Facebook

Yep, that's right, I am blogging about Facebook. By no means am I proud of the fact that the oddly-acceptable-stalking-network known as Facebook is such a pervasive medium that it has earned itself a place in my blog. But, as my boss says, "It is what it is...".

Let me first start out by saying I am a supporter of Facebook's original intentions, and that I frequent the site at least 3 times/day. The fact that I can be re-connected with my kindergarten best friend, or keep tabs on friends across the country is phenomenal. Facebook has created a new means by which people can keep in touch with people with whom they otherwise may have fallen out of touch.

But I HATE what Facebook is doing to interpersonal communication.

It is no secret that I am a talker. My favorite thing to do is to talk to people in person and get to know them. One-on-one physical interactions with friends (and strangers) provide arguably all of our best moments in life. We will never get to the point (I hope) where we start saying "Man, that was one of the best conversations I've ever had...over FB Chat". We are physical beings, needing real-life, in the flesh interactions with our friends and family...and those days are slipping away.

*It should be noted here that Facebook is by no means the first invention to have this effect. People might try and cite MySpace as the culprit, but when you think about it, you can trace this trend back to cell phones, text messages, Internet, and even as far back as the telegram. Our society has consistently and continually come up with new means of convenient discourse.

So what is it specifically about FB I don't like? I don't like that I know someone went on a cruise two weeks ago, and yet, I haven't spoken to them in two years. I don't like that I know one of my old friends just broke up with their girlfriend, and I found out through a depressing "broken heart" icon on my News Feed. And I really don't like that instead of picking up the phone and catching up with someone, both me and my friends settle for the obligatory Wall post that reads "It's been forever, how are you?!" First off, it's debatable that the person asking the question is even seriously concerned about the answer. But even if they were, do any of us really expect to come back to our FB Wall to find a narrative opus from our friend detailing the recent exploits of their lives? No, we know, without fail, the response will be "I'm good! Workin' a lot, but nothin too crazy. How are YOU?" A successfully deflected question, that now puts the onus on you to choose whether or not you want to respond (which either way, that person won't care).

People who are FB friends with me know I rarely post photos, and for the longest time, had ZERO information about myself on my profile. I want people to find out about me through me, not my FB status. Now, I finally gave in and put an actual photo of myself up there, because if someone is trying to find me, the silhouette photo of me wasn't really much help. And I have slowly put some music interests up, as well as a grab-bag list of unimportant factoids about myself.

Do you realize there was a time where if I wanted to talk to you or get hold of you, I would have had to jump on my covered wagon or make-shift bicycle and go to your house? Or even before the days of cell phones (or as my friend Branden so aptly named them "electronic leashes"), you couldn't just shoot them a text or voicemail, you still either had to find them on a home phone, or go see them.

I'm not as worried about my friends that live in Washington D.C. or Florida (or overseas), because FB, in my opinion, helps with keeping in touch with them. It's the people that live in California, and especially San Diego, that I have no excuse to be relying on Facebook. You all know how much I crave attention, how much of a chatterbox I am, and how much I thrive on making a fool of myself in front of my friends...and Facebook is undercutting those goals.

I'm not suggesting we do away with Facebook, because I think it is actually a warranted public service. I am merely suggesting we not rely on it as the primary source of communication between friends, and that we remember why we became friends in the first place. Facebook did not create our friendship, it is just preserving our line of communication. So remember the times we met, why we became friends, and why we are still friends...and use that as our base for communication.

Sorry Facebook, you ain't gonna replace me.