To me it’s always been a case of … privacy for lack of a better word. Social network sites by their very nature aren’t private. It’s hard to control who gets to see what, and what gets said to whom.

Oh certainly there are lot of permissions levels and the like… but really, the people administering the site don’t care if some horribly humiliating tidbit slips out somehow and ruins your life. After all it’s your life, and your humiliation, not theirs.

And at the same time they all have big flashing ads and op ed pieces extholling you to post more and more… to “share”.

No, to me the social networking sites always reeked of the cult of celebrity, where anyone can be a little Paris Hilton… just trade enough of your personal life away and you can be “famous” or at least be made to feel like it. And just like a Hollywood parety full of air kisses and photo ops, there is little of real substance to be found in the “networking” that goes on … at least to my eyes.

No … as an anti social misfit the very idea of the phony online party world of social networking makes my skin crawl.