Tuesday, June 12, 2007

More Addictive than Crack Cocaine

Facebook. Have you heard of it yet? Chances are either you have already joined or you have had a hundred emails from people inviting you to join. Honestly I really don't know whether or not to tell you to join up or to “Run. Run and never look back!” A friend 'invited me to join' a couple of months ago. I was thinking, “What is this? I have to join some group to look at pictures of her new baby?” But I did it anyway. And I thought I'd never use it. And I didn't at first. I'm not sure when I went overboard but I finally started to see it's merits. Randomly typing in people's names and finding them. Requesting that they 'be my friend'. Then people started to find me. Then it was all over before the end of the first round.

I'm not sure I can properly explain what it is and how it works. You have your own facebook page on which you can put as much or as little information about yourself as you like. You can upload pictures and make albums which your friends are able to peruse and make comments on if they like. You have a 'wall' which is viewable to anyone who can see you page. This is where people leave comments for you like “Hey! How's it going? I haven't seen you in forever!!” Another cool feature is that you can send a message to your friends, which is basically an email sent through the facebook program. If the friend you are sending the message to happens to be on their facebook page at the time they will get it immediately and possibly send a message right back which then makes it a lot like instant messaging which is also cool. You also get updates on what your friends are doing and any pictures they upload. Am I selling this?

Why you ask? The only thing I can say is that seeing my friends faces filter through my friend display window makes me think “Hey! Look, it's so and so. I should really send them a message.” So in a way, it forces you to be a good friend and keep in touch. And makes it more convenient to do so.

You know what I think would be really cool? If all of my good bloggy friends (you know who you are!) who know me and know I'm not actually a 50 year old man posing as a young mother to talk to other young moms, would sign up for facebook and be my 'friend's. That way I could keep in even better touch with you. We could possibly get to know each other even better, although that's hard to imagine since I write way more personal stuff on my blog than I do on my facebook. So if you're interested just send me an email about it. Come on. If you have a blog you're pretty much a computer geek already. The next step is to get on facebook.

4 comments:

Stephanie Wilson she/her @babysteph said...

This is so funny because I did join, but have not done a thing to my profile. In the past few days I've gotten SO MANY requests from friends and such- you're right... it's addicting. I just haven't dabbled in it enough yet!

Steph

Anonymous said...

How is it different than MySpace? I'll check it out . . .

mamashine said...

The last time I heard anything about it, it was only open to college students. I guess they're letting anyone who wants one have a page now?

I do have a myspace page. That's pretty addictive as well.

jen k said...

oh Dawn, i am so addicted to Facebook...i forced my hubby to join,just so i could have one more friend...well not for that alone..i'm curoius to see who his friends will be.