Do you like social media? Do you enjoy to ‘liking’ messages on your facebook, ‘digging’ all things online, ‘staring’ your google searches and re-twitting this world’s randomness, to mane a few? I do, but only occasionally and only when I think it is really-really useful to me or to others. I also enjoy my privacy, my free time, enjoy spending time outside and meeting people, in person. In other words, I like to keep my online experience to the minimum, as much as possible. Granted, it doesn’t always work out, and countless times I find myself on Facebook when I don’t need to be there, or on Gtalk where there’s really nothing to talk about, but I try. Well, ladies and gents, the world of Social Media is trying really hard to make my life, and maybe yours, miserable.

As some of you might have heard, Facebook announced their plans to integrate ‘iLike’ into the general web. Here is an article that talks a bit more about it and has some links on the topic, but basically you will now be able to iLike anything and everything that you find on the web. If you shop for Levi’s jeans for example, you could go online and tell them what you like, and that will show up in your friend’s feed, letting your friends know just what kind of jeans make your ass look better. Cool, eh? Not in my book!

I think a lot of us who are on Facebook have already given up on many of the privacy issues. What could be found about you online is no longer a secret and we can’t stop it. If you think that changing privacy settings really does much, I wouldn’t hope for it. Companies like Facebook and Google change their privacy agreements on daily basis and by the time you decide to sign-off, it’s too late. For example, you think untagging your photos on FB really does anything? Maybe it does today, but tomorrow they will change privacy restriction and software such as Face.com will be able to freely search through the internet, picking your face out of every picture found online. Sounds crazy? Well, if FBI cameras at the airports can recognize fugitives, then why would you think we are far away from a completely integrated network.

Another example of this social craziness is RIM, and the BlackBerry that is so dear to many people these days. The company has recently announced a release of the framework that would allow for creating of “Super Apps”. What are those you would ask? You ask and I shall tell. Those are applications that will be able to talk to each other and to support you in the daily life. As said by one of the RIM representatives, the objectives of these apps would be to have the user never leave their BlackBerry behind, never! These apps will become an integral part of your life to an extend that you will not want to put your phone down. The applications will monitor your email inbox, track your location, analyze your call patterns … etc etc. The company will know more about you than you could figure out about yourself. Again, this is crazy!

Privacy issues are just one of the aspects that bother me. I like my life and my time and the last thing I want is to spend all of it on Facebook or BlackBerry or iPhone. I want to enjoy meeting friends, playing sports, reading, and thinking. Given what’s going on it makes me afraid that sooner or later more and more people will get addicted to their mobile device. It might not happen overnight, but the growing generation of kids is spending more time online that we did, and certainly than our parents ever did. It is now a little too late to stop using the networks, we are hooked, and we are not only hooked by ourselves but through the connections we were able to establish and information we shared between. I wish to hope that social craze won’t grow to the extend many companies hope that it does, but I also thinking that it will, unfortunately.

Anyone else wants to put the computer away and join me for a walk in the park?