The trouble with Facebook groups
Each time a friend sends you an invitation to join yet another Facebook group, do you oblige? I used to. (Since having a talk with my veteran Facebook-user, college senior son who suggested I get back to basics, I've been much more discerning.)
After joining over 30 Facebook groups (and starting one), I've finally figured out what's wrong with them...I belong to over 30!
That's the trouble, there's just too many of them to participate in any one with frequency. Every time I open my Facebook page, there's at least four messages from as many groups. When you consider that each one of those is its own mini-social network, well, I think it becomes plainly obvious that a line has to be drawn somewhere.
Extrapolate that beyond Facebook, and the principle holds. No one has the time to devote to umpteen social networks. Right now, I belong to Plaxo, Facebook, , Adgabber, The Society of Word of Mouth (a niche network started by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba), , MyBlogLog and at least one more! And those are the ones I pay at least some attention to each week.
You could even take that a step further and apply it to the number of friends one has in their network. Is it feasible to carry on meaningful conversations with 500 or more people? I mean, think about Twitter. At the time of this writing, I have 400 followers and change. Most of these folks are never going to interface with me to any great degree, or I with them. While it's an ego trip to keep adding to the list, the truth is I'll spend quality time with only a small percentage of those followers.
There are two topics of greatest interest to me at the moment, and one of those is how to make the most of social network involvement. I mean, if you join an online community, shouldn't you at least make an honest attempt to participate?
I hope to create a set of principles for effective social network involvement, and one I can share right now: Limit the number of groups in which you participate. It's better to be active in a few than lame in several.
Great point. The first instinct is to fill up your friends list, but the only way to make it meaningful is to pare it down.
Also with regards to Facebook groups, I stopped using them awhile back simply because they generally don't serve any useful purpose, that can't be fulfilled via other social network systems.
As an example, we started a "nurse blogger" group to connect with other nurse bloggers. But there's already half a dozen other ways to connect with each other (feed readers, message boards, blog carnivals, etc.) so the FB group just sits there, unvisited.
Posted by: Beth | March 20, 2008 at 06:55 AM
Paul,
You raise a good point. I'm intrigued at the generational angle on this. Looking at the photo, you look to be in my generation--the Boomer Generation. And, reading your post, your son is giving you pointers on how to navigate through the possibilities the new technology offers.
In other words, you had a real time, real life conversation with your son in order to navigate the virtual conversations of online life.
Isn't this fascinating?
On my site www.riehlife.com I seek to create connections through the arts, across cultures and generations. That's a lot of conversations going on!
If you and your son would like to construct a print interview on this topic for Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century, and think this would be a useful and hot topic...especially for so many of those in our generation, Paul, scrambling to keep up and make sense of it all!
Janet Riehl
www.riehlife.com
Posted by: Janet Riehl | March 20, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Janet, we would be more than happy to. Just let me know how to proceed.
Posted by: Paul Chaney | March 20, 2008 at 01:23 PM
i agree with your argument about facebook...you end up getting so many group invitations, that it gets difficult to manage.Taking me for an example, I spent hardly 15 mins on facebook, go through each requested app and if i find it interesting in first glance.
Posted by: lisa | March 24, 2008 at 09:08 AM