Facebook

In about January, I started getting email invitations to join "Facebook". I had no idea what Facebook was, but when I had been invited by about three-quarters of my email contacts, I decided to find out. A "social networking" site, designed to help people stay in touch with co-workers, classmates, and friends, had become instantly popular with people of all ages. At first I declined the invitations, but soon all conversations started or ended with "on Facebook". "Oh did you see the picture of so-and-so on Facebook?" "Did you add so-and-so on Facebook?" "I read on Facebook that so-and-so got married last year." So I did it - I joined Facebook.

I doubt that there are any readers here who AREN'T on Facebook, but just in case, let me sum in up for the two or three people in Canada who don't know how it works.

You accept an invitation to join via email (or just create a Facebook account). Facebook asks which of your email contacts you'd like to add as "Facebook friends", and you check their names accordingly. Those contacts who aren't yet registered on Facebook are sent an invitation. Those who are registered are automatically sent a "friend request", and once that request has been accepted, you have access to their personal profile. From this profile, you can look at THEIR friends, and request any of those people to be YOUR friends, and on and on it goes. Pretty soon you have a million people on your friends list, some you've requested, and some who have requested you.

But I'll assume most of you are registered on Facebook. Maybe you even have a Facebook window open as we speak. Probably.

I loved Facebook at first. I reconnected with so many people who I haven't seen in years and years, and brushed up on the lives of those who I'm well acquainted with. I got to see who got married, who got fat, who had kids, who moved to Korea, and who peaked in high school. I got to see pictures of their kids, their wedding, their summer vacations, their cats, their cars, and their memorable moments. I got to see who they were friends with, and (sometimes more interestingly) who they weren't friends with. I could send them a message, post a "hello" on their wall, or even poke them to get their attention. Most people's profiles were a comprehensive overview of their lives, with no detail spared. It would take a person days and weeks to read every wall post, see every picture, scroll through every friends list. Which is precisely why I quit.

I found myself spending far too much time on Facebook. I would have to check it every five minutes, just to see if anyone had sent me a message, or posted on my wall, or sent me a friend request. And I can admit this because I know I'm not alone. There are groups called "Facebook Anonymous" and "Crackbook", simply because people can't seem to stay away from this thing. Add to that the fact that, suddenly, I had almost three hundred people on my friends list....I wasn't aware that I even KNEW three hundred people, let alone LIKED those three hundred people. And I can almost guarantee that "friends lists" are often populated just to get an edge in the apparent "who has the most friends" competition taking place. Suddenly I was very aware that people I had added simply through vague recognition (aka, she was two years ahead of me in high school), were able to see pictures of my kids. And my life. I found that to be unsettling, so I quit.

And now I'm faced with a far worse dilemma - I feel completely cut off from the outside world. Since getting rid of my Facebook account, the majority of people who know me have asked "where I went." Huh? Where did I go? I haven't gone anywhere. "No, I mean on Facebook. I don't see you on my list anymore." Imagine! Almost as if I didn't exist before Facebook came along! And it doesn't stop there. Since becoming absent from Facebook, I have missed out on plenty. Several friends have had babies over the last month or so, and I haven't seen a single picture. They're on Facebook. Several more friends have gotten married, and, again, I haven't seen a single picture. Only on Facebook. One friend sent his wedding invitations via Facebook, and I missed out on that too. It seems as though, if you're not on Facebook, you snooze you lose.

So I've come up with my own social networking plan. I'll gather the relevant information from my close circle of friends, and through the miracles of modern technology, I'll be able to talk to them and leave them messages whenever I want. It's a plan to enable friends to keep in touch, without relying on Facebook to keep our lives relevant to each other.

It's called a phone.