The Facebook phenomenon

I’ve recently joined Facebook (FB) to see what the hype was all about. It’s been fun catching up with old friends from high school and college. But by and large, I think tha FB creates a non-social network. I’ve heard many people say, “oh, it’s great, you can keep in touch with people.” From what I’ve seen, i’s less abou keeping in touch and more about voyeurism than anything else. People post their pics and fill out their info and type in minute by minute updates in their status, but don’t necessarily communicate with each other. So it’s like, “look at me and my beautiful life and family, but don’t expect me to talk with you!” I have quite a few people who have requested friendship who have never actually sent me a message. Or others to whom I have sent messages and have heard nothing in reply. So I ask, what’s the point of having tthem as “friends”? I’m telling you, it’s the voyeur aspect. And also, seems like it makes people feel like they are “keeping in touch” but more at an arm’s length.

I’ve also found that FB has these time-wasting (IMHO) applications like “send someone a sea creature and save the planet”, or “join the ‘i support tall people’ group”, or “save the trees”, etc. Not sure how that helps you get to know people better, and from what I’ve found, it just clogged my inbox with LOTS of junk mail.

This isn’t to say that I don’t like FB . . . there are quite a few people with whom I communicate often, people that I wouldn’t be talking to were it not for FB. But I do have to question why continue communicating on FB, why not exchange email addresses and go that way, or better yet, why not actually call each other? *gasp* Obviously, most people don’t share my opinion, since FB and MySpace and all the other “social networking” programs are a hit. But hey, I’ve never been one to be just like everyone else or share the same opinions as everyone else. Why would this be any different? =)