Is social networking counter-productive? The answer must surely be yes. Patiently watching Twitter for replies to your Tweets will surely prevent you from doing work, or browsing Facebook will prevent you from preparing a report.

So why do people keep turning to social networking? I imagine for the simple reason it is fun. I have resisted joining MySpace or Facebook so I do not get addicted to them preventing me from doing work, and so MySpace doesn’t deform my HTML, but I must say I get sucked into Twitter (but I try to only occasionally check it).

I am sure I will have plenty of commenters telling me how to productively use social networking for the purposes of actually networking and advertising and I have to say well done to them. I still think it’s impractical for the average person to regularly update a site like Twitter and only people who literally work on the Internet or (in the case of 10 Downing Street) are hired to update Twitter have the necessary time to use it productively.

I even doubt having the news texted to you by the BBC through Twitter is particularly productive because you are distracted each time there’s a new headline!

Naturally, you can follow me on Twitter here or on FriendFeed if you really wish (I don’t use it).