What I Don't Understand About Facebook
There’s always been something that’s irked me about Facebook. Whether the disappointment that I didn’t think up the idea first (and become an ungodly rich man in the process) or just that it was another one of those social networking sites, I’m not quite sure.
Regardless of the overbearing reasons, I’ve found at least two specific things that really bother me about Facebook and its culture. These being:
1. Why are there so many pictures of people at parties and,
2. Why do some people have so many “friends”?
1. When at a party, shouldn’t you be, you know, partying? I thought that was a fairly simple concept. Instead, there are people that inexplicably become freelance photojournalists and end up taking pictures of all of their friends doing silly things instead of doing silly things themselves and end up having a horrible time but have something to show for it later (in the form of “hey, look what you did last night!”). In my opinion, this is not a “good time”. Why bother going to a party if your priority is taking pictures? Having a few pictures to remember an event is great - I think everyone does that - but when I see notifications about how Johnny has been tagged in 200 pictures from last night, I worry.
2. Most of my “friends” on Facebook are cohorts from high school of whom I had some kind of relationship during our four year tenure at that institution. The second largest group of “friends” I have are aquaintences from University. If a “friend” doesn’t fall into one of those two categories, they’re pretty special. However, many of my high school cohorts have over 500 “friends” within their place of higher education alone. I have to wonder: is it common practice to “Facebook” someone as soon as you learn their name? When people greet each other nowadays, do they pull out their Blackberries and immediately request the friendship of the other? Is this why I only have 170 odd friends instead of the 500 - 600 some of these contacts have?
Since when did life revolve around Facebook? Maybe I’m just growing old and I’m out of the “social networking” loop. Or maybe I’m just smart and have dodged a bullet. Either way, these things confuse me.
