When I was your age...

I realized that my past few posts sound decidedly anti social networking. I would say that would be an overstatement. I like social networking, I love the idea of it actually, and always have. I am very frustrated with it at this exact moment (as evident by yesterdays post).

You see the thing is I feel like the entire point of social networking, Facebook, Google +, blogging, all of it, is to share information and stay connected. When I was introduced to Livejournal nearly a decade ago I thought it was brilliant. I had this place where I could put down my thoughts and ideas or simply what was happening in my day to day life, and all of my friends could see it. This was especially appealing to me because I was stuck in my college town of Nacogdoches and most of my friends were 4 hours away in Dallas. Being able to share with people through LJ made me feel less disconnected from the people I cared about. Sure there were good healthy doses of memes going around, but there was still content there.

I was reluctant to join Facebook. I found it a bit frivolous actually. The main status messages seemed too limiting to say anything useful, and the notes system was not exactly clear. I found often I would write a note and no one ever saw them. Heck unless I actively went and looked for notes I missed almost all of my friends notes. Still all of my friends were now on Facebook and if I wanted to keep this connection then I was going to have to move over.

Of course like most people I adapted to the format of Facebook, and grew comfortable with it. I have never played the games on there, and once I figured out how to hide certain things I was happy with it for the most part. I still have LJ and my blog, so the shortened content doesn't bother me so much.

Only thing is I can't find the content anymore. Once I filter out the LOL Cat pictures (which I do not actually find amusing), news articles with no input or comments from the person sharing the article, and pictures of inspirational quotes, I find my feed is pretty darn empty. I have no idea what anyone is doing anymore or how they are. I have a vague idea of how they feel about some politics and sports but that really is not saying much.

I suppose I am just disappointed in all of it. What started out as a way to keep connected, a way to stay informed about others lives, a way to share thoughts and ideas, seems to have degraded into just an endless stream of nonsense.

I think I might have just regurgitated yesterdays post to a point. I guess that shows that this is really bothering me.
Am I crazy for letting this get to me? Am I the only person that feels this way?
What do you think about the state of social media today? Is it still an effective communication tool or has it turned into something else?