Facebook

When I first started getting into Twitter many people asked me what the "point" was. It's simple really, it's sharing information in the simplest form.

Most of the people who ask me this question spend the vast majority of their free time wasting it on Facebook, a website that has clearly lost the plot. Apparently Facebook's "mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected."

Yes, the power to share. To share stories, to share the mundane things that happen in life and to share the exciting things that happen in life. This could be done using status updates, writing on each other's "walls", photos, videos, blogs.

But in recent times things have changed, people aren't using Facebook to share. Instead more and more people are simply clicking buttons to join groups or become fans of the most stupid things.

"the deep conversations before going to bed at sleepovers"

"Join if you have ever pulled a door that said Push."

"The awkward moment when you watch two people hug, and you feel like a loner."

Facebook is ruining itself, it's ruining the enjoyment of sharing experiences. Joining groups and becoming fans are lazy ways to share what people may agree or disagree with.

I'd bet that most people wouldn't have even thought of commenting on whether they used to watch raindrops fall down a window to see which one would "win" if it hadn't been for another friend noticing another friend of a friend set up the page.

Some of the group names are quite funny or are perhaps true reflections of those little incidents in life. I wouldn't mind if people wrote on each other's walls recollecting on the most average and mediocre aspects of life, at least then they'll actually be communicating with other people. And also then I may actually find some of my "friends" interesting and worth investing my time in.

I feel like I have false notions of so many people, just because I know them only or primarily through the Internet. It's so much more interesting and enlightening to get to know someone in reality, without all that. I like being able to discover things about people by asking them, hearing from them, having mysteries and encountering little discoveries along the way. I like seeing the dissonance between someone’s facial expression and or body language and what they are saying. When we all have control over what we look like and how we define ourselves on the Internet, it removes that mystery. And it turns "friendship" into something that has less to do with knowing people deeply than just knowing whatever bits and pieces of them they want to reveal (which happens in real-world relationships too, but moreso on the Internet).

Human beings are far, far more complex and wonderful than their status updates and “ingredient listing” profile pages. And it is far more rewarding and profound to get to know someone in an unsafe, slightly uncertain and awkward way than to rigorously research them and pretend to know them via all the accumulated Internet data on them.

So let’s take a step back from the groups and think about this. Do we really think that sending out these messages with randomly selected tidbits about ourselves is making anyone more known? Who are we kidding? As a mindless diversion and exercise in classic facebook self-love, it’s fine. But as a commentary on the uses and practices of online social networking (which I think it pretty much is), these groups and fan pages are nothing if not a warning sign that the end is near.

www.twitter.com/mistertombola