactly worked out as I hoped. There are a number of ways students can connect with others (blogs, groups, etc), yet I still found it hard to communicate with people I really only know as a name from most of my classes. Having a separate space, such as SLISLife to connect with others on a professional level is seemingly needed, but in practice, I feel that most people will stick with a single site they already know and use often. I saw evidence of this during this week, where I became “friends” with 246 classmates on Facebook, SLISLife, and Ning. While I did receive a couple of messages on SLISLife, most of my interaction with others was on Facebook. I think this was partly because most already use Facebook in their daily lives, but also because of its “newsfeed” feature, which pulls you into a social circle.  At the same time, I do think that SLISLife could be an effective community building tool if introduced to students at the onset of the SLIS program.  If students begin their studies by interacting with other students through SLISLife, perhaps those connections could continue through their time in the program.  I am an old dog here.  Perhaps these new tricks are not working for me.

Most of these social networking sites have a shelf life, where they are popular for awhile, but then people lose interest or find something else new and exciting.  MySpace (in some ways) is becoming a bit passe. Something will replace Facebook…eventually. Or perhaps Facebook will adjust to changing times better than MySpace did. Many are now using Facebook as a place to network not only with friends, but with colleagues, etc. Occasionally, these groups should not all mix together. I know I would sometimes prefer it if they were more separate (so I could be weird with my friends and professional with my colleagues), but the reality is that I do not want to go to more than one social networking site. Facebook is great for filtering these various groups through privacy settings, etc. but I would like to see it do more. Then it could truly be the one stop shop I would use and enjoy.  Perhaps I will even stop lurking.