3 Fallacies of Social Networking

I entitle this brief diatribe against social networking as a precursor to future award winning essay, "The Fallacy of Social Networking"

Fallacy 1: Online Social Networks (OSNs) have real value ($$$).

I) Social Networking is a true bubble technology / economy. It has no true long term or external (i.e. to its own bubble) value.

Fallacy 2: The general public (in this case adolescents and young adults) derives a large value from participating regularly in online social networking.

I) Perceptions and reality are key here: People perceive the value they derive from social networks as being far greater than any actual value. The component parts of this perception lie in professional networking, romantic pursuits, social 'climbing', and increasing magnitude of social network (friends & acquaintances)

II) Additionally, social networks provide an unequally attractive non-conventional mode (UANCM; pronounced "you-ain-cummin") of communication and socialization. It neither enhances nor outpaces standard modes of communication such as face to face interaction or phone calls.

Fallacy 3: Social networking operates on economies of scale. It's an efficient way to provide mass amounts of information about you to massive amounts of people. And the hit rates are wild!

I) In reality its a huge time-waste. A horrible time-pass. A pursuit best left to mice whose brain's have been wired to pleasure center inducing stimuli. I'd be very interested in seeing the hours spent by the average High School student, College Student, Young Professional on any one of the major OSN services. Time perhaps better spent at a local Starbucks studying, jogging in the park, or speed dating at Canvas Lounge in the inner sunset.

II) The bottom line here is that we're not replacing phone, texting, emailing, in person with OSNs exclusively, we're adding OSN participation to an already hectic life schedule, and that's bad.

Tell me I'm wrong, recommend some relevant literature leads, agree and still play devil's advocate. I've had it with these OSNs.

The one truly great thing I gained from thefacebook was learning about Stanford feminist turned suburban rap queen, http://www.kflay.com/ .