What are you doing?
Twitter asks you to answer that question, to fill a space made just for you. Facebook asks what's on your mind, as if its clearing a spot on the couch for you to sit and vent your thoughts. They may be small spaces, but they ask you to fill them. I have come to realize that as our lives begin to become more attached to these social networking sites, the question 'what are you doing' becomes a pertinent and pressing feature of our everyday existence. In turn, we are forced to think about what we are doing, and most importantly, how we would like to answer that question.
The ultimate result of this is that people are aware of not only what they are doing, but what they would like to do. This means that they begin to do more. And they begin to do things that they would ultimately be happy to represent them in a 'tweet' or 'status' online.
Therefore I feel that social networking is subconsciously forcing people to get out there and do more, or in turn do things that are personal goals, so that their life and brand are represented positively in the online world- one that is increasingly becoming a parallel universe to our lives. While people could 'lie' about what they are doing, social networking is about representing the reality and of living in an online form- so lying about it is the antithesis of Twitter and Facebook. Rather, one would fill the space with the truth, but to do that one must go out there and do whatever it is that they would like to represent themselves.
So while some may claim that social networking is forcing people to stay at home and live in a virtual and unreal world, I feel that the opposite is true. People are forced to answer the question by going out there and doing things, or making things happen to represent their personal and professional brand. This is where the contradiction comes in though, because a person will only flaunt the things they do that they find positive, creating a 'surface' representation of themselves, as they would like the world to see them. But this in turn could force a person to question how it is that they would like the world to view them, and make changes in their own lives.
We see this in extension on Facebook, where photo albums are made to show where the person has been and what they are doing. Someone may go to an event or make an effort to do something they may have previously been too lazy to go to, because they are subconsciously compelled by the space they've been provided to document their lives. And who would want to leave that space empty?
