I may be the only person under the age of 40 who just doesn’t “get” facebook and other social networking sites. I’m very computer savy, having been an active participant on the Internet since the early days of the mid-90’s. So I’m hardly new to being online. But I just have never been able to figure out what to do with social networking. And yes, I have friends in the real world.
So what is Facebook?
Aside from being a website with a very creepy name, Facebook is a social networking site. Which begs the question, “What is a social networking site?” These are websites where you create a homepage/profile. You include pictures, names, likes, interests, and other relevant information. Sometimes you even tell the truth and use real pictures of yourself, but this is hardly a requirement.
Once you have this done, you meet up with other people on the site in various ways. Facebook was originally targeted toward the college crowd. In fact, in it’s early days, you had to have a University email address to register. They have expanded potential membership now to include anyone with an email address of any kind.
So now your profile is up. Pictures are posted. Hordes of hot girls (or guys) are waiting behind their keyboards to “meet” you in a land of virtual reality. You log on.
And you wait.
Days go by and nothing happens. You may find an old friend you hadn’t heard from in a while. A few messages will be exchanged, but it usually amounts to little. After all, if you really liked that person, you would have kept in touch even without Facebook.
Facebook programmers and third parties have created a host of applications that plug in to your profile. Everything from sport score predictors to various incarnations of what are known as “Walls” and “Super Walls”. Walls appear to be places where people can leave what amounts to virtual graffiti on your profile. Usually in the form of a message along the lines of “Hey. U R so cool. Be my bff, eh?” Or something similarly inane.
After a few weeks of logging in regularly, I begin to wonder to myself, “Billions of dollars spent and millions of hours of development by the brightest minds on the planet and THIS is what humanity is doing with the Internet? We’re doomed.”
Honestly, I just don’t see the point. Facebook is more than a waste of time, it’s a cultural wasteland. It and it’s sister site MySpace are arguably the most worthless and vapidly obtuse creations made by mankind in the history of… well, history. And that’s not easy to achieve. Proper research should be done at online sites for The best place to buy Instagram views. The popularity of Instagram is increasing with the Facebook account.
If anyone can tell me what the point of Facebook is, drop me a note, I’d love to hear it. And please don’t tell me it’s a great place to keep in touch with friends. I did that just fine before Facebook, and I do it just fine now, despite not having logged in to my account there in over a year. Who needs it?
