Social networking poll result: Wasting time with old friends

I haven’t had a new poll for a very, very long time. So, sort-of inspired by my pseudo rant last week about TV news in the United States, I have knocked up a new one. It’s on the right-hand side and included below.

That means that I need to review the results of the previous poll. An impressive 215 people bothered to vote on the value – or lack of value – that social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and so on, possess.

I posited that I might actually just be wasting both my time and everyone else’s time by using these sites to spread little more that shallow tidbits of my life.

It’s a creeping cancer too – when I wrote the post I despaired at having 26 “friends”. But last week I passed 100 on Facebook, even accidentally making someone I have never known, seen, nor heard of in my life before, my friend temporarily by clicking the wrong button.

Well, it seems I’m not the only grouch out there. An impressive 32 percent of you think that these sites “Waste yours and everyone else’s time”. But – gah! – this was beaten to the top post by the warm cuddling answer that they “Keep you in touch with old friends”.

At least we’re not pretending you make new friends on these things… well, apart from the 16 percent who went for that. I say: come back to me in a year and see how many of your “friends” have cut you off because you turned down an invite to become a vampire or a “fan” of some obscure Bulgarian folk singer. Ha!

Results

Here they are in full:

Do Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and so on (info):

* Keep you in touch with old friends (35%)
* Waste yours and everyone else’s time (32%)
* Destroy the few social skills you have (17%)
* Help you make new friends (16%)

Total Votes: 215

New poll

As to the new poll – it is: Where does the future of news lie?

* Individual contributions – blogs and videos
* Online newspapers
* Internet TV
* Mainstream TV
* Printed newspapers
* All of the above
* None of the above

Get clicking. If you fancy.