My presentation on social networking is tomorrow, and I'm excited to tell you all a little more about Google Buzz, Flixter, and Mugglespace! I have been active in all three, following more people on Buzz (although I still lack followers), taking quizzes and getting new friends on Flixter, and joining groups and chatting on Mugglespace. I find the act of "friending" people I don't know to be extremely unsettling, and the somewhat perverted feedback I've gotten from some new friends to be frankly repulsive, which leads me to my question:
In the current internet climate, have social networking sites remained a vehicle for foraging new relationships, or are they merely a means to organize and compile the people who you have already physically met?
To answer your question, I think there's a possibility for both- to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones. When it comes to meeting new people online, I think SNS make it work with sites like Flixter where people meet others through shared interests (in this case, movies). This could be compared to a Student Organization on campus, but saving you the time and energy. But I think the point of Facebook is great for reconnecting with old friends/acquaintances (people from grade school/ high school you haven't talked to in awhile and see what they're up to). Although I get friend requests on Facebook from people I don't know, usually we have a lot of friends in common, we went to the same school, etc. where as on MySpace I used to get friend requests from creepy, random people all the time (one of the reasons I closed my account).
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