Suffering From Social Networking Anxiety Disorder (SNAD)

MShellC, you're probably right. I suppose if a person doesn't really have any consideration for other people it's much easier to deal with things like rejecting friend requests and invitations and such. Or it doesn't even have to be that extreme, but I imagine that however you deal with people in your real life is similar to how you deal with them online. The less socially anxious you are offline, perhaps the less socially anxious you are online?

I think this really stems from how you are in real life because your personal issues tend to follow you wherever you go.  I work on a kid's site where they get to be Heroes and Villains.  We also have adults on the site.  The adults are worst than the kids!  If an adult is having a bad day, chances are they are logging on to work out their aggressions.  Usually that means that they target someone else and use them as their virtual punching bag.  I thought that only kids did this but I soon found out that duh, the kids learned it from somewhere...

SNAD is real.  While 'celebrities'(at least the ones that get it) are utilzing facebook and the like(MySpace & hi5(?)) for being in better touch with their fanbase, variation exists for its use by 'regular' people that range from networks with only real friends to extending their real social life. 

Suddenly, one of the top 10 most hated web2.0 buzz words has a bite -'friending' = real life social 'catty' gone digital.

Hey Nicole!

it's really interesting to see how "old" good disorders find their new shapes in the Internet. Can't say "no" to a person you don't know, who asks you to becomes the friend-well, you have   a big problem,pal, in real life.

It's a little bit funny, at first, people spoke about the Internet like about anonimity place-where you can behaved the way you wanted- you could be  rude, nice,  male, female,dog..and suddenly somebody can't say "no" I don't want to participate in your group?!!! I hardly believe it!

You're right. The stress alone of having to manage what you post/say on social networking sites, coupled with wondering who will read it, who we should hide it from, etc., is a big factor here. Aside from that, you have to worry about if a third party posts photos of you or makes a comment on your wall you wouldn't otherwise want people to see. Now, you have to be extra cautious when in public, because you never know who is going to capture your behavior in a photo, post it on Facebook, tag you, and ruin your life as you know it.

When you accept a friend (known or new) request of person of the opposite gender (doesn't seem to be a problem for those of the homosexual orientation, how can you rule out your own gender?), and your significant other gets jealous? This even led to the shooting of a young man by an enraged girlfriend, over him having females' profiles on his friends list, in one instance.

 Social networking can be useful, but its primary dysfunction is that it throws out in the open so many things that used to be private, such as what you really think about other people, who are your real friends, who are your enemies, etc.  I've had a few experiences where I wasn't sure how to gague someone based on their actions from a social network site... usually though one must combat the anxiety, and deal with such situations as one has always needed to when one is not sure about the relationship - act as if everything is just fine!

I need the Internet. I must have it. My own particular form of SNAD comes from the fact that I just can't keep up with all the things the social network sites need. I'm a bad SNer.

It's certainly not that I get too many friend requests. At least not most of the time, or on most SN sites.

It might be because (like the wonderful song from Oklahoma) I can't say no.

It might be because I'm so incredibly lazy about keeping up any sort of regular social networking activity and have absolutely never managed to keep a blog going for more than a couple of days. No, that couldn't be it. No way. Not me.

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Great post, Nicole! [For anyone that missed the really obvious symbolism of the above series of equal signs -- that's the BOTTOM LINE!]

Sure, you can always "unfriend" someone. But then you have to live with the guilt. That person may at some point realize his friend list is suddenly one short and from there on out, one question will haunt his dreams: WHY?!

You're right, though. It's very easy to feel bad about oneself when scouting around on these social networking sites. Everyone knows that people use their social networking profiles as platforms to boast to their "friends" about how great their lives are. For example, many of my connections are twenty-somethings and a few are starting to get engaged. And I'm consistently amused that within hours of their romanttticccc engagements, these girls are at home posting photos of their rings and the Kodak moments of their engagements on Facebook. And, of course, their relationship status immediately changes to engaged. On the one hand, it's a nice and easy way to update people on your life. But, it's also a great way to make people feel a little bad about themselves. For some people, that's the best part about social networking. For me, it's all just blog fodder.

Re: "Thus, the question. Do we have SNAD or do we create SNAD in others with our efforts to do social networking?"

It's a vicious cycle, I think. I blame the people who I am not very good friends with for sending me obnoxious game, group, and event requests for my SNAD. But, in truth, we are all at fault. Now that I've discovered this disease, I will think twice before sending out group invites or even writing on someone's wall. If they don't have time to return the favor, they may witness the onset of SNAD.

Yes, we could avoid SNAD in total if we just didn't sign onto these social networking sites. But it may be too late for most people. And as much as you may avoid social networking in your personal life, social networking is becoming more prevalent in the workplace. The first symptom of SNAD is the feeling that you have to start social networking because everyone else is, and this fear you're missing out on something. From what I'm hearing, this is the feeling in the enterprise, and more and more corporations are asking their employees to join social networks to host work-related discussions and keep each other up to date. SNAD will only get more serious as we start to find it necessary to social network for the sake of being team players in the workplace.