Fakebook

The Fakebook Generation essay really summed up a lot of my thinking on social networking.  I ONLY have 75 friends on Facebook.  Would you say I don't have many friends or that I am unpopular?  Maybe if you are one of the many that have hundreds or even a thousand or more friends.  Come on man, no you don't.  I have 75 friends on facebook and half of them are friends of my wife's, friends of friends and that's about it. My real close friends are not even on Facebook!  The rest being some really old school friends that I may have never reconnected with had it not been for Facebook.  I receive friend requests often from either people I do not remember or just someone I might have known briefly or we went to the same school.  Even my sometimes morbid curiosity doesn't allow me to approve their friend requests.  I don't give a you know what about what they are going to post and I imagine they just want to add 1 more friend to their list.  When I have time or a reason to post something, I definitely don't want someone who is just nosey or really not my friend reading or possibly seeing my moments in time that I choose to share.  So on one hand I weigh the it's cool to reconnect and read a little humor, or alot if you are lucky enough to read my crap!  And on the other hand, what a waste of time.  My wife spends alot of time online looking at photos and she has alot of business friends and also alot of parents of children born early and with health problems.  So for her, most of the time she is actually connecting in a way that I think is great.  Sharing stories and experiences and sometimes just an online shoulder to cry on.  I notice at the college just walking by computer labs I see people always on Facebook.  Also in my own class there is always people on Facebook.  Every single time and always the same people.  I am so popular that when I do log in, other than new friends requesting to be my friend that 99% of the time I decline, there is no activity on my page much.  Since beginning school I rarely even check it out anymore.  I find it much more enjoyable to check out the discussion boards for all my classes.  That is real and the interaction is beneficial to me, and fun.  Myspace used to log the last time you logged in and others could see that also.  All in all, I see it as poison to certain people who post way to personal stuff and waste so much time just looking at what others are posting.  And to others who choose Facebook time over real people interaction time.  I know those people and oddly, when I communicate with them it is like talking to the enquirer magazine with all of the crazy, gossipy stories they get from online sources that they take on as reality.  And to others like myself that don't see it as a popularity contest of friends and just check it out from time to time when something more beneficial is not available to do, great.  Good things also can become of it.  Free way to contact friends and family from afar, finding old friends and the like.  I will be curious to what is yet to come as I am sure something new and exciting will surely rival and replace Facebook as they have pretty much done to Myspace.