Maybe I'm just an aging curmudgeon, or a classic DiSC C-type personality but I'm not a fan of social networks. I've tried to get into them, I gave them a chance. Years ago I tried MySpace and Xanga and just couldn't work up the interest. More recently I created a Facebook account and I barely touch it. I created a Twitter account and have never once posted a single tweet, let alone actually follow anyone else. I do have a LinkedIn profile that I've grown and fostered over the last five years or so, and I think that sheds a lot of light on to why I don't generally like other social networking sites.

Sites like MySpace and Xanga require regular maintenance in order to remain somewhat interesting for readers. Exactly how interesting they are is subjective, I personally have little interest in them outside of technical ones. Technical ones I love, because legitimate information sharing is how things really should be, but for the most part, social blogs read like diary entries, or advertisements for bands and movies. I neither want to read someone's diary nor write my own. They are the equivalent of reality television, which has since realized it's own limits has moved on to manufacturing plots with its cast of non-actors. Maybe I would read someone's fictional MySpace blog?

Facebook takes slightly less effort, depending on how you use it. I personally couldn't get into any of the applications, so the experience was really just reading people's status and writing wall to wall. But I would rather IM someone or shoot them an email, than use a proprietary messaging system that doesn't give me control over archiving, organizing or storing my past messages.

My issue with Facebook status is the same as my issue with Twitter: besides my children, there's no one else that I care to know what random thing they are doing at any random point in a day, nor do I think what I'm doing at any point in a day is so interesting that others would care to read about it. That might sound more harsh or anti-social than my real meaning. Between work, teaching, spending time with my family, and now continuing my education, there is very little time to pay attention to much else.

But now LinkedIn is perfect for me. It deals with work, which is something that falls into the above list of things that I focus on. LinkedIn, for the most part, is fairly passive. It does have some form of proprietary messaging system that I try not to interact with, and some apps to play that seem almost garish when added to a profile, but it's core raison d'être is solid: maintaining and fostering a professional network.

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but the talent pool in the technology sector in Philadelphia is relatively small. Over the years if you work at enough companies you begin to see the same names, or at least have several contacts in common with most people you will interact with. LinkedIn lets you realize these connections and capitalize on them, possibly by recruiting to staff your own teams with people you trust, or being recruited by someone you've worked with and impressed in the past.

I think I am very much a silent minority in this matter, but my only interest in social networks is for business networking.

Read more from Tom Barker.