So it seems Facebook has reached a bit of a tipping point in the last few months with respect to membership. It used to be the playground of college kids but now that it’s been open to pretty much anyone for awhile, there’s a pretty good chance people you never expect to be on it will be. With such a solid influx of new people, it was inevitable that Facebook become commonplace among everyday conversations over the dinner table, in meetings at work or pretty much anywhere else folks gather. It’s because of this I feel somewhat compelled to offer a bit social commentary about it.
First and foremost, I’ve been a member for quite some time. I originally signed up because… well… it’s kinda part of my job to be current on all the popular and emerging internet technologies/websites. Actually, my job doesn’t require it but since I deal with websites, some of them directly competing, I feel it my responsibility to know what’s out there. Not everyone I work with has the same opinion and not every site/software I mess around with becomes part of my repertoire. Heck, I think I was on Facebook for a year before I even really started “using” it. I’m now an avid user, but I wouldn’t go so far as to describe myself an addict.
So what’s changed for me? I was one of the first 30k users on Myspace but I haven’t used that in a year. Why is the site where I’m easily user something-million (you can roughly tell btw) that much more successful? It’s a bit like the old fax machine network that’s cited as an example of the value of plenitude. The first fax machine was worth nothing… until the second one was sold. Much like new fax machines being plugged into phone lines, each person I know joining Facebook has made it’s value incrementally higher. It’s actually gotten to a point where it serves as a valuable medium of communication between friends and family.
Social networking is inherently shallow and therefore evil, right? I can concede that’s mostly true, there is a lot of crap floating around on there that I simply don’t enjoy or care to participate in. Much like American culture as a whole, if you can separate yourself from the banality there is some real, tangible value. Whether it be seeing pictures of my nieces, finding out my college buddies got engaged or learning someone’s wife is pregnant, it’s allowed me to keep up with people in ways that was never really possible before.
Yes, I understand there was instant messaging, email and even the telephone before but the dynamics of those are very much different. In those cases, it was often a “pull” because you had to gather information from each individual to form a picture of what was going on with everyone. Now, people choose what to “push” to their contacts so you can quickly and easily find out what’s going on with a significant number of them in one pass. Common responses to that are “If you didn’t have the time to care before…” or “Isn’t that less personal than…” and while there is some truth there, I don’t think it immediately turns us all into superficial friend whores. I can now catch up with others without having to play phone tag for days and if I want to talk privately about the important things, I still can. As a person who moved away from some very good college friends, I can attest to the value of broadcasting when you’re so very often out of sight and out of mind.
So yes, I use Facebook and I’m a pretty big fan. As long as you don’t friend people who are higher-up than you at work, ignore the people that update their statuses every 15 minutes and don’t get caught up in the decidedly phony people on there, you will be too. If you happen to be one of the people who enjoy it for all its surface-level entertainment, at least you know what purpose it serves and hopefully don’t take it too seriously. It’s when you start to blur the lines that things get messy.
