Why I love Facebook and you should too...

Obviously my blog has been shamelessly neglected. Even though I do find a lot of time just sitting here and waiting to get better, it is relatively hard to have coherent thoughts on valium. But that is not the whole story. I have been cheating on my blog and have spent my time on Facebook. I don't even recall why I did sign up, I just did and in no time got a good roster of friends. Being kind of glued to my back chair, I have spent hours on Facebook and have also pondered the question that is looming inquiring about it's popularity.

There are several reasons why I like Facebook so much. The most obvious is that it is social networking. I used to think that social networking websites are a very sad occurrence of modern life, leaving us even more isolated and contributing to the artificial and superficial components of our life. I have learned quickly that it is not so. I have been way more in touch with people that live around the corner than previously. But I have also reconnected with people in Pennsylvania, California and Germany. Of course I could have just send them a letter or an email, but after years, that is something that is just being put off. It is also very tedious to write many letters about all the same. And when I run into another mom at pick-up time at school, I am not going to tell her something like: "Hey my friend said this to me and then I bought a cookbook and did not want to get up this morning and my throat hurts and did you know I beat somebody at scrabble and then with a glass of wine watched American Idol."

Facebook allows me to participate in the little things of other people's life and vice versa. I do not only directly connect to people, I see their interactions with others and therefore get a much broader view of the web aspect than under conventional circumstances. When I signed up for twitter a few weeks ago and linked it to my blog, I had meant it as an experiment. I was and I still am uncertain of my opinion. Somebody wrote a great essay about it and that it seems so silly that people share these completely inane and uninteresting daily life facts. Even thought fascinated, I did agree with that at first and then it occurred to me within the last days,that this is where the strength is. It is not the extravagant and out of the ordinary things, it is the everyday life of all of us.

When we used to live more communal, with extended family around us and in close contact with our neighbors, everybody kind of knew what everybody was up to and that got completely lost with our modern life styles. This sense of community is brought back by facebook, I get the little details of friends and their friends and I can comment and they can comment. Where twitter is a one-dimensional one task network, Facebook allows about everything. I can play scrabble with my sister in law, or all sort of other games with other friends or play solo, trying to beat their scores. I can send messages, I can see other peoples messages, there are notes and links and tags and photos and videos and fan groups - so just about everything one could think of. It just wraps everything in one and makes it easy for people to be inside the network.

So yes, I am addicted, because I am shown that we all have an interest in each other and that we all care. In this sense Facebook does not isolate us more by only virtually pretending to be linked in, it actually does it. This puts communication on a different level that any other communication outside of really sitting at the kitchen table together, which is not possible with the way we live scattered all over the world.

The only issue I have is with the people that are not on Facebook. They are missing out, they will not know that I bought a Tapas cookbook and that I just beat Sophie at Carcarssonne.