Facebook

It's really quite amazing. At one time it can both be a plethora of information, yet a barren wasteland of nothingness. There's so much writing, and so many words. But there's also so little value. Why do people bother with it?

It is truthfully silly to ask why people bother. I know the reasons for several of my close friends, and tons of other people that I know less well. It's an open canvas that other people can see. It's an ocean of information. If you know where to look, you can actually get something from it. You can find out where the next party is going to be. You can understand what is important to those that you care about. I suppose it is quite a bit easier, but to me it seems like a first order operational strategy.

Facebook provides us with an easy out. We can ignore people for weeks and months and then reconnect within seconds. The amount of effort that goes in is minuscule compared to what you get out of the system. There are certainly ways to get more information from the people you know, but few, if any, ways to get that amount of information with any less effort than you would exert on facebook. You don't need to remember the one thing that the person wants so that you can get it for them on their birthday. You don't even need to remember when their birthday is. The system does that for you. It tells you that significant events are coming up. It gives you a million phone numbers and tons of wish-lists. It has information that no one would ever have to know. It's got... pretty much the largest database of personal information on any one website, ever.

So you can get to know people really well. Sure, you may be able to get to know them better, but how many people do you really want to know that well? On the other hand, how many people do you want to congratulate you on a celebration? I would say that most people would want hundreds of birthday wishes. They might want tons of advice for each and every question. Regardless of what they want, most people will get many more responses than they could hope for, even with the lot that they hoped up.

The one problem is that everyone else needs to put in the same amount of effort as you do for this to be effective for you. If none of your friends check it daily, then you probably won't check it daily. In fact, you probably wouldn't even bother to make an account.

The good news is, most people already are putting in this effort. There are certainly exceptions, but I'm sure their numbers are dwindling. Eventually, it will be an inconvenience to not have an account. In fact, there have already been cases where I was glad to have an account, just so that I wouldn't have to go looking for an address or phone number too hard. It's right there. It certainly does help.

I guess... I just don't like that it replaces the communication we have already in place. Though... phones are falling out. And those already made the mail much less useful.

I suppose there could be some bias. No, I don't suppose this. I know that I am biased. Some people call me pretentious for not being on facebook. The bad part is that I like this. I feel like it distinguishes me. Most of the most "pretentious" people are the intelligent ones. They are critical of what's around them and understand what they don't know. It's not a case of Ancient Greek wisdom that I'm talking about, but rather a form of modesty. It's nice to see people admit that they don't know how something works. These are not the masses.

The masses are the loudest or most populous. They're the ones with the highest birth to death rate. These happen to be the people lowering the IQ of the general population. These are the people who know how all blue collar work works and could do it, but wouldn't lower themselves to it. The smart ones know that they couldn't do blue collar work. The masses yell and scream that other people are lazy while they look up pictures of cats at work all day. The masses think they deserve things that others know need to be earned. The masses use facebook.