Social networks are rapidly mushrooming in the cyberspace and showing no sign of stopping anytime soon. Because these social network sites are easily accessible to the public, not to mention free of any entry fees, people are encouraged to join. People join sites such Friendster, Myspace and Facebook have one common purpose, which is either to meet new people or to keep in contact with old friends.
It all started out when Seth Cohen of the OC fame mentioned something about finding friends or a next possible love interest through ‘Friendster’ and suddenly, it became a well known social network world-wide. Although it is true that the Friendster phenomenon began way before Seth Cohen mentioned it on television but the use of the name Friendster as a website to meet new people proves that it is indeed a famous tool used by many.
As time went on, Myspace came along and Facebook shortly afterwards. People now have options on where they want to open an account. It reminds us of a time when we only have hotmail as an email account before yahoo or gmail came along. Ever since these social networks popped up, people are less and less keen on the idea of communication through emails unless they need to send important documents or college assignments.
Starting an account is easy. First, all you have to do is click on the ‘Sign Up’ button and enter all your particulars such as full name, email address, age, birth date, occupation and many other questions which you will later find out when you scroll down further. After you have made an account, you are supposed to upload any photo of yourself in order for the public to see because believe it or not, the public is very picky when they want to add you as a friend or even approve your friend request (when you request to be friends with someone). Looks matter in cyberspace.
Meeting new friends is common when you have an account at any of the social websites. However, more and more people are interested in dating rather than just plain old friendship. First, they add you and later on they engage in conversation which usually revolves around where you live and what you do for a living. Even better if they can secure your number at the end of the conversation.
Awkward as it may seem, people are warming up to the idea of taking the online conversation to a face-to-face conversation, especially if they like what they see online. Finding dates through online websites is becoming sort of a trend. It is considered normal to want to find someone online as opposed to meeting someone at college, or at the workplace like we used to.
In my humble opinion, looking for a potential partner online is risky yet fun. If for example, you talk to someone online and find that you have a lot of things in common; surely you would want to meet in person. It is sort of like a blind date even though that person might have a display picture at their profile page. You never know what to expect and that makes things interesting.
For youngsters like us, we like to experiment, try new things and meet new people. In the online social network, it becomes a competition to see how many friends we can have or how many people will reply to our messages or post comments on our profile. Often times it is hard to keep up with everybody and even harder to reply to about a hundred emails from friends. But we love the attention.