Remember when I ranted about social networking sites not too long ago? Well, I've been working on a paper that would be much improved by some virtually unobtainable source material. I heard I might find someone on Facebook with access to the material I'm after...

So I signed up. I ran my email contacts through their friend checker and sent out some friend requests. That was humbling. One of my cousins re-friended me quickly, she has almost 200 contacts, so already I feel like a complete social leper. Then I'm going over all the updates and tags and what have you trying to figure out what goes where and who sees what and... pretty soon I'm adding people and removing people and I have no idea what I'm doing. Some people's sites have like six different places to write messages, and there are plug-ins and I can't tell if I'm looking at my information or their information or what.

I would like to emphasize that, when it comes to technology, this is a feeling that does not last long with me. Usually, it doesn't arise at all; when it does, the panic is temporary and I almost never break anything that I can't fix during that short familiarization period. Technology and I get along; I am a digital native.

But I have got to say, while whoever said Facebook had a cleaner interface than MySpace was right, "right" only gets you so far. What a mess, seriously. I like having total control over my page. But of course, this page serves its readers far better than it serves me--because you all know I'm here, but often I have no idea where any of you are.

So now I'm sitting there thinking, okay, how much of a hermit do I want to be? The whole point of social networking, naturally, is to network... but suddenly I'm faced with the prospect of going hat-in-hand to people who I haven't seen in almost 10 years and saying, "Hey, are we still friends?" This strikes me as somewhat less than ideal. And yet, as any law student can tell you, networking is absolutely essential to succeeding as an attorney. And since my peer group mostly networks via social networking sites...

I've trimmed back my profile and locked it down pretty good. No picture, minimal messaging. The truth is, I'm still skittish about this stuff; I guess I'm still trying to figure out why. I'm still refusing to drink the social networking kool-aid. And it seems additionally strange that, even though most of my siblings chill at MySpace, I wound up setting up a profile on Facebook. I really did just intend to hook in and see if I could make a contact or two, pick up the source I need for this paper I'm writing. But once I got on, it showed me all these old friends of mine who are apparently active users...

Is this how Microsoft won the OS wars? I feel like I'm being pressured into something slightly unsavory, with my peers all around chanting, "Everybody's doing it, it will make you cool! Also, it's unavoidable." The fact that "everybody" is doing something is almost always sufficient reason for me to avoid it. I lead trends, I don't follow; from computers to the internet to anime to just plain being a geek, most of my life I've participated in the uncool stuff that years later becomes a social phenomenon. But then I started blogging, and then I went to law school, and now I am on Facebook...

Am I being unnecessarily contrarian? Elitist? Snobbish, even? I don't really want to maintain yet another web presence. I have too many accounts in diverse places already. Maybe I should just go disable my profile. What do you think? Have you had any good experiences with social networking sites? Fellow law students, especially, but everyone in general--should I just quit whining and come over to the dark side?