Schawbel’s catalogue review of social networking overextension provides solutions for effectively maintaining a stable and meaningful network.  He deems comprehensive activity on every network impossible; therefore, one must determine which social networks to partake in to ensure that one’s “brand is visible and easily manageable.”  First, he believes that strength comes in numbers: networks are as strong as the number of people in them.  Second, Schawbel believes that “credibility” on social networking sites matters, determined almost entirely by who is on the network (e.g. there is mention of Bill Gates) and not necessarily by the content or number of people.  Third, Schawbel believes that users should engage with relevant and self-sustainable sites.  Finally, users must constantly monitor and update their profiles as to remain relevant.

While Schawbel’s advice may be construed as general and cliché, I drew many (perhaps unintentional) paradoxical conclusions.  For one, although users certainly engage with relevant social networks (e.g. the pregnant mother will explore sites related to pregnancy, infants, etc.), how do general sites like Facebook and Myspace gain popularity?  While subgroups may certainly be created through social circles, privacy settings, music groups and other mechanisms, it seems that such energies are squandered when other, more specific social networks already exist.  I postulate that engagement with general networks occurs because of users’ desires to engineer accurate virtual environments.  Such dedication is rooted in habit: online social networkers are simply more predisposed to certain behaviors and therefore translate those to the web.  Maintaining accurate virtual environments, I would argue, is not then attributed to cognitive dissonance or subconscious desires to replicate reality – it is merely natural.  Secondly, while I understand the need to constantly monitor and update (as needed) one’s online identity, I find it difficult to maintain consistency amidst such volatility.  Online social networks necessitate constant activity and maintenance, as virtual behavioral variations enumerate identity.  However, one could argue that the pace of such evolution is exponentially faster than paces in real-life, which presents the pervasive dilemma: what, then, is an online user’s identity?