The aftershock hit me in a matter of minutes - two text messages asking me if I was serious. I don't say that to toot my own horn, but instead to comment on how integrated social activity is with that website.
What I quote next should not be taken as a value judgement of the participation of others on Facebook. I was highly involved for many years, and know what fun and happiness can come out of it, but I just don't think it's for me anymore.
"When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose our bodies, our messy feelings, our desires, our fears."
- Zadie SmithI am not so naive that I think that people who interact with me in real space don't also reduce me, as I reduce them, by dress, gender, class, mannerisms, race and geographic origin. However, if we become friends we are inherently moving out of this world of reductionism. On Facebook, I can be "friends" with someone for years and only harden their reduced understanding of who I am. Indeed were I to try to provide more and more context for a comment or post I just made the value and interest in that post would fall of a cliff. No thanks.
Oh, and if you would like to make value judgements on current users of Facebook please follow this link.
And this shit is just creepy:
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