Social Life
I somehow believe that I still have a life–a life outside toiling forever. But, unless I have a very good imagination, I cannot fully support this thought.
I joined almost every social networking sites there is, because, at that time, I needed to work on researches and observe social networking sites' behavior. In an alternative term, also for work. Though this is the case, I tried to degrade into using the accounts for my personal use. I have the habitual flow of making almost all of the personal pages look painstakingly similar to each other. I wanted to have a solid image of myself online, and not confuse my viewers/readers of my personality. Ergo, one change in design for one site will cause a trigger of cascading changes for the other sites. Just imagine how much bandwidth I've been gulping! :D
Now, that is my sole social life. If a computer box is highly sociable, then I'm a social maniac! :D
More Work
As each day rolls like it won't end, I get more work. And most of the time, though its not a work that I must physically deliver, its an exercise for my brain. With this, I get information overload. Everyday, I find myself staring into space while I deliver a step and trace function of a virtual code that I formulated in my head. I get obsessed with what I need to do because I feel motivated doing so.
In turn, each day meant more work. Then what? No more time for internet for fun stuff.
Dial Up Account?!
More work each day, yet I can't keep up with the demands of taking care of the family. I must ensure that I manually pay the family bills every cycle. I must allot time to teach my youngest sister her Math subject because she is continously complaining that her teacher just doesn't teach well. I must also remember to manually reload my sister's Cash Card for her baon, and check on her school requirements and grade results from time to time. On top of that, I'd worry about my mom who is always out in the roads driving.
I get home at around 9pm - 11pm everyday. Of course, though I may be busy, I always allot time for my honey. This is the only break time I get to spend for myself and for both of us. This is about the time I will get into the net and go through my emails (I monitor a total of 1 msn, 2 yahoos , and 6 gmails accounts). Then, I will get into the habitual posting to this blog. Unfortunately, it feels like I have a dial-up account using my SmartBro! Every night, I log into the portal, and it just won't allow me in. Without further adeiu, of course, my internet time gets drastically reduced to almost 10% visibility. Geezzz… talk about usability!
Please, not you..
I am a member of a lot of social networking sites. One of the oldest is friendster. Friendster is annoying at times because you can get requests from people you don't know and people you don't wanna talk to. Its like its another open portal of communication that I just can't seem to get any benefit from.
I have a friend who has done more damage than good, and I have not been too happy to accept that she was a friend. Its a gruesome fact that she did a lot of trust and reputation damage to me. Back when I wanted to be her friend, she turned me down with this awful attitude. And now, honestly, her friendship request is the last thing I'd take into consideration. I don't want to reject friend requests. I just let them sit there as long as they can and remove their request on their own volition.
Public Display of Affection
Friendster is one of the most popular networking sites in Asia, like here in the Philippines. Almost every person has a friendster account which they love to tinker and beautify most of the time. Collecting friends online is also "in", and so is bulletin posting. I believe I had around 170+ friends for an account that has been around 3years old. I just am not into digging away each of my connections to find friends. I'm always too lazy for that. I'd just let friendster market my account using email alerts to my networks.
Throughout that 3 years, I've witnessed youngsters and a lot of teenagers use their account for flirting and/or public display of affection. Its an ugly sight. Even couples have been using friendster to communicate to each other via photos, shoutouts, etc. I know of some who even created "joint accounts" inside friendster, but faded out in a bitter end, and their account dormant as dead–a waste of space.
Emotional Outlet
My friend has a girlfriend named Emily. Whenever my friend and I discuss about our technical inclinations, he would always blurt out in the end that Emily has made all significant efforts to stress out that he must not, as in absolutely at no cost, get his own friendster account. Why?
Well, the people are already using shoutouts, bulletins and emailing in friendster a way to publicize their emotions. It has already become an outlet for their bottled up emotions, may it be good or bad. And, I believe Emily reserves the right to protect their relationship from being destroyed by social networking sites. If its being used this way, then it does more damage than good to the relationship. This might even get more gruesome when fights are held online via the "It's Complicated Status" or personalized shoutouts or even through blogging.
I left Friendster
Social networking sites doesn't work for me anymore. I find myself wasting time in order to keep up with what's hip and what's hot over the net and joining the rush in online networking sites. Its heart sickening also to see that some people take the lot in (not just) spamming me, but stalking me online.
I have also been feeling that the inactivity of my accounts online are becoming a dragging feeling that my friends wouldn't notice me anymore. Friendster is a viral marketing site. The more you update your account, the more you become popular. Popular.. yes, but for what?
I hate the fact that I had to be requested to become somebody else's friend because that person collects "cute chicks" as friends for his account. I also don't like the fact that I am becoming obsessed with tracking who viewed me, comment collecting, etc. Its just not doing me any good.
Right now, all I have is the love for this blog. I have left Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Myspace, etc. (Sorry for the missing pictures, I'll fix 'em soon). :)