I Miss the Old Facebook

Remember when Facebook was just for you and your college friends? When you would just poke your friends or send drunken wall comments at 3am? Maybe 'friend' the people you met at a party for about 5 minutes before leaving to go puke behind a Ford Taurus?

I miss that.

I am guilty of 80% of the following, so please put the hypocrisy comments on the shelf and indulge me for a minute. The new Facebook. Where do I begin? Now you got people from all over getting Facebook accounts. Your parents. Your boss. Your younger sibling that just went into middle school. Stalkers, pedophiles, and the like. The walls have come down. Facebook is the new MySpace. And I hate it. Now you can become a "fan" of something- pizza, a congressman, algebra, pro-life rallys, etc. Now you can write up your "Random 25" list and tag all your friends so they can read what personal things you put on your profile. Now you can upload applications to your profile that show your favorite sports team's schedule, or what kind of alcohol you like to drink.

One thing that has been bothering me is the use of the Facebook "notes" as a digital soapbox for all to read. It's a new kind of passive aggression where people can write about their deepest beliefs, almost begging for people to challenge them in an online spar of wits. You'll notice these are the people - were it not for things like Facebook - that you'd have no clue they even had things that got them so agitated. I'm not knocking Amendment Numero Uno at all. It's just that people are now able to spew whatever grieves them onto their friends' newsfeed.

Oh and that Facebook newsfeed is the worst. No, I don't care who just split up or who commented on somebody's photo. What's that- oh look somebody just sent me a virtual beer. At least you're able to turn off all these notifications. If I couldn't do that, I'd probably go insane.

I guess my point is that Facebook has turned the meaningless and trivial into a big deal. People are hooked into knowing every new detail about a friend's life. And that's absurd, because most of us have people on our friend list that we have no idea as to who they are or how you even met. I read that social networking sites are responsible for about $8 billion in lost productivity. Maybe that's why my company finally blocked access to it. What I'm trying to say is, that if something is important, you'd find a better way to communicate your ideas. Maybe have a real discussion with a real friend. Maybe write a penpal an actual letter. Maybe pick up the phone and call someone (no texting). Or if you don't have friends, maybe it's because nobody wants to hear what you have to say. And the only way for people to hear it is to write something that pops up in their newsfeed. But that's just me, I could be wrong.