You might have noticed, or not probably, that while my posts on this site are date-stamped they aren’t time-stamped. This isn’t laziness on my part, it’s an intentional omission; I actually store the time-stamp for my own purposes but I don’t display it publically.

In a seemingly unrelated thought, but bear with me, I think a pretty high percentage of Facebook users either don’t have their own computers or don’t use them much. I suppose when I say Facebook I’m using that as shorthand for a plethora of social networking sites but as it’s seemingly the most popular at present I’ll stick with that.

I think it’s pretty much accepted that taking and making a series of personal calls while at work is unacceptable. Certainly nobody would be surprised to be disciplined for doing so. So are we to now assume that social networking while at work is fine? Surely not, in which case why are so many people laying a very clear digital trail of their unproductive office behaviour?

We’ve already seen people fired for what they wrote on Facebook, how long I wonder before we see someone simply fired for using Facebook during working hours? Or has it already happened and I missed it?

When I was a child I collected novelty pencil erasers. I never did anything with them, I never used them I simply stored them in a drawer. When I purchased a new one I would place in with the others and allow myself a moment to be pleased that my collection had grown even larger. Utterly without point and yet strangely appealing to something in my psychological makeup that wants to accumulate.

It seems now collecting has gone virtual; Twitter Followers, Facebook Friends, a plethora of other social networking terminology. Translating the desire to collect is problematic because it’s an activity done in public and a seemingly competitive one at that.

However, while I understand collecting things I don’t understand collecting people. I am more than a little puzzled. Why would people who I’ve never met try to add me in their social network of choice without contacting me first? You wouldn’t drag a complete stranger into a bar and then stare at them saying nothing would you? And yet that’s precisely what people online seem to think is a reasonable way to behave.

Individuals I have met before, worked with or been at one educational establishment or another with are in a different category; but the rules here are pretty much the same. If I’ve not seen or heard from you in some time what makes it reasonable to simply try to add me without any pre-amble? That suggests to me that you have no intention of rekindling any sort of social relationship with me, so why would you want to collect me as some sort of bizarre social networking achievement?

It really does seem to me that “social networking” is an utter misnomer.