Rachael Simpson

I spend a lot of time on social networks. I’m on facebook A LOT. Its not all mindless quizzes, I’ve spent some time abroad and like to keep up with my friends in different times zones, also I have a lot of ambitious friends who have moved abroad for work or, with the luckier ones, love.

postcards

Also I’m at an age where many of my friends are going through big life changes, buying homes, having babies, getting married and social networks let me see the photos, watch the videos and read the blogs.

Facebook and twitter are probably the two biggest contenders for my attention. Twitter I use for news and to speak with fellow journalism students. Facebook is more social and friendship related things. So far I have still not found the perfect networking tool for family. Although a friend of mine claims he has – with a password entry only personal website where he updates from Thailand to his family in the UK, however at this stage its a onesided medium.

I recently joined googlewave after an invite from Cristiana, but she is my only google friend and I haven’t really figured out what to do with it yet.

Anyway, network sites are everywhere and people really do use them, from Linkd In for prospective employers to bebo’s youthful charm and colour – they are the biggest digital game in town.

So what better way to investigate social sites than by setting up my own! I have set up a group using ning.com which allows you to format the page anyway you want, put up media content, have discussions and blogs and members with their own profiles. I called it Music In Glasgow and so far I have one member, me.

Maybe people will join, I hope they do. The site is dedicated to any and all live music in Glasgow and I’m still experiementing with it.

So my friend is on facebook and says, this is an email I sent myself last year. And I read it and woah! it really is an email she sent her self a year ago, extremely personal but a year on she’s dealt with or been open about its contents by this point so happy to post it online. The concept intrigued me so I went onto FutureMe.com

A project inspired by a school assignment two blokes run the site for fun, and later for profit as many people volunteer their letters (name not included) to be public and are turned into a book. The email addresses and identities are kept anonymous but the letters can be read, so far around 15% of people have signed up for public letters. The boys on the site also accept donations through paypal.

So I wrote future Rachael a letter. It opened with a joke and ended with the deep realisation of my own faulty self esteem and marvelous over-achiever but totally low expectations special blend and that really I didn’t care if I had a job or a driving license or had lost 5 stones but I did hope that I will have lost that trait by next year and be more confident.

I also outlined what I was doing now and how I felt about it but not in so much detail. I have far too many thoughts and too many words as it is and with the NCTJ’s coming up word count is important. Sometimes I think I should be doing fiction rather than fact but 5 grand into a masters those thoughts are shepherded to the very darkest recesses of my mind!

I look forward to forgetting I sent myself the email and recieving it in the future, I am interested in what Future Me will be like…