Path

One of the main themes of today's society is the idea of being constantly connected to as many people as possible. Well, not everyone agrees with this idea. Sometimes sites like Facebook and Twitter can cause people to feel uncomfortable about sharing their thoughts or pictures with others because there are so many possible viewers. I know, on multiple occassions, I have refrained from posting my thoughts or pictures on Facebook due to the fear that someone might mistinterpret them and get offended. Even so, the goal of these "powerhouse social networks" is to increase the use and publicity of their websites. To counteract this idea, "Path" has been created. Path is a picture sharing website, very similar to facebook, but only allows each user to have 50 friends.

According to the article, the idea behind this website is that people will be able to be themselves if their pictures and thoughts are available only to those who are closest to them. This number wasn't just randomly set at 50 friends. Physcologists have concluded that the human brain is not caple of having "close" relationships with more than 50 people at any given time. Path is innovative in the fact that it goes against the norm that social networks should continue to expand. I feel that the emergence of Path is a sign that society has finally realized that being connected all of the time to the entire world is the best idea. Hopefully, more websites like this will be created and we will be able to rebuild the idea of true relationships, instead of cyber relationships.