Social Networks...WHY????

For everyone who truly knows me, they'll know never to waste their time trying to find me on some social forum. I am utterly averse to this form of communication for many reasons:

1. It is too impersonal; too many persons who 'exist' in this cyber world have serious problems when it comes to face-to-face interactions with human beings. They seem to malfunction when they realise that in the real world you need to work on issues with people rather than simply 'unfriending' them.
2. These sites don't have real rules. According to my father, who incidentally LIVES on Facebook, the internet is the 'Wild, Wild West'; there are no rules of engagement. I find this utterly chaotic since it seems as though people post whatever they like, whenever they like regardless of audience, convention etc. Most of the popular social networks I view as encouraging immorality....almost anything goes. Yes, yes in the sign up agreement there are some nice words suggesting some form of censoring....YEAH RIGHT!

I have many more arguments against these sites but time does not permit. I cannot encourage my students to be part of the madness that is 'Social Network' (they really don't need to ben encouraged to join anyway since most if not all are members of Facebook). I know as teacher it is my responsibility to guide my students on the correct way of using these sites and I do but I feel as though societal pressure, even from those who should know better, leaves them vulnerable to the ills of these sites; I'm fighting a losing battle.

Personally I resist talking to strangers online. It took much out of me to send that first email out to the CCTI group. Since then I haven't sent group emails although I often send personal emails to people within the group. I don't want to make a mockery of social interaction. Even when I look at the tone of my first email, when compared to many persons who'd sent emails before, I recognise that my email is dripping of my PERSONality; it's anything but generic. I can't help it. *sigh*

Maybe one day, after much indoctrination by a social network junkie, MAYBE I will be more open to the idea of cyber social networking.