I try to use social networks, but I'm not sure they work for me. I feel too awkward writing either in message boards (that's why I don't post regularly, incidentally) or in chat boxes. The only exceptions I make are work related. Otherwise I experience a mild anxiety when one of my friends tries to start a conversation with me through facebook chat (when is it polite to log off?, with how many people can you chat with at the same time without taking too long to answer to each one? Can I write like I speak? If I'm ironic will the other person get it or just take me seriously?- I definitely don't know the protocol :p ).
But I admit that facebook, for instance, allowed me to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen or known of for over ten years, and helps me knowing how my friends and family that live abroad are.
Still, my first experience was with hi5. I quit it because it took ages to load the pages, and there were too many strangers asking me for friendship (mostly advertisers, but also some strange looking men). Then MSN, because it was a good work tool when it came to file transfers, but I haven't used it in over two years - email works just fine right now.
I still haven't understood the appeal of twitter and myspace. Sooo, it's facebook and these message boards. Pretty lame.
