If you are reading this blog you will have probably already heard of a new online craze named Facebook. Now for those of you who aren’t predisposed to join any kind of online community, you may have already received an invite or ten to join Facebook and just shrugged it off as just another passing fad, and nothing of real importance.
After all, similar sites have popped up and quickly languished in the ethereal void that is the internet. Sites like Classmates.com who invite you to join for free and then tell you you have messages from old friends, but in order to read them, you have to have a paid subscription—perfecting the art of online extortion. Then there is Myspace, who have become a breeding-ground for pedophiles and the like
Facebook is a networking site akin to Myspace, except without the sexual predators…at least for the moment. The difference between the two seems to be in the fact that on Facebook, most people use their real names, making it easier to search for those long-lost contacts. This means that the site has created an environment that makes people comfortable to use their real names.
Also, even though you can make your profile public to everyone, few people do. Making it impossible to have unwanted strangers lurking around your site. You have all the control. If you want, only your friends can look at your profile.
With it, you set up a profile. In your profile you can add photos, notes, interests, your favourite TV shows, books, etc…Sounds a lot like a personals site doesn’t it?
The power of Facebook is in it’s viral spread. You see, you can add other people on Facebook to your friends list (just like myspace) and if you are accepted as a friend, you can then access that person’s profile and friend list. Here is where it gets addictive.
You’ve probably heard of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Where you try to link anyone to Kevin Bacon with 6 associations. I have yet to hear of someone who has not been linked to him.
Well Facebook works on a similar premise. How many people can you think of that you’ve lost track of over the years and you would love to find out how that person is doing, or what that person is up to these days, but you lost contact with them and now you just don’t know how to get into contact with them.
Well, chances are, if that person is on Facebook, you’ll be able to find them by running a search, or browsing a few of your friends’ friends lists. Once reconnected, you can chat, share photos, even arrange meetings.
Since joining the site, I’ve reconnected with people I haven’t seen in over a decade. People who—as it turns out—live or work within minutes of me. I’m going have lunch with one such person this week
Eventually, the addiction to facebook comes from seeking and finding those obscure relationships that you thought were forever lost in time and space.
If you don’t believe that this has become the addictive craze that I claim it to be, just read the following CBC article.
You know you’ve achieved popular status when governments are banning access to your site.
I have no access to Facebook at work—which is just as well, I probably wouldn’t get anything done—and I regulate my time in the evening to a few minutes here and there to check my messages and maybe do a quick search to see if that long-lost acquaintance has finally given in to the pressure and joined the rest of us
What are you thinking?