Networking, I have been listening to this word all the time. It may be of the features to achieve success.  Have contacts, find new friends, find reason to talk to people etc etc … so that one can have a good network and it can help me in future.

Well this was or may be the idea the social networking sites came into existence. I started with Orkut, then MySpace and now Facebook. Firstly I was amazed with the concept and features provided by these sites but now it has changed.

Wow !! was my reaction when I first logged into Orkut. Within few weeks I found it pretty cool that I have 500+ friends and I can keep contact with them forever. I can see what a friend is upto or can join various fans group, create my own group, plays games and the list can go on…. Daily in evening like a habit I will check my wall or any updates or watch some funny videos and spend time by updating my status and waiting for my friends reply or commenting on other walls.

OOOF !! I never realized that this habit has become an addiction and everyday when I get a free time I will login to these sites or keep on refreshing my page so that I can be first one to see other updates.

The networking site represents me as a “proxy” or my “clone” (let me use some technical words, feels good) on the internet. These days it has become a status symbol. I was completely surprised when my friend said “Kul, you have 500+ friends. You me be a popular guy “. Not only this , various companies are checking the profiles of candidate at these sites and trying to judge them before taking interview which I feel is questionable. Also I have been reading about the research done in this field to understand the behavior of users and various social networking models. That’s too much of work I believe.

But lately I realized that the amount of time I am spent on this had increased and my actual productivity towards other things has decreased. These sites don’t bring out anything good or make one an expert or be useful in any way. Also some of the best minds are working in developing these sites and keeping it active whereas that talent could be used to build something more meaningful.

I am not  against the social networking site but I guess these should be used for something more other than chat ,gossip, ’like this’ and upload photos.

Note: These are just my views and doesn’t intend to harm or hamper the images of social networking sites