Monday, May 26, 2008

Facebook is starting to creep me out

Don't get me wrong. I was all up on that space when it first happened, trying to get as many friends as I possibly could (today the count is 482 so-called "friends"). But now...I'm kind of over it.

Amy and I were talking about this on our way home from Santa Barbara, how our generation may be prolonging friendships that are wayyyyy past their expiration date because of the technological means of communicating we have. We get extra upset when someone doesn't text, or call, or facebook message us back right away, but is it someone we genuinely care about anyways?

Every so often, probably once or twice a month, my Mom sits down with the kitchen phone, her index-card system of contacts and calls her top 5 friends to see how they are doing and what's going on in their lives. I don't mean top 5 as in MySpace, I mean about 5 friends she's met as neighbors, through Boy Scouts, through Church, from her High School. Those friends she's had for ages and checks in on every so often.

We don't do that. It's not an active form of seeking out anyone in particular. We look at Facebook or MySpace's minifeed that tells us exactly what our friends are up to, so there's no need to actually communicate directly with them. They've already put it all out there in the world, so there's no need for pleasantries, no need for small talk.

Which is why I think I am so impatient with small talk. It does nothing for me. But I digress...that's a totally different subject completely.

So essentially anyone we want to know about or check up on, we just read their blog, or get their weekly e-mail, or read the last couple of posts they made on other people's walls on Facebook. There's no actual person-to-person interaction involved, and if there is, it's kept at a minimum and at arm's length. It's all one-way broadcasting instead of two-way communicating.

Let's have some two-way communicating.

Friends, those people out there...let's hang out. And ACTUALLY HANG OUT. I want to know what you've been thinking about, I want to know what you've been feeling (yes, sorry guys...feeling) strongly about recently.

Let's have a one-on-one conversation. Just you and me. We can go for a walk. We can get drinks, we can get Bubble Tea! Something...anything with conversation.

I'm in need of some REAL human interaction, none of this fake facebook shit.

It's all well and good but I count more the people that I hang out with or have conversations with my friends than anyone who I just "poke".

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