The fatigue in online networking

Social Networking has it uses. But then go overboard with it and the downsides are pretty annoying. Like having people take the liberty to drop in on you unannounced, having to receive calls and listen to pesky chatter.

In the real world it requires quite a bit of physical work to network. But online, networking requires you to, at the most 'move your fingers' over a keyboard. Go overboard with that movement and you are the mercy of your network. On the social networking site, Facebook, the resultant is 'Facebook fatigue'.

'David Diggs, a junior at Michigan State University who has some 300 Facebook friends, complains, "It's annoying to get about 70 invitations a day about taking some kind of quiz or adding an application." Diggs is one of more than a million people who have joined a Facebook group that is petitioning to ban the inviting of friends on applications. (Ironically, the group encourages members to invite their friends to join the cause.)

In February, Facebook responded to users' outcries by allowing people to block application invitations individually, but petitioners are demanding the ability to block all requests with a single click. With more than 20,000 add-on apps for the site, it's nearly impossible to avoid the deluge. While most users won't go so far as to leave Facebook altogether, the increase in "junk" notifications is enough to leave them feeling peeved while they're logged on.

Sure, online social networking may help beat being lonely. But considering the possibility of encountering 'fatigue' on networking sites, loneliness is so much better.