I think it was 1994 or 1995 when I really started getting addicted to the internet. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have a family that embraced the concept of computers, although it seemed like I was the only one who really ever took the time to figure out how to use them, so at age 11 I convinced my mom that AOL was worth trying...after all, it had a free trial, might as well right?
Now, as I sit here at age 25, the "free trial" concept is not nearly as enticing, and the internet as I've known it is a completely different place. Those early days were filled with hours of time in pointless chat rooms, plenty of online video games, and of course a fascination with discovering new information. These days, I realize I have more abandoned profiles than ex-girlfriends, I'm a member of a billion different sites that each promise some unique feature that I can't live without, and most importantly, I feel like I have to work to find new things that interest me. If you're anything like me, by the time you finish visiting each of your different sites you get this suspicion inside you that maybe, just maybe something new has happened on one of them so you start the process again. Before you know it, you've spent a few hours to only discover a couple of interesting tidbits.
Hold on, I should probably grab the paper bag and start taking some deep breaths. If you don't realize by now, I'm having a mid-life social identity crisis.
It started with AOL, for me. I really bonded with my buddy list throughout my youth, and I used the "find a buddy" feature all the time to just find new people to talk to. After years of AOL use, I started seeing sites pop up that were designed to easily introduce you to new people. Whether it was
rating the attractiveness of someone or shamelessly trying to
get yourself laid, these sites were instantly addictive for me. I had a livejournal, a deadjournal, a blurty, I think even had one from some place with the word diary in the title, despite my hesitation to embrace the term "diary" as a guy.
In early 2004, myspace changed my life. For better or worse, it changed it in a big way. The term social networking developed, and I loved it. I went through the obsession stage, the self-obsession stage, the almost-delete-it-because-it's-ruining-my-life stage...I've seen it all.
I believe it was 2006 when facebook opened itself to my school. At first it didn't interest me nearly as much as myspace. I'm pretty sure the first couple of years I had a facebook, it was used mainly to find cute girls in my classes or in my own dorm. However, time (and intelligent development) has brought me now to a place where facebook is my go-to website, which presents an interesting situation for me.
Myspace for me was always for fun, whereas most of my facebook use was linking up with high school friends, classmates, etc. Myspace let me have visual control of my profile, so I've always felt that my myspace page showed my personality better than the stiff structure of a facebook profile, but now that I've seemingly "outgrown" myspace, I feel as though I'm in limbo. I really don't want to abandon either, but instead find a good way to streamline my online identity.
To try and accomplish this goal, I'll be trying a few new things over the next couple of weeks. I've already mentioned
me.dium, and let me say as a follow up to that post, one of the best things about me.dium seems to be the people behind it. The morning after posting my review I was contacted by three different employees who were all very friendly. As a bit of a teaser, I have been assured that some new facebook related features are coming soon, and I can't wait to see what all that includes! Anyway, aside from me.dium, I am also trying
Socialthing! and
friendfeed. That is, in addition to making a true effort to utilize the networking features of sites I've been a member of for quite sometime.
If this doesn't work, I'll have to buy a red convertible and find some eye candy to take with me to all the social events I attend when I'm not busy writing long nerdy blog posts.
