Social Notworking

Wow. If I were a TV newscaster with an advanced degree in Triteness Studies I'd say that Old Man Winter has returned for one last blast, except that this is Minnesota, and we're due for at least two more good snowstorms before it's all over for the season. (Here in Minnesota, we just look at that note on the calendar that says that Spring starts next week and laugh. Bitterly.)

Driving home in near whiteout conditions last night was exciting enough, but this morning it was -5˚ F with a windchill of around 25 below. An hour ago there was an amazingly beautiful full Moon just setting through the bare trees off to the west, and The Kid made a valiant effort but somehow managed to get out the door on-time and catch his school bus anyway, so now I'm just a few minutes away from hitching up the huskies and beginning my own trek across the windswept, frozen tundra. If you've never seen the wind literally sweeping the loose and dusty snow in great waves across the snowbound prairie, you have missed one of Nature's truly beautiful, and yet insanely cold, sights.

(Outside my window, the dark-eyed juncos squabble at the bird feeder. "Har-ry! You said it was Spring!" "Madge, I swear, if we ever get back to Florida, I'm gonna kill that travel agent.")

Therefore, in place of the column I'd originally planned for this morning, I just want to toss out a few questions about social networking.

This began yesterday, when one of my daughters discovered that I also am on LinkedIn, and asked for a link—and then asked the killer question: "Now what?"

I don't know. While I'm on LinkedIn, I never use it for anything, except to provide the occasional job reference for a former co-worker or to give a somewhat friendly nod and brief answer to a writer or editor I never really knew all that well and haven't talked to in years. I have another old friend who's been trying for some time to get me to open a Facebook account, and while she's been most persistent, I can't see the point in it.

Am I the only fan of Disney's Bambi who thinks we need to revive that fine old neologism, "twitterpated", to describe those twits addicted to Twitter? Another old friend, who used to be a fine writer and wrote an interesting blog, now just posts long lists of his daily "tweets." While it does have a certain pathological interest, being reminiscent of Kurtz's fevered mutterings, it really does strike me as being just so much word salad.

Ergo, today's question. What "social networks" do you belong to, and do you find any of them truly to be useful?

The lines are open...