"Facebook is silly, why do you need to update your status? Who cares that you mowed the lawn or walked the dog? And why do I care that someone needs a cow for their farm?"
Okay, I'll admit that the applications are way out of hand. Then again, I'm not in the application demographic. But I update my status pretty often, and the 460-or-so people on my friends list can see what I'm up to if they want to. Facebook has proven its worth many times over to me. I'm in touch with people I was friends with in elementary school after not seeing them in person for over 2o years. It's almost taken the place of a point-in-time yearbook, because now I see these friends grown up with families. Updating your status gives the people on your list the ability to see a little bit about you. You can use Facebook without updates, but I think that's the drawing point and gets people coming back regularly.
"Why does anyone need to know that someone is in the bathroom? I mean, when else would you do the Twitter thing?"
Twitter is a stream-of-consciousness tool. Nothing else. It's great for viral marketing and passing along funny things and memes, but it's all based on what's happening now. If you don't think you need to tweet, there are likely a couple of reasons why. You might not like providing details of your life to perfect strangers. Well, who says you need to? It's about keeping your fingers on the pulse of the many. It's immediacy, immediately. And it's more about opinions than actual information. You also need a good tool for Twitter. In my opinion you need a smartphone (BlackBerry, iPhone) to take full advantage of it.
"Isn't Twitter and Facebook the same thing?"
This gets arguments all across the world. My opinion: No, it's not. Facebook is a closed network of people you let in. Updating your status on Facebook and posting things on walls, and needing a cow for your farm gets you to interact with specific people that you let into your network. Twitter is wide open (unless you don't want it to be ... and unless you're posting things you don't need to, that's just silly) and you can measure the public consciousness without having to be a part of their specific network. There are overlaps. But they're less alike than the first impression might lead you to think.
"Isn't all this the downfall of human interaction? People don't know how to carry on a face-to-face conversation anymore!"
I don't buy this argument. Nothing takes the place of a personal conversation when you need to have one. Work is not done on Facebook or Twitter, and social skills are specifically important. But the under-20s in this world use Social Networking as tools rather than just as websites to participate in. There is a generational divide in the use of technology. The long-told joke about hiring a kid to set the time on your currently flashing (12:00) VCR might be outdated, but now that kid might be setting up your Facebook page or transferring your pictures to an online storage medium. These "kids" pop out already wired for technology. It's true. Maybe it's why kids seem to all be ADHD by default. Is the art of conversation something to be taught in school? Possibly. But I wonder what was said when typewriters became prevalent in the last century -- did bloggers rue the downfall of penmanship?
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