Why do I, and apparently so many others, find social networking sites and technologies so damned compelling? What is it about Web 2.0 that makes the internet seem more vital and even fun again? How do hours pass when making a quick check on one's alerts?

I'm fascinated with connecting all these services to make my information accessible and useful. I SMS to Twitter; it becomes my FaceBook status and FriendFeed post for commentary. I email photos to Flicker; they alert my contacts there but also appear on my FaceBook profile for other friends to see. And with Google Reader, my old habit of reading blogs looks as dead as the wet Sunday paper in my neighbor's driveway... I can easily skim new articles, save some to browse and search later by my own tags, and share the ones I like with my community of interest by clicking a single link. And I can do all of these things FROM MY PHONE!!

That makes many of my info-based tasks a lighter-weight experience; I'm even more untethered and at the same time able to focus on each nugget of info. I'm encouraged to participate more yet not ramble on in dissertation style (new rules of Haiku: 140 characters; say something useful AND something witty).

But it does distract heavily from life and other mundane work tasks. A frequent urge to return to the conversation can easily sidetrack my daily schedule. I think we're on a chaotic part of the learning curve, and people infatuated with the subject will naturally spend too much time here. But after a while, fewer, more useful patterns will emerge to streamline these new processes, the number of sites will reduce and not be so bewildering to evaluate, and the bloom will be off the rose.

I look forward to that sad day so I can get my Life 1.0 back!

Mark Arend
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