Social Studies: The Web Past & Present
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009The Internet has always been a pretty social place. After all, the heart of it is and will always be communication. Since this is a huge aspect of the Internet in general, I wanted to start a series on my blog called “Social Studies” where I talk about, analyze, and comment on the websites that really push people to socialize with one and other.
To get the ball rolling, if you look at almost any of MY social profiles, you’ll find this snarky line:
I don’t particularly like social networking sites, but they do keep me updated with the lives of people I know and care about, but don’t care or know enough to call or see.
The funny thing is, I’ve always enjoyed social networking sites. Even the ones I absolutely hated *cough, cough* MySpace *cough*, I still visited pretty regularly when they were at the height of their popularity. But the most interesting thing about these sites is that most of the people you connect with are people whose friendship wasn’t really that important to you to begin with. People in my generation, and ones prior to my generation, are re-connecting with these people like never before. People in the current generation are never losing touch to begin with. This will probably make class reunions less interesting in the future.
After the jump, I hone in on a few websites that I find most interesting (or interesting when they were popular, at least)!
