My Anti-Social Life Online! (Your online social life)

Member Name: jo1976

Product:	Your online social life
Date:	12/01/09 (156 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I don't spend all my time chatting to strangers online

Disadvantages: Perhaps that makes me boring and anti-social. What am I missing?!

I think you can be an internet addict without having an 'online social life' to speak of, just as it is possible to be lonely in the midst of a crowd of people. Don't get me wrong - I'm not sitting here sobbing as I type - but I don't see using the internet as primarily a form of socialising, personally. For me, on a personal level, the internet serves two main purposes - providing me with (almost) instant access to a wealth of information and resources and helping to subsidise my daily expenditure. (Dooyoo has the ultimate benefit of doing both at the same time!)

On a professional basis, I use the internet as a means of communication which is invaluable, especially as I work part-time. No more leaving endless telephone messages for somebody and then being out of the office when they finally get round to returning your call. Now, you just type and send and await a response. With my work's 'team-mail' system, you can even see whether the recipient has opened your mail or not - so no more excuses about not getting your messages! But that's work and, obviously, I don't use the internet for socialising at work (honestly, Mrs Manager!)

I do admit that the internet does make it easier to stay in touch with friends that you don't actually see in 'real life' very often, perhaps because of geography or just the busy, busy lives we all seem to have. I still prefer sending texts though, which is a bit silly really, as emails are free and you can send more info and add photos and other bits and pieces to emails. I think I'm starting to convince myself that I ought to have more of an online social life here!

I'm not a member of Facebook or any other social networking sites. I have a (real life) friend who is totally addicted to Facebook and I did promise to sign up a few months ago as she uploads hundreds of photos on there and is on there pretty much every second she has to spare. (She even logged on when we had a girly night in, under the pretence of showing me how it worked.) I'm not sure why I haven't bothered signing up as yet. I think I'm just a bit behind the times and will probably join just as everybody else moves on to the next big thing! I did register on Friends Reunited (back when it was popular) and enjoyed having a nosey at what all the people I went to school with were doing but had no real desire to get in touch with anybody on there. (I'm sure I sound like the most anti-social person on the net!)

So what do I do online that qualifies as a 'social life'? Well, I see Dooyooing as a way of interacting with other people online, so I think that should qualify. I don't tend to send many personal messages but I am finding that I write more and more comments on other people's reviews, particularly those that are really well-written or thought-provoking. I also spend far too much time over on the Money Saving Expert (MSE) forums although, again, as much for the access to information and the chance to save some money or make a little bit extra, as for the 'socialising' aspect of the site. (Does that make me shallow?!)

I haven't, as yet, met up with anybody that I've met through the internet, although I do think of some members of the forum as 'friends', I suppose. I'm happily married so no internet dating for me, either! (Although I did almost have a cyber-stalker who had my address and wrote to me about wanting to meet up - saying that our birthdays were very close and we shared the same horoscope sign, so he was sure that we would get on! That didn't go down very well with the other half, understandably.)

All in all, my online social life is pretty, well, anti-social which is a little bit worrying as I do spend a lot of my free time online. Perhaps I ought to make a more concerted effort to be more sociable. I could even join that virtual world site (Second Life) where you spend money (and time) buying virtual stuff for your virtual alter-ego whilst playing with your virtual friends. On second thoughts, I'm quite happy being anti-social online!

Summary: My Anti-Social Online Social Life!