I admit it. I’m a Facebook junkie. I have been a fan of Facebook.com, the social networking site that connects you to your friends, since it began in 2004.
At first, it was only available to silver spooners at Harvard University. Eventually, it worked it’s way through the Ivy Leauge, the Big Ten, and by the time I was graduating, finally became available at Emory University.
When I was graduating, I faced a dilemma. In a few short months, I and all of my friends would be going our separate ways, many of us traveling to other parts of the world.
Many of those friends were people I saw in passing — in the cafeteria, in the bookstore, between classes. While many of those friends had different social circles, and we didn’t necessarily “hang out,” I genuinely enjoyed the short moments I had with them throughout the course of my day.
By the time I graduated college, I had about 25 “great” friends; people with whom I hung out regularly, went on Spring Break with, etc. However, I had about 500 “good” friends. How could I possibly be able to stay in touch with all of them?
Then, around March 2004, Facebook made it’s way to Emory. Eureka! It was like a godsend. I quickly became “friends” again with many of my current friends. This time, however, it was in the virtual world. I even made friends with a few people I didn’t even know, and I was able to stay in touch with all of them with relative ease.
Facebook crushed every other social networking site that was available at the time. Friendster couldn’t hold a candle, with its jerky and quirky interface. If that weren’t bad enough, it constantly sends you reminder e-mails to alert you of its continued existence.
About once a month, I’ll get an e-mail saying something like, “What are your friends doing on Friendster?” Nothing. “Hey, do you want to be ?Friendsters?’” No.
Even so, it’s a million times better than MySpace, which I hate with every fiber of my being. Every MySpace page that I read makes me feel like I am having a brain aneurysm.
As soon as you hit the “enter” key, you are attacked by streaming web video, annoying wav. and midi files, rotating picture cubes, and anything else you can think of — all at once. Usually, there is some intricate picture tiled in the background, so the text on top of it is barely legible.
The fact that Facebook is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with ConnectU, a competing web site — for allegedly stealing it’s ideas — doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It’s so good, that I don’t care.
However, it’s almost too good.
When I traveled to the other side of the world for two years, Facebook helped me feel like I had a connection with all of the precious people I left behind. Eventually, I could upload pictures of the strange and exciting places I had been, keep a blog, and even host a “wall,” where friends could wish me a happy birthday or tell me how they were doing.
I could plan events with ease and invite all of my friends (and their friends) with a click of a button. Soon, I was able to share clips of funny movies or videos with my friends and even buy them presents.
Facebook rocked my world, so much so, that I realized that I was spending countless hours a day on it. I would constantly check on my friends through the little magical window I had into their lives. But I realized I had gone months without actually speaking to some of my closest friends.
They stopped calling me and I stopped calling them. I didn’t have to; Facebook did everything for me. It took almost all of the effort out of keeping up with my friendships.
Being the purist I am, I felt betrayed when Facebook recently opened up the site to outside web designers, and allowed users to retrofit their home page with “applications.” Some of them are extremely useful, like the online cookbook application, or hilarious and silly, like the bite-your-friends-and-turn-them-into-zombies application.
However, some of those applications cross the line. About two weeks ago, I got an invitation in my inbox to come to Happy Hour. After a long week of work, I was more than happy to go somewhere for a cold, well-deserved, drink.
Upon further investigation, however, I found out that was simply an invitation to another Facebook application, where you could buy your friends “virtual” drinks and talk about it online.
While having Facebook friends is great, I would rather have two real friends than 1,000 Facebook ones. And while Facebook is convenient, it shouldn’t replace all of the activities that we would do in the real world.
I think for the next week, I will trade Facebook for a real book, and call some friends I haven’t spoken to in a long time.