Another Facebook Update

Just a quick update on the Great Facebook Experiment:

- I now have 112 friends

- The first girl I ever had a crush on has found me. Too bad she’s married…

- What am I supposed to do when somebody buys me online drinks? WHat the hell is a Lil Green Patch? And I don’t even want to know about “kidnapping” or “poking”.

Seriously folks - exchaging vacation pictures is one thing, but sending imaginary farm animals to someone crosses a whole new line…

Just Another Face In The Crowd

One friend said it’s like Internet crack, and I’m afraid she may be right.  My name is Chris, and I am a new Facebook addict.

I’m hoping the feeling will pass soon, but for now I can’t wait to see who my new friends are, what old high school classmates look like now and who is going to write on my wall.

My favorite feature so far are the status updates. By far the coolest updates are from a friend who is a missionary in France. He posts things like “I’m packing for a trip to Basque country.”  I also like all the applications you can add to your page. I’ve just gotten started, so I know there is much to explore.

I know I’m a little late getting on the Facebook train, but better late than never.

Like all things in Internet land, there are good and bad things about being on Facebook. Be sure to check out the privacy options and set them at the level you are comfortable with.  It’s great to find people you want to be in touch with, but not so great to find those you don’t.

Facebook is the personification of 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon/Separation. It is amazing how interconnected we all are, and what a genius idea to link us in this way.

 

 

 

What is a “Friend”?

So, as part of the grand experimment in social networking, I’ve been on Facebook for over a week. I have 32 “friends”. Some of those people have over a hundred Facebook friends. I know for a fact that hese people aren’t nearly that popular away from their PC.

In the “real” world, friend is not a term I throw around lightly. Friendship implies trust, camaraderie, shared interests and ideals. A friend is someone you want to spend time with. Someone you can count on when you need them. Somebody you could ask when you need a ride to the airport (OK - some friends believe that the airport run goes beyond the bounds of friendship). In the real world, if you asked me how many friends I have - not acquaintances, not poker buddies - actual friends - I’m pretty sure the final count would come in well under my 32 Facebook friends -and the Facebook friend requests are still pouring in. I should hit 50 by the end of the week. Because of Facebook is the word Friend losing it’s value?

Of my gang of 32, I initiated 4 - and those were nieces and nephews with whom I actually would like to stay in closer contact. Beyond that - some folks who reached out to me included my sisters, close friends and a few business acquaintances.

Then it gets interesting - I did indeed hear from first and second cousins. A high school acquaintance I have not been in touch with since the day we graduated. A friend of my nieces. My buddy’s ex-wife. A former co-worker who had moved to Costa Rica (and I’d never noticed!). I was invited, by someone I’d met twice in Nassau, to join a Facebook group for Bahamas Local Businessmen. Huh?

And the one-line status updates continue to baffle me. People are “drinking beer”, “getting excited about the weekend”, “torturing my cat” and the very post-modern, self-referential “checking my Facebook”. Stay tuned for more breaking news - someone may water their plants…

The Great Social Experiment

Ok - I know I’ve been slacking on the blog updates. Sorry about that. But I’m back.

And to start us back up, I’m venturing into the world of “social networking“. Yes, at long last, I will have a Facebook page!

You might be wondering what the big deal is. Why wouldn’t I have had a Facebook page already? I’d actually registered a year or two back - just to see what was going on, but had never even filled in my profile. There are a few reasons that I held out this long:

The “Ick” Factor- For the longest time, I still thought of Facebook as a place for high school and college kids. When they fisrt started Facebook, you couldn’t even join unless you were a student with a “.edu” email address to prove it.  That was still my perception. And and when I heard my contemporaries talking about having a Facebook page, I still thought that a middle-aged guy with a Facebook page would make me look like a creepy schoolyard stalker.

I Have Enough Friends - I kept hearing stories about rediscovering people from you past. My 50-something sister re-connected with high school friends from over 30 years ago. People found friends who had moved or relatives they’d lost touch with. Maybe it’s just me, but I already stay in touch with the people I want to keep in my life. I have no room for re-adding old friends and do I really need to exchange photos with third cousins that I haven’t seen since my bar mitzvah?

What Do I Do When I Get There? - OK - so I put up a page, post a picture of myself and tell a bit about my life. And swarms of friends, relatives and kindred souls find me. Now what? If you weren’t invited to my Labor Day BBQ, why would you want to see pictures of it? There’s the Twitter-like “What I’m Doing Now” function, but again, if you haven’t seen me in 20 years, do you care that I just got back from the liquor store? (Of course, if you’ve known me that long, you’d know that a trip to the liquor store isn’t really breaking news…)

So, despite my reservations, I put up a page, responded to the long-ignored “friend” invites and lit the fuse. The invites have already started to pour in. So we’ll go through this together. We’ll look at who found me, try and figure out how they found me, why they reached out and maybe you can help me figure out what to do now that I’m “connected” to these people…