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In the ivory towers of imagination we can think that by facilitating a means to an end then the ends should be both clearer and nearly inevitable. However, it would seem that there are cases where this is not so!
Facebook has managed to evolve into a system where nearly all the functions found on the internet already have been combined. Here is a list of features that you can get access to via Facebook along with their non-Facebook counterparts: messaging (general e-mail), instant messaging (AIM, MSN, gChat, etc), blogging (WordPress, Tumblr), microblogging (Twitter), photo and video repository (Flickr, YouTube), games (while this phenomenon is more isolated to Facebook it would be childish to think that it could not be made available via websites), etc.
I understand that this Facebook technology makes a virtual mall where all things are tied together but at the same time I have a feeling that it also feeds into a bad social situation that I can’t put my finger on. How many of us have simply stalked the profiles of random friends for our own entertainment? How many folks have gotten into unnecessary trouble of a variety of kinds because of a foolish post? While it is certainly more convenient we also lose a some intangible quality of life along the way. In some senses it has become the Walmart of the internet!
Consider this, how many folks should see my pictures? Only the people I would want to have access to them, correct? Now this would be the case on Flickr as well but at least you would likely have less irrelevant friends on Flickr as opposed to the glob of unfamiliar folks on Facebook and therefore it would be less to manage. Also, Flickr is specialized to images so you wouldn’t have to watch your high fidelity photos get wedged down to easy to download resolutions making Flickr a more ideal medium for backing up your digital photo album. At the expense of the swiss army knife of Facebook you get a tool-belt of which ever combination of tools you like. Just want to share and/or watch videos? YouTube is your best bet though there are more than plenty of alternatives.
In any case this is simply pointing out the benefit of pulling back from the ultra “cyber-life” found in Facebook to a more moderate cyber-life you would have if you simply stuck to the other mediums. In the end I think that the cyber-life in general has simply diminished the significance of our REAL lives. Yes, our lives have expanded but it seems like they’ve really just been spread thin. I talk with folks that I normally never would but does that mean my life has been enriched because of it? (Analogy alert!) It’s like saying, “Gee, I love this dark chocolate! Instead of having one at the end of the day I’ll just sprinkle it over everything I have throughout the day!” A few days later you realize that some things don’t taste as good as they used to and you STILL WISH YOU HAD A FUCKING CHOCOLATE!
When XBox first came out (not the 360, the FIRST one) my friends and I used to spend hours battling it out in Halo. Phrases like, “If only we could play this from our houses so we can each have our own screen” was a common place but we should have been careful what we wished for… Eventually (if not inevitably) we got our wish and we spent less time together. Yeah, we could hear our voices over headsets but was it the same? Could we take a break and maybe put on a show or step outside or whatever? Nope.
I miss my friends in Orlando. I wish my sister and I would spend more time together. I’d like to play games with friends who are too far to come by or visit. It would be sweet to get to know the girl of my dreams who might be there but is just out of my circle of people. Unfortunately though technologies such as online gaming, dating, socializing, etc provide only a flimsy facsimile of that and it’s only served to remind me that there’s nothing it can do to fix that. In fact most of the time it only reminds me that I can’t.
But this is just my perspective and maybe I’m either alone or a dying breed. Maybe both.
