Charitable Procrastination
by Marisa
I give in. Defeated. Soundly felled by a thousand social networking sites. Back in the Friendster day, I could juggle things pretty reasonably, and I managed to resist MySpace until its social relevance had all but disappeared. But Facebook? Forget about it. With its gestures at legitimate privacy, significantly diminished sleaze component, and apparently endless procrastinatory avenues, I never stood a chance. So, lacking the self-control to simply cancel my account (or, um, remove it from my phone), I'm investigating the charitable upside to all this cyber-networking. That's right, charity. And it isn't so hard to find.
For you Facebook users, several of the myriad "gifting" options are actually charity-driven. "Lil Green Patch," for example, directs money to the rainforest as Facebook users plant cyber-plants in each others' cyber-gardens (non-Facebook users are thinking I'm insane right about now). Or spruce up your profile page with Greenbook, a sponsored application helping reduce CO2 emissions. Environmentalism not your bag? Well... ok. The various "Cause" applications benefit nearly any charitable cause you can think of, from "Save Darfur" to, uh, "Stop Voldemort." Or visit the Kevin Bacon-affiliated SixDegrees.org to create your own charity badge, attachable to any site, be it MySpace or your own URL.
But the options aren't limited to these more well-known sites. A new venture called One World Connects, distinguished from the herd in part for bringing the "social" back to online networking via a traded physical medallion, is so devoted to giving back, that 10% of their monthly profits are donated to the top four user-chosen charities. With generosity like that, I would almost feel remiss not joining. Procrastination with a clear(er) conscience. That's my new (daily) mantra.
