Why Social Networking Sites are so Addictive

I confess - I spent all morning today flipping through Facebook. Not my college’s facebook, but the social networking site. There, I admit it.

Seriously, I value my time, but yet I still spent quite a bit of time today on Facebook. I thought about it, and I have reasons for my behavior:

• For my ego. Once I have registered an account on Facebook, I look at my friend counter and thought: zero friends. Well I have friends in the real world, so let’s add them. Then I took a while searching through my contacts and inviting them into my network, contributing the growth of Facebook.
• For my inner geek. The Facebook Platform is a good move. Having third party application adds excitement for a geek like me. If there are only default features from the Facebook team, I wouldn’t spend all my time on it. I only use 5 minutes on the profile and 5 more minutes on my profile picture and then move on. But all those third party applications are addictive - Linking Flickr photos, Food Fight, Where I’ve been… And I dug into number of other profiles and just look for applications. Time sinking. I forced myself to stop.
• For re-connecting people with network. I believe Facebook will give me the chance of contacting some lost friends. I spent a while searching through my corporate, college and high school networks. Like the networking service LinkedIn, it allows me to maintain a connection with former colleagues and friends.
• For tapping into others lives. Not many of my friend maintain a blog, but I know some of them are using social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, and in some extends, Flickr) actively. Without asking them “How are you doing?”, I know what they are up to. It creates a new flow of personal news. Does it actually save me time? Does it actually disconnect me from people rather than connecting people? I don’t know yet.
• For sharing my life. It does save me time. I can broadcast my photos and my news to social network (going to find a facebook application that can link my blog to Facebook profile), and my friends can just receive it, if they want to. It’s much easier than sending a bunch of emails to each one of them. Does it actually disconnect me from people instead of connecting? Again, I don’t know yet.

Five points. That are my thoughts at the moment. My friend Chris Brogan invited me into Facebook, and he is extremely passionate about social network. Chris, perhaps you can take a stab on this topic.