Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Facebook Forevs?

I was reading this little news story today about how Facebook is "locking in" its internet dominance, which ironically mentions how many of these sites end up going the way of the digital graveyard while quoting a tech-savy college student who claims that FB is a more valuable internet commodity than Google.
Ok, I will admit that FB is smart because its creators have learned from what mistakes its predecessors made (or stole from them), and gives people the one thing they have wanted since the dawn of the internet: the ability to spy on their exs with a few keystrokes and for free! Middle-aged moms can finally find out what their high school boyfriends are up to! (Oh yeah, let's just also forget for the sake of this article the fact that Google makes beaucoup dollars and Facebook has yet to return any of its $716m investment).
The most annoying part of the article, to me, was student Ravasio's comment that, "It's your real name, it's your real friends...It's the new thing you need to keep in touch, almost a requirement of modern social life."
Hold up, real friends? I would probably only consider about a 1/3 of the people I've had to accept as friends as my real friends, and that's in my personal account. What with Great Aunt Betty, the girl bully from my 8th grade class, and my creepy polly-o-string-cheese-eatin' first boss friending me in FB, who needs real friends? Or real privacy, for that matter?
I guess part of my problem is I'm too nice in real life, or I'm still kind of scared of Heather Williams and afraid she'll show up at my work to kick my ass if I don't friend her. But if these connections as well as the never ending flood of fake flower gifts, lost farm animals, and "Which Thundercat Are You" quizzes are a requirement in modern social life then I'm not sure I'm going to make it.
Where's my time machine? Send me back to the socially repressed '50's quick!

3 comments:

  1. Facebook is the devil... 'nuff said.

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  2. True dat.
    Let's return to the good ole internet days of messageboards and text based rpgs. I'm going to burn that Farmville to the ground.

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  3. I still do message boards, man. Those rock. The one I frequent doesn't even have avatars! Old school.

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