Facing Facebook
Some of my “friends” are Holly, Ryan, Barbara, Jon, Jonathan and Laura. My good “friend” Catherine is selling her car, a Corolla, on KSL.com if you’re interested.
My friend, without quotes, Sarah, a new-mom-to-be invited me to be her “friend” on Facebook, so I could go to her page and check out pictures of her adorable baby Jonah, who I see almost every week when we have lunch together. Her Facebook page, however, will give me a chance to look at Jonah camping, Jonah bathing, and Jonah with Dad.
My “friend” Ryan sent me pictures of his new baby Matthew.
I say “friend” because while all of these people ARE my friends, Facebook gives us another level at which to interact. A superficial level. Not usually my level of choice.
Facebook is an entire website devoted to random encounters, where people can look at your page and see what everyone who’s written to you has said. What would you say to someone if you knew that whatever you said, it was going to be heard around the world on a magic microphone? You would say the things people tend to say on Facebook pages. Things like, “LOL, your picture is hilarious!” Or, “OMG, you guys should so come tonight, really.” It forces you to speak like you were permanently in junior high. It’s for people for whom phone texting is a natural extension of their thought process.
An entire website devoted to small talk.
Yes, it’s dumb to even talk about this. Like my father used to say, “They don’t give you any prizes for being stupid.” Implying that I would somehow have a whole cabinet of prizes if smart was my natural condition. Because clearly, I had no prizes anywhere. But that’s for another day.
There are no Facebook police checking to see if I’m checking to see. I could eliminate my Facebook problem easily, you’re thinking. The only thing is, I really kind of like seeing what people are saying. It was neat seeing Ryan’s kids—I haven’t seen him in three years. But, OMG, how much time can you spend doing this?
As it turns out, you can spend a lot of time because, not unlike the women at the well, we, as humans, are really suited to a certain amount of small talk. There are no corner pubs here for us to gather in, at least for most of us here in Happy Valley. No one walks downtown to do errands. We race by each other in our cars, listening to talk radio, which is essentially our new corner pub.
Facebook thrives because we miss the tidbits of life. The brevity of expression forced upon us by the format keeps us civil. The group nature of the conversation prevents a certain amount of impoliteness.
If you look at it in one way, it’s like the cotillion dances I went to in junior high school: there was a monitor who made sure we left room for the Holy Ghost; and there were practices during school hours for how to ask a girl to dance, and how to keep your knees together. When you were thinking about all that, you were not thinking about having contact with the opposite sex for the first time.
It’s like the group mentality Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, talks about. If you get a bunch of dogs together, they keep each other in line.
Counter-intuitive, but it works with people too.
Welcome to the future.
My friend, without quotes, Sarah, a new-mom-to-be invited me to be her “friend” on Facebook, so I could go to her page and check out pictures of her adorable baby Jonah, who I see almost every week when we have lunch together. Her Facebook page, however, will give me a chance to look at Jonah camping, Jonah bathing, and Jonah with Dad.
My “friend” Ryan sent me pictures of his new baby Matthew.
I say “friend” because while all of these people ARE my friends, Facebook gives us another level at which to interact. A superficial level. Not usually my level of choice.
Facebook is an entire website devoted to random encounters, where people can look at your page and see what everyone who’s written to you has said. What would you say to someone if you knew that whatever you said, it was going to be heard around the world on a magic microphone? You would say the things people tend to say on Facebook pages. Things like, “LOL, your picture is hilarious!” Or, “OMG, you guys should so come tonight, really.” It forces you to speak like you were permanently in junior high. It’s for people for whom phone texting is a natural extension of their thought process.
An entire website devoted to small talk.
Yes, it’s dumb to even talk about this. Like my father used to say, “They don’t give you any prizes for being stupid.” Implying that I would somehow have a whole cabinet of prizes if smart was my natural condition. Because clearly, I had no prizes anywhere. But that’s for another day.
There are no Facebook police checking to see if I’m checking to see. I could eliminate my Facebook problem easily, you’re thinking. The only thing is, I really kind of like seeing what people are saying. It was neat seeing Ryan’s kids—I haven’t seen him in three years. But, OMG, how much time can you spend doing this?
As it turns out, you can spend a lot of time because, not unlike the women at the well, we, as humans, are really suited to a certain amount of small talk. There are no corner pubs here for us to gather in, at least for most of us here in Happy Valley. No one walks downtown to do errands. We race by each other in our cars, listening to talk radio, which is essentially our new corner pub.
Facebook thrives because we miss the tidbits of life. The brevity of expression forced upon us by the format keeps us civil. The group nature of the conversation prevents a certain amount of impoliteness.
If you look at it in one way, it’s like the cotillion dances I went to in junior high school: there was a monitor who made sure we left room for the Holy Ghost; and there were practices during school hours for how to ask a girl to dance, and how to keep your knees together. When you were thinking about all that, you were not thinking about having contact with the opposite sex for the first time.
It’s like the group mentality Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, talks about. If you get a bunch of dogs together, they keep each other in line.
Counter-intuitive, but it works with people too.
Welcome to the future.
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