THE TRUTH is this title is a sham. But you wouldn't have clicked on 'Some Mild Observations About Facebook.' And you probably wouldn't be here at all if I hadn't posted this on Facebook. So that's my first observation:
1) It's not totally worthless. I admit I kind of wanted it to be. But then protests in Iran were organized with online social networks. Sonnafabitch. And (more importantly) without Facebook, no one would read Clebilicious. With it, two do. (Thanks, you two!) Also it reminds me about birthdays.
2) People have different personalities on Facebook than they do in real life. In real life I'm a ceaseless chatterbox. But on Facebook I am sly and morose. And I can think of at least one individual who, while subdued in real life, is a yammering Yenta on Facebook.
3) Facebook interaction is less daunting than real life interaction, with implications. Which of course is true of online interaction in general. This could be good, when, for example, it allows a shy person to venture out of her shell. Or it could be bad.
4) People like to have little rules with Facebook. Like they only will be friends with people they don't often see in real life. Or they never do status updates. Or they only do status updates. The rules seem intended to grant the illusion of control.
5) Facebook usership passes through three distinct phases: Thrill, Thrill-seeking and Practical Resignation. First you get a genuine kick out of it. (Person A! I haven't thought of her in years! And Person B! I knew he had a crush on me in high school! And Person C I hardly recognized! They all like me! What wealth! what extensive connection! all gathered here in this shining, ephemeral place!) As the kick fades, you try and fail to recapture it. Finally, you accept that Facebook is boring, abandon hope and try to make some mundane use of the thing.
6) You can learn fascinating facts about people from Facebook, but it's unclear how much you are supposed to acknowledge the possession of these facts in real life. If a Ffriend writes in her status update that her new nickname is 'Sexy Legs,' would one be remiss in referring to her thusly at work? And if the answer be clearly yes, then: what? What strange world do we live in if we walk about knowing things and not acknowledging them?
7) It might be more pathetic to have too many Facebook friends than not enough.
8) Facebook can be an effective way of entering other people's worlds. (Especially those with a tendency to overshare.) I can better imagine now what it's like to be a lunatic-distance runner, or a nurse hankering for a drink at the end of a long hospital shift, or a former pro football player launching a tentative new career. (Yeah I'm Ffriends with a former pro football player. Maybe he had a crush on me in high school; are you so surprised?) Because seeing people's little daily updates gives you the nosehair view of their lives. Even when trying to uphold grandiosity, the more people update, the more they unintentionally reveal. Whether we should know so much about every acquaintance is debatable, but the debate never quite happened and the reality has arrived. This will have big implications for human interaction in the 21st century--unless we all just get bored and stop updating.
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