Obligatory post on "the new Facebook"
First off, I'll admit that I've actually wanted a feed for some time. It's a little annoying to have someone show up on your "recently updated" page, but then be unable to find what it is that changed. Also, I've suspected for some time that Facebook is trying to take over the Internet. It started out as a "safe" alternative to MySpace, but now it's scarier, no less so because it seems safe.
Now, having said that I like the feed feature... can we say "INFORMATION OVERLOAD"??
I mean seriously... I don't need to know every friend that is added by every person on my friends list... especially since many of the people on my friends list are people I no longer talk to anyway. With the frequency with which some people update their profiles ("Facebook... now 50% more addictive than coke!(TM)), it's near impossible to sift through all the data being thrown at me to find out what's relevant. In fact, part of me wonders whether this isn't part of Facebook's master plan. Perhaps the founders of Facebook mean to thwart Internet culture by exposing it for just how shallow and irrelevant it really is. Excuse me while I go research this idea further on Wikipedia.
The fact is, I, just like 90% of my generation (in the "developed" world at least), am hopelessly addicted to the Information Superhighway. For all of my (admittedly short) adult life and most of my adolescent life, I and my peers have been "wired", and it shows. We cannot survive without the Internet...... Of course, we can, we just don't think we know how. Without e-mail, instant messaging, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Mapquest, we don't know how to function. Human interaction requires ethernet and electricity. When did we let our lives become digitized?
Facebook is, I must say, a fairly accurate model of life. People make friendships, define themselves, work, take classes, go on trips, join relationships, break up, write each other notes, and poke each other. And eventually, like modern life, you finally become overloaded with information, and have to decide what is important to you; what you want to focus on. It doesn't help that the Internet has eroded our already short attention spans. Heck, the reason I blog so infrequently is because I don't have the patience to sit down and write. I have to force myself. I can't just passively watch the latest hijinx of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert (those crazy kids) as uploaded by some guy with a TiVo. I have to actually think. And sadly, that's becoming more difficult for me.
Now, having said that I like the feed feature... can we say "INFORMATION OVERLOAD"??
I mean seriously... I don't need to know every friend that is added by every person on my friends list... especially since many of the people on my friends list are people I no longer talk to anyway. With the frequency with which some people update their profiles ("Facebook... now 50% more addictive than coke!(TM)), it's near impossible to sift through all the data being thrown at me to find out what's relevant. In fact, part of me wonders whether this isn't part of Facebook's master plan. Perhaps the founders of Facebook mean to thwart Internet culture by exposing it for just how shallow and irrelevant it really is. Excuse me while I go research this idea further on Wikipedia.
The fact is, I, just like 90% of my generation (in the "developed" world at least), am hopelessly addicted to the Information Superhighway. For all of my (admittedly short) adult life and most of my adolescent life, I and my peers have been "wired", and it shows. We cannot survive without the Internet...... Of course, we can, we just don't think we know how. Without e-mail, instant messaging, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Mapquest, we don't know how to function. Human interaction requires ethernet and electricity. When did we let our lives become digitized?
Facebook is, I must say, a fairly accurate model of life. People make friendships, define themselves, work, take classes, go on trips, join relationships, break up, write each other notes, and poke each other. And eventually, like modern life, you finally become overloaded with information, and have to decide what is important to you; what you want to focus on. It doesn't help that the Internet has eroded our already short attention spans. Heck, the reason I blog so infrequently is because I don't have the patience to sit down and write. I have to force myself. I can't just passively watch the latest hijinx of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert (those crazy kids) as uploaded by some guy with a TiVo. I have to actually think. And sadly, that's becoming more difficult for me.