Things I used to forget before I had a place to write them down...etc.

From Et cetera

A social networking website is a term used to broadly define pages that allow users to connect with others and share both messages and media with them, such as MySpace or Facebook. These sites are the product of Web 2.0 coming into effect, wherein users of the internet have less of a concept of how amazing the internet is, but a much better idea of how to use it.

[edit] Profiles

Through an interesting form of natural selection on the internet, social networking websites have perhaps best defined what a "personal profile" of an individual looks like in digital form. Since establishing this, even websites that don't necessarily serve as social networking groups have opted to include social networking elements into their account creation interface. It's impossible to tell if this is for the better or not, but we must assume that it is and trust that we know what works as a people, I guess.

The first profiles that I remember filling out on the internet consisted of not much more than a name, e-mail address and maybe a geographic whereabouts. Now, not only are there fields for religious views, zodiac signs and next of kin; but photos, videos and interactive animated caricatures of yourself if you want! This has its up and down, but it really depends on what you want out of your profile.

[edit] The Neverending Battle of Reality vs. Idealism

Although the technological revolution of the last few years brings a lot of options to the table with regards to trying to represent oneself in digital form, it also brings a considerably more savvy user base that can and will manipulate the technology for their own benefit. The question of how to approach creating a profile in a social networking environment comes down to whether or not you wish to represent yourself as accurately as possible or to present the image of yourself that you want people to see. I believe that the tools were built for the former, yet the majority of users are keen to pick the latter and it can cause an unpleasant rift.

[edit] A realistic profile...

To try and use the tools provided to make a realistic digital representation of your person is a challenging task because it immediately forces you to believe that the tools are satisfactory for the job. It doesn't usually work and I think that's part of the reason that so many people don't try too hard.

For instance, sometimes, an internet profile will give you an option that looks like this:

And here I am, trying to turn this into a profile of myself?? I don't really believe that listing my passions, sports, activities, books, music, tv shows, movies and cuisines will help someone get to know me. Sure, they'll have an excellent idea of what books I read and what kinda food I like to eat, but we're always told that it is not right to judge people for their tastes and it seems ethically sound that what TV shows I watch really has nothing to do with whether or not I'm a good person. However, I am grateful for the fact that they offered blank text boxes in lieu of a dropdown list of pre-defined options (which are even less helpful in distinguishing you from the internet pack) because it gives me the chance to try and work around this problem and still try to realistically communicate who I am through words alone.

I would probably approach that form a little differently (depending on the end result of the form's output, I guess*) and use the space I am allotted to write whatever I feel, whether it relates to the subject heading or not. For instance, I would probably open by trying to explain the difference between an "activity" and a "passion" and why some of my activities are also my passions, and vice versa, yet some of my passions are not activities and I have reasons for every one of them.

And when a profile asks an incredibly broad question like "music:" followed by blank space to fill in my answer...well, I tend to go off on tangents. After all, what are they asking? Type of music? Musicians I like? Musical instruments I play? Radio stations? Rather than drawing my own interpretation, I choose to fill it in with some or all of the above list items, as well as the explanation as to why I'm including so many music-related things in my answer to such a glaringly non-specific query. I don't really do that because I think it's the right way to fill out a profile but I do think it does a much better job of explaining who I really am to a reader. Of course, this is under the selfish notion that the readers of my profile are reading it as I am and envisioning the whole profile creation process as I do. Which is almost never the case.

[edit] External Links

• orkut - Edit profile

*For example, in the case of Facebook, you are instructed as a user to list items, separated by a comma, because the end result on your profile page will have each of those items link to a search engine that automatically searches the entire social network for other people who have included those same list items on their profile. Most people on Facebook don't understand this (or care) yet, which is why many of the basic personal information fields open with complete sentences that are clickable but never seem to link to any actual results.