Social Networking and the Square States

I started writing a follow up to this How I Network on Social Sites post when a noticed a trend with my social networking contacts that is in contrast with most people I know online. I have accounts on numerous networking sites, including niche sites for foodies and various other vices. On those niche sites I friend everyone except people that are overtly creepy. But, I am much more selective on “the majors”. I only add people I actually know in person, or have friends in common with. Let’s just take Facebook and MySpace for instance.

With a quick glance at my Facebook graph you’ll see that it’s mostly industry people, colleagues…overall it’s people in a professional capacity, even if they are also friends.

MySpace is clearly less professional for me, as it is for most. You can see a higher percentage of friends, a category for Entertainment which includes famous people, bands, TV shows, and whatnot that I am a fan of. And yes you can even see that I have a few animals as friends.

Now what I discovered while doing this exercise is the lack of contacts that I have from school as compared to many other people I know. This is not because I don’t keep in contact with people from school. In fact, I am still quite close with many of them. The difference is that I grew up, and went to college, in square states.

I think that on the coasts, and in our industry, we take for granted that everyone is online to the extent that we are. However, a large majority of the people from the Midwest in my generation still only use the internet for email, basic information gathering and of course porn. I know it is different for the generation after mine since I see them all in the groups for my schools. But the late 20’s to late 30’s crowd is severely underrepresented.

It’s not for lack of trying or lack of information that my fellow square staters aren’t on social media sites. I invite them on a regular basis. Some have even joined but only logged in a few times. I think they are just in a different mindset. Many of them *gasp* don’t even have jobs where they are on a computer all day long! I’m going to kick up my efforts to get them online and report my success, or lack thereof, in a few months.

Tagged as: facebook, midwest, myspace, Social Networking