Much Ado about nothing
ARI HANSON IS COULD CARE LESS
“Hey Mary — what’s up?”
“Oh, not too much, John. I have so much stuff to do tonight, but I’m just checking out Facebook right now. My first paper of the year is due tomorrow, dinner’s probably burning in the oven, and if I don’t get to work in an hour I’ll totally get fired again. But Kristy just put up like 50 pics from her party last night and they need tagging, like, ASAP!!!”
You’d think most normal people would see the humour in that conversation and realize it’s meant to be a warped and twisted joke. Unfortunately, though, if the rising popularity of Internet networking site Facebook.com is any indication, we sure are a lot dumber than we think.
The essentially pointless pastime has enveloped university campuses the world over with more procrastination than anyone should ever have to deal with. Every day, thousands more students hop on the bandwagon of popularity and join the cult-like masses of Facebook members, constantly trying to make more and more obscure connections with people who forgot about them years ago (putting aside the fact that there was probably a good reason why they lost touch with these so-called friends in favour of the “Whoa, I haven’t seen you in so long!” surprise factor).
Facebook, or Crackbook (as it’s been affectionately named by many of its loyal supporters) truly does cause substance-like addictions in many people who sign up. Who’d even want to think about doing anything useful with their time when they could read about what everyone else is doing instead?
Trouble is, the more you get into the bland third-person world of Facebook, the less time you have to actually do anything interesting enough to be worth posting about. This proves to be an interesting and thought-provoking paradox. Oh, who am I kidding — it’s almost as stupid as, “Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even He couldn’t eat it?” Only if I were addicted to some substance other than Facebook would I continue writing about it. But let’s just say this — is it not ironic that an activity causing students to spend huge amounts of their time indoors in front of a computer screen and unable to make direct face-to-face contact with others is called Facebook?
Like any other trend, this one does have its nay-sayers. Most people (yours truly included) eventually get roped into it by friends with arguments like, “There are so many great pictures of us from that night at (insert random party here),” or “It would be so much easier to organize things with you.” Like throwing small change at a street urchin to keep him out of your personal space or casting a calm smile towards a local proselytizer (but walking away from them really quickly all the while), many will join Facebook.com simply to appease their friends who’ve already been bitten with the bug. Eventually, though, the reluctant converts go from being strong dissenters to some of the most hard-core Facebookers out there; at least it seems like someone has finally found another use for all the neat tricks the Moonies came up with.
Last, but not least, is the most infected group of all; you don’t run into them often, but when you do, boy, you’d better beware. These fiends are like vampires, trying to suck all the juiciest gossip out of people without actually immersing themselves in the gooey bloodbath of the rumour mill. Facebook-whores, as I like to call them, remain completely anti-Facebook on the surface and refuse to get an account of their own, but beg their friends for access to their accounts so that they can “creep” on friends and enemies alike (uh oh, I just used the words “Facebook” and “creep” in the same sentence — being in commerce, I should probably end this article soon if I know what’s good for me).
So, now that I’ve tried to shed some light on the problem, you’re probably all asking the same thing—what’s the answer? Can we find redemption in an end to this yellow brick road of wasted time, or is Facebook just the computerized version of the age-old gossip monster rearing its ugly head in yet another generation?
