Refelections on Facebook

I am now three months into a new adventure. It is something like being on a long holiday with new discoveries each day – new tombs of kings, new tourist traps, new sideshows and all the trappings of a new country to discover. I have been on Facebook now for three whole months. Wow! It seems like a life time already.

In a recent Time Magazine commentary, Joel Stein stated the following….
“In the pre-internet days, neither of us would have even thought of calling each other friends. We'd have called ourselves friends of friends who met once and yet, for some reason, kept sending each other grammatically challenged, inappropriately flirty letters with photos of ourselves attached. Police might have gotten involved.”

The commentary is entitled “You are not my friend.” When I read the title my first reaction was – ‘That is a little harsh…’ But when I read all of it I had to agree with most of what he said.

Joel states again…
“This is hard to say to a friend, but our relationship is starting to take up too much of my time. It's weird that I know more about you than I do about actual friends I hang out with in person--whom I propose we distinguish by calling "non-metafriends." In fact, I know more about you than I know about myself. I have no idea what my favorite movie or song or TV show is. Last I checked, they all involved Muppets.”

Now I believe in Evolution….Facebook has spawned two new categories – “non-metafriends” vs “metafriends”. The Facebook friends are different from my “non-metafriends”. I agree – I now can no more about people that I don’t know than people that I do know personally – but don’t really know. I can know them better by not knowing them personally and feel good about not knowing them even though I know more about them if I had met them personally.

I have taken a great deal of time reading over other people’s list of friends. I can listen in to their conversations and read what someone I have never known writes on their Wall…by doing that I have met two new friends that I do not know… and still do not know after reading what they have said to each other…yet they can be my friends.

In the old days if I walked into a “party” like this… it would take me less than fifteen minutes to declare that this is the biggest bunch of “flakes” that I have ever met. Everyone in those old party scenes were smiling, drinking and saying nothing. In Facebook I am not sure if they are smiling, drinking or doing whatever… I am not even sure if it is their real photo because there are no rules on that one… yet that is like the old party scene too… you were never sure of the real person that was on the inside of the person that was talking.

It seems we have come so far from the Garden of Eden experience…where everything was perfect and wonderful. The people that God placed there were perfect and were instructed by God to enjoy it all. Then the lady deceived her hubby into trying some cool new fruit… because of a deception… and they ate some together. The rest is history as they say. The “Fall of Mankind” as we know it was based on a deception and some bad decisions mixed with disobedience. “People that had too much time on their hands can get into trouble…” – is another way to look at it all.

I have found that in my third month, growing my friendship list in Facebook… I need time to search for old friends, answer messages from old friends and “talk to” my new friends. It takes about double the time to checking my emails. First I get an email that tells me that my friend in Facebook has sent me a message… then I click out of my email to enter Facebook… where I now sort through my new Inbox in Facebook where my new messages are waiting for me to respond to….

Facebook has doubled my time if not tripled my time on the computer. And I am not on it near as much as others are… but I get up an hour earlier to check who wants to be my friend and if any or my friends want to talk to me…. It is a bad day when no one clicks into my metalife…. I am getting depressed just thinking that no one will be there today for me.

I gotta get a life back….

What is really funny… I think it is anyway… I have discovered that husbands and wives each have their own Facebook profile and are communicating to each other via this mode. They are commenting on their photographs that they each have sent independently to each other… from the same computer… or another computer in the same house! It is good that they are on each other’s Facebook list of friends… but come on…. A Facebook relationship in a marriage…. I can understand if it is across the country and after many years… but if you have slept in the same bed last night… why not talk in the morning – one to one – to each other over breakfast?

But we seem to have a great need to talk to each other so others will hear what we say to people that we haven’t seen for years – have just met – or really don’t know.

It is one great big flaky party from the 1960s.

I have discovered some of the following as I use Facebook…

• Relatives that I have been together with for years are now my friends…wow too cool – that is way cheaper than a long airplane trip to a remote place with a mosquito infested family reunion…


• Old guys like me with or without their hair… without or with hair colouring in…


• Old guys don’t have as many “Facebook friends” as young guys do…. where can I get more friends at 63 years old?


• Most of your 63 year old friends from the past do not yet know how to use a silly computer…or are scared spitless to try…


• There is a status thingie to having more friends for some of my new friends on Facebook…


• I have a status thing growing in me to have more friends… this is really like the old days of DXing radio call signals from old Ham Radio operators. After you connected to the Radio person… they would send you a DXer card which you kept on your wall to declare how efficient and lucky you were to have gotten the signal….


• You guys and gals about 20 something have lots of friends… but not as many as 40 something guys and gals…


• Guys usually have more “friends” than gals do…


• What guys are saying is usually less profound and caring than what they girls are saying on Facebook…


• Girls are more perceptive that others may be “listening” to what is being said… guys don’t care and will “talk louder” to let others hear…


• I have heard some wonderful stories that are supportive and encouraging to each person involved…good things are happening in some small places…It is a wonderful tool to do some great things…


• I am learning something new each day….

Now I have to go outside and rake some leaves, cut some grass and maybe do something to help my neighbour – who is my new friend. If I get time today to check my emails and Facebook I will… but I gotta get a life.

~ Pastor Murray Lincoln ~

Time Magazine Commentary Article... You are not my friend” by Joel Stein http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1668441,00.html