Faster than an instant message, www.Facebook.com has become the latest internet sensation. I didn’t know what Facebook.com was until I created an account at the urging of a co-worker. I didn’t even know I needed a social networking web site.
“You’ve got to try it,” said my co-worker. “Once you sign up you’ll be hooked.”
“What exactly is the site about?” I asked.
“Facebook puts you instantly in touch with everyone you’ve ever known,” she said.
“And that’s a good thing?” I said.
I signed up for my free account to see what all the hype was about. Facebook allows you to create an online profile, complete with your photo and much more information than you should ever divulge online. I created my page and waited to see what would happen next.
You need to enter your email address when you register. Facebook then takes your personal contact list and lets you know which people in your address book are members of Facebook. Chances are quite a few people on your list already have joined the site. If you add their name to your “friends” list, Facebook sends that person a message asking them to “approve” being added to your list, or the recipient can reject your request to befriend them. It’s like the grammar school playground all over again.
I added a few co-workers to my “friends” list. Thankfully they all accepted my invitation. Photos of their smiling faces appear at the bottom of my Facebook home page.
This is where it gets complicated. If I click on a “friend’s” photo, the link takes me to their page and shows me a list of their friends. I felt I was invading their privacy, but curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see who knew whom, and who put whom on their list. The funny quips under the photos were clever and gave me an insight into their lives I didn’t really need to know.
I followed a link to my coworker’s page because Facebook told me we had friends in common. There were photos posted of “John” with his friend at a bar having a wild guys night out.
I saw “John” the next morning and asked him how his night out was. “John” was taken aback.
“How did you know I went out last night?” he asked.
“It’s all over Facebook. Photos and everything,” I said. I had officially become part of a new way to communicate.
The next time I logged on to Facebook.com, I was besieged with “friend” requests from people I had not heard from in quite some time. A couple of requests came from people I could barely remember even from their headshot photos. People from the neighborhood where I grew up were leaving messages on my page. Their old photos brought back many happy memories. Current photos of their families were equally interesting. There is also a discussion board for Facebook members who went to my grammar school. Names I recognized from long ago were posting snippets of their experiences at the school and sharing tales of teachers we had in common.
Facebook takes the antiquated America Online service one step further. If you were an AOL member, you could search for people you knew, but they had to be a member of AOL for you to contact them. Facebook’s information-grabbing tentacles connect you to anyone you know who has a computer. The sheer scope of its reach is overwhelming.
And now I’m collecting friends like Pokemon cards. I’m trying to be discretionary and only choose people I have a close bond with. Some people on Facebook are just trying to pump up their number of friend’s for sheer volume to show how popular they are. It’s interesting that in a society where people feel so disconnected from one another, Facebook is creating one huge connected community. Facebook lets the world see our smiling faces and read our happy little comments no matter what is really going on in our lives. Everything is beautiful in it’s own electronically distorted way.
If you decide to join, remember there are some unwritten rules about Facebook. Don’t type in your children’s names unless you are prepared for a glimpse into their private world. And don’t ever post a message on their home page in case their friends read it. It could cause extreme embarrassment in the social network circle.
For now, I’m happy being contacted by grammar school girlfriends and displaced co-workers. There are people on the site looking for long lost relatives. Businesses are creating pages for advertising purposes. The potential is unlimited.
The ubiquitous Facebook craze may not last forever. According to my children, now that the baby-boomers have infiltrated the site, it is no longer hip. The kids migrated to Facebook when MySpace.com became too mainstream. I guess youngsters are just going to have to accept us old folks as part of their community, or they will have to move on to the next big thing in computer social networking: see www.Twitter.com (which I am still trying to figure out).
Check out Facebook.com if you have internet access. You might be surprised at whom you find – or who finds you.
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