With a few keystrokes, Facebook users can let their closest 600 virtual friends know what they are doing perpetually. Going to the store, picking up the kids from school, cleaning the house, painting toenails, and on, and on, and on until pulling stubble from you calves becomes less painful than reading one more banal status update. Then to add irrationality to triviality, you got your political soapbox Facebookers with their uninformed knee-jerk reactions to ObamaCare. Then of course, there are the clever people with their insipid punchlines; everybody is a comedian on Facebook. If the comedians are not jamming up the news feeds, the hypochondriacs are letting you know about every headache, backpain, and hang nail experienced. Once the words “intestines” or “fungus” appear anywhere in the update, I am out there.
Very really rarely do people say anything meaningful, worthwhile or important. I can know what someone is making for dinner, what color of bra they are wearing, learn their middle name, find out what famous person they look , and see their big hair from the 80s without really learning much about them.
But, does Facebook work when you have important information to disseminate? Yes, but it depends on how willing you are to share the information with near strangers. A few months ago, one of my close friends from elementary school lost her father. She wrote beautiful, deeply moving personal status updates that allowed her to get the news out quickly without her having to contact many people, and she could control how specific information was presented. People were able to write condolences on her wall and offer her support both locally and from far away. In that case, Facebook served a practical function.
But, I am skeptical about social networking websites as a communication tool because of their highly voyeuristic nature. Right now, my family is in crisis. I don’t want to exploit my child’s pain. But at the same time, I like the idea of getting information out quickly to the people who matter. A few lines blasted to friends and family gives me more time to spend with the people who really matter.
In theory, Facebook would be an effective tool if I wasn’t virtual friends with so many people who suck. Yes, people I really don’t like and don’t care much about. But I just don’t have the will power to delete them or to turn off their feeds. This is my Facebook addiction, following people who suck. Mostly people who sucked back in the day still stuck. They were teenage assholes who grew-up to be adult assholes, but I just can’t divest myself of virtual voyeurism. Perhaps I am just hanging out to see some weight gain and a homely spouse. Perhaps it is some type of perverse online self-flagellation.
So for now because I am too selfish and nosy to forgo my daily entertainment of checking for wrinkles and gray hair and watching ridiculous home-videos of babies clapping, walking, sneezing and licking their toes, I’ll continue to let you know on Facebook how our goldfish is doing and what desserts I am making. But, when it comes to things that really matter, you’ll get an email from me if you matter.
