I have a need, a need for speed

I was skeptical of social networks until October 11, 2005, the day I joined Facebook. I know it took me a year to jump on the social network bandwagon, but why do I need that silly Facebook to keep me in touch with friends? Well, because without it, keeping in touch seems too time consuming.

Social networking. No one knows why it is so addicting, but religiously we check our Facebook accounts for messages, updated friend profiles and pictures. It's now apart of my daily routine: check my email, Facebook, CNN and ehub. I wake up and go to bed to this addiction. On the surface social networks like Facebook, Orkut and MySpace are easy ways to connect to your friends, especially the one's you don't see very often. One can instantaneously check out what people are up to by reading their profiles and looking at their pictures.

But social networks are making us unsocial. We don't talk anymore. Instead of calling up our friends from high school to see how they've been, we just look at blurps of their lives on Facebook. Social networks are ideal for acquaintances, but we are using them to maintain relationships with friends and even family. We are more concerned about social networks than social, economic or political events.

But what is better? Heads: When social networking didn't exist? Or tails: social networking as it is now — or even more advanced? Maybe there is some middle ground. Call it torso: A social network that doesn't interfere with face-to-face communication. Personally, I don't want to go back to the times when it took the North six months to know they won the Civil War, but it is disheartening to know that we will no longer have the time to write a letter (and I don't mean an electronic letter) or talk to a friend for hours on the phone.

Now, text messaging has opened up a whole new realm of social networking.

Situation: A group of girls and I are at the Plaza in Kansas City for dinner at P.F. Changs, but like always there is a two-hour wait.

Solution: While I was still on the phone with my friend, she texted her phone for the numbers of other restaurants.

Result: Without ending our conversation we were able to obtain the numbers of four other restaurants, therefore finding a restaurant with the shortest wait. We call this multi-tasking.

Text messaging is a social network in itself. Instantaneously, one can text several people and talk on the phone at the same time. Talk about addicting. (Warning, if you are a teacher I would cover your eyes.) This is great for college students who are sitting in class and without verbal communication want to immediately converse with friends. Texting is immensly addicting and allows us to be even more unsocial. Once you start you just can't stop. Its popularity stems from my generation's need for speed.

I don't know where social networking is going, but I do know where it came from. It's both a blessing and a curse, but it's just another piece of the gen-X puzzle. Communication has forever changed, mostly for the better, but I will miss that gooshy feeling I get when I receive a letter in the mail.