I feel as if certain social networks serve particular functions in my life. I use them sparingly, for the most part. I'm not addicted to any one particular social network site, but I can say that I could spend hours on them depending the day and how I feel. I also don't have a particular favorite. I'll try something out once, given enough recommendation from friends and family. Plus, I think all the most popular ones are always good to know about, especially if one is leaning toward a more media-based career.
Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube are my primary sites. I've had a MySpace and LiveJournal (or still have them even if I've lost the passwords to them), and also have G+ that I rarely use. But those that I'm somewhat actively on serve their own purpose. For example, I see Facebook as my own personal address book of sorts. Everyone I have as a "friend" on Facebook are people I know in real life and have met more than once in my lifetime. It is basically a site where I friend those I know in the assumption that I'll need to contact them in the future about something. I also use Facebook as an events calendar. My friends like creating events and communicating about said events through Facebook and that's just how we plan things to do together in person. (Course, we massively text each other as well, but we primarily use Facebook for the planning.)
I use Twitter solely to follow Ellen DeGeneres' tweets. That was the only reason I created a Twitter way back in 2008 in the first place and I'm really not ashamed to say that, because what else is Twitter good for? I mean, I follow a few of my friends who use Twitter and did jump on the bandwagon when Charlie Sheen went on his Twitter rampage, but Twitter is like 140 characters of instant entertainment of sorts. I follow Jimmy Kimmel because he's funny, and Perez Hilton because that was once something I read online on a daily basis. But for the most part, my Twiiter is a sad, sad place that is often neglected for other productive uses of my online time...
Like YouTube! YouTube is pure fantasticalness. I can spend hours and hours doing nothing but watching videos of random things and it's all enjoyable. You can practically find anything on YouTube. Like if you missed a show, you can probably find it in parts on YouTube before it's taken down. If you can't find a song, chances are you can find it to listen to on the Tube. Show recaps, funny vloggers, really cool video artwork, silly parodies, horribly bad memes...anything. It's all accessible on YouTube. One can procrastinate for days.
Tumblr is another from of entertainment. I call Tumblr a blog on crack, because it is. It's not a traditional blog, but it is a blog. But I think it's mostly an audio/visual blog. Most people use it to transmit art and photos and music. Maybe the occasional video. Gifs are like Tumblr's permanent residents; they're everywhere. I feel Tumblr is not really a social network in that people follow and communicate with people they know, nor is it a place where people go to meet new people. It's more of a place where people share bits and pieces of the internet world that they like with other people.
I don't know, but I've never let social networks consume my life. I find them more accessories of entertainment more than anything. I'd personally like to communicate with people either face to face or through some means where I can hear the other person's voice, whether its the telephone or through Skype. There's something more personal about that sort of interaction than through instant messaging over Facebook (which I always keep off, cause no one needs to know when I'm on Facebook). I'm sure there are tons of people who feel the same way as I do in regards to social networks. I think it's the new generation of internet users, like teens and tweens who are the ones that consume themselves with social networks. Granted, there are a handful of those my age and older who live on Facebook or another site that they often neglect their real life or have created a world for themselves, where there's no separation between their online social network and offline real life network. And even though I'd like to say that those people are few, I feel like that's becoming a reality of sorts in today's society. I feel that people need to be connected with each other online now in order to feel connected offline, which I think is ridiculous. But with tethered devices and free wifi everywhere, I feel that that's becoming the norm.
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