Face to Facebook

While I was taking time off work and internet stalking yesterday (guilty as charged), I noticed someone’s status update that posed an interesting question.

“Sara is wondering if we even need 10 year high school reunions after facebook.”

It got me to thinking about exactly how internet databases, Facebook being the primary, have affected our daily lives. It allows us to make connections with old friends, to date, to find others with similar hobbies, and to expand businesses from small to large. Hell, it may have even helped win a Presidential election last year. There is no question it has helped shape the way we perceive people and the way we communicate in some very positive ways. But do we not realize how incredibly impersonal these databases can be?

As usual, there are a couple of things that frustrate me. Allow me to elaborate.

I’ll start at the most mundane but most annoying factions of the database’s impact: can we please stop with the applications? It is not going to change my life if you throw a snowball at me, hug me, kiss me, buy me a drink, or poke me on the internet. It’s the internet. You cannot throw a snowball at me from your computer. I am not closing my eyes and imagining you throwing a snowball at me while I’m taking a break from resuscitating my accounts or writing rants. I do not need the snowball update on my blackberry while I’m out having drinks or spending time with my family. Quite frankly, fuck your snowball.

Continuing on, please listen carefully. If you are not a model, meaning if you do not get paid to take pictures, please don’t put your inaccurate, doctored –up glamour shot on your homepage to deceive us all. If this sounds shallow I don’t apologize. I think I speak for anyone who has ever decided that it was OK to invite a friend of a friend out based upon an attractive default picture and was severely let down. I consider it a lie to post those pictures, and I don’t like liars. There, depth satisfied.

Then there’s this new phenomenon called Facebook chat. I actually love this application since it has helped me reconnect with some amazing people that I have met along my way. But I’m kicked off more than Florida Gators football (meaning they score a lot of touchdowns). It’s usually right when I’m about to make a great point or say something funny. Looks like the joke is on me.

Now before everyone tells me how angry I sound, I’ll say this clearly. I do not hate Facebook. I happen to like it, and those that are simliar (myspace, smallworld, twitter, etc.). I will not pretend that I am not on my pages daily (although the dating sites are not for me), or that I haven’t used them to get my words out or help myself in my small projects. I also love to learn about some of my friends’ great ideas and/or projects. My mom's even on Facebook. But getting back to the original status update, my point is that I hope that we don’t forget the benefit of human interaction. It’s part of why the romance is suffering. It’s difficult to create a real relationship over the web just like it’s hard to throw a snowball, and with so much information at your fingertips, it’s hard not to have attention deficit disorder. It might be better to spend more time face to face with people, and a little less time face to Facebook.