[Air-l] A verb for using social networking sites

[Lauren M. Squires]

While we're so engrossed in this topic - to throw in briefly something else
I just noticed in reading an airplane magazine (and in fact, I think I
noticed it before somewhere else, just can't remember where): some people
are using "social network/ing" to refer specifically to "online social
network/ing".  As if social networks don't exist IRL, or as if they are
phenomena that have emerged specifically from Web 2.0.

The article is here: http://usairwaysmag.com/2007_06/digital_life.php

"Social networks form the heart of what digital hipsters call Web 2.0, an
assortment of sites where users generate the site's content and determine
what other people see when they visit. The classic example is youtube.com.
Say that on youtube.com you post a video of something funny your cat did.
Other members offer comments and rate it. The higher the video's rating, the
more likely it will show up in searches for "funny cats." Before long,
you're part of the Amusing Feline Group and sharing grooming tips for your
cat with other youtube.com regulars. That's a social network.

If you don't belong to some kind of social network, you soon may not belong
anywhere. Fortunately, there's a vast and growing selection of networks
built around all kinds of interests...."

To me, this indicates further problems with the terminology we've been
using, on top of whether it's appropriate to use "network" or "networking,"
but that at least to some, uptake of the term "social network/ing site" or
"online social network/ing" has involved an erasure of the qualifier
"online" or "site," or the (mis?)understanding that social networks *are*
just an online thing.  Then again, the fact that I notice this and consider
it problematic probably points to some conceptual dividing lines between IRL
and online social networks, when actually, as I know from research as well
as my own experience, they are (usually) not mutually exclusive.

What got me the most was that first sentence of second paragraph up there:
"If you don't belong to some kind of social network, you soon may not belong
anywhere."  ... I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean other than
being a dramatic sell for social network sites, but the implication is
obviously that if you're not part of an ONLINE social network, you'll have
no reason to be online at all; or, you'll have no social life?  But we all
have social networks that aren't contingent on broadband, yes? That emerge
via neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, hobbies, travel.....  Anyway, this
usage got my goat, for whatever reason.

LS
-- 
lauren m. squires
  lx: http://polyglotconspiracy.net
  cmc: http://sociocmc.blogspot.com