Social Expectation Network

(Idea begins below as marked)

In the new work world I find myself in this would be referred to as a feature request. I think most of us realize by now that the social networking services (myspace, facebook, friendster, orkut), while useful to some extent are full of implicit false promises of connectivity. When they first arrived I was stunned by the beauty of being able to keep up and keep track of so many of my peripheral friends. (The not ready for prime relationship players, if you will.) I quickly learned that I could barely look at all of their profiles let alone craft anything like communication with them, even in the form of silly and sparse comments on their profiles.

What I've realized is that no device or system will create enough time in the day to keep up relationships with all of the people I know and consider friends. So forget the lies. And I have something of an answer.

(Begin Idea) There should be some form of marking the amount of contact you expect or would ideally like from each friend you add. This could be like a pact. You could request a certain amount. And your friend could also request an amount. Both could then accept that amount as they saw fit. The system could then do things like remind how long it has been since you last contacted that person, or all persons. It could even send you reminders. Like if you agreed to try to talk to them once a week, or once a month the system could send you reminders that you are about to hit a month since last talking to them. I for one would be totally aided by seeing that it had been a year since I last wrote to someone. The guilt alone would prompt me to write. You could even manually input if you saw them in person or called them on the phone.

Obviously, it is a little silly to set obligations like this. But as the title would suggest, to those who bothered to read it, this idea is more about setting expectations. It isn't like you'd be punished. It is just a way to remember that you really would like to talk to people more frequently than you do. To keep you conscious of how well you are reaching the goals you set to keep up communication.

Some caveats. Take it seriously and don't make promises you don't plan on keeping. Don't get guilted into making a time commitment to someone you really don't care to keep up talks with. This is just good sense in all of your life, even if the sites just ignore my suggestions.