Facebook, I Loathe Thee

I just couldn’t stand it anymore: I needed to see it from the inside. The average Facebook user seems to be reluctantly addicted. It is something like: “Yes, I’m on Facebook. I check it thirty times a day and I hate it but I keep coming back.”

In an emergency situation, they say the first 48-hours are the most crucial time to respond to the event. In this case, while severe addiction may qualify as an “emergency situation,” the first 48-hours have definitely been telling. Some things I’ve observed:

– Other users (they call them “friends”) are very happy that you’ve joined. Lots of jubilation is expressed via yaaays, whoo-hoos, horrays and some hurrahs.
– This jubilation is coupled, however, with a sort of razing. Phrases like “you caved,” “welcome to the dark side,” “welcome to the greatest waste of time on the internet,” “it was just a matter of time,” or even “ha ha ha,” are used to express the apparent joy shared by the community.
– Where are the British people? Are there only North Americans on Facebook? Or is my community just too Canada-centric to connect internationally?
– What a gross waste of time.

Anyhow, the up side is that I can play fake Scrabble with my sister and spend hours looking at class photos from the 80’s and 90’s. I had some good laffs and ohmigod! moments, which has made it worth while.

I know, I know: I’ve expressed my disdain for Facebook before. My foray into social networking started with a turn-of-the-millenium stint on Friendster, which I aborted abruptly one day. And I fear the same fate for Facebook. I only got into MySpace for The Dears, and I’m kind of only getting into Facebook for the same reason.

Only time will tell…lots and lots of poorly allocated, lonely and wasted time with my laptop.