Late one night, I heard my son get out of bed and head downstairs. He said he’d forgotten to harvest his crops. Huh? He wasn’t sleepwalking and he wasn’t talking about our garden, because we don’t have one –even during the gardening season. Ah. Facebook. Actually, Farmville, a game on Facebook.
And that’s when I knew the world had changed. Everyone else has known it for a long time. And by everyone, I mean the 500 million Facebook users around the globe. If you aren’t one of them, I completely understand. I’ve never been one to jump on a bandwagon quickly either. But this is a really big bandwagon.
If Facebook were a country instead of a bandwagon, it would be the fifth-largest country in the world. Its citizens would eat virtual cabbages and live in little virtual huts on Farmville. Unfortunately, it would have very low gross domestic product, because its inhabitants would sit at their computers all day typing things like “I hate this weather.” “Me too.” And “I’m doing laundry.” “Have fun with that.”
My son has lost interest in Farmville and Facebook. I’m sure his crops have withered and died and his farm is probably grown over with little virtual weeds. Meanwhile, I’m making Facebook friends right and left and I’m even letting them write on my wall, which I never used to do. Before you get concerned, let me explain. The “wall” refers to the place where my friends can write me personal messages without all 500 million other users reading them.
At first, I was confused. What does it mean that someone wants to be my friend on Facebook? Will they add me to their Christmas card list? Give me birthday presents? Invite me to lunch, which is one of my favorite things to do with friends.
But friendship is different in the land of Facebook. In the old country, a friend was someone you could depend on; tell your deepest thoughts to, trusting they wouldn’t tell 500 million other people. In the land of Facebook, you tell the 500 million other people yourself.
In the old country, a friend was someone who would pick you up at the airport. Or, you’ve heard the saying, “Friends help you move; real friends help you move bodies.” I think a lot of my Facebook friends would pick up me up at the airport; though they might be a little surprised I asked them to. Fewer of them would help me move. And I can’t think of a single one who would help me move bodies. Of course, if I’m ever in a position to need that kind of help, I probably shouldn’t mention it on Facebook.
In some ways, friendship on Facebook is a little like it was back in junior high. Lots of people have way more friends than I do. Ouch! And friends can unfriend me just like that. Nobody has yet, maybe because I haven’t asked them to help me move.
On the other hand, people aren’t as choosy about friends as they were back in junior high, probably because they know they’ll never be seen together in the lunch room. You could have hundreds of friends on Facebook, from people you see every day at work to people you wouldn’t recognize if they said hello on the street.
Occasionally one of my friends shares something that makes me hope for his sake he won’t be looking for a job anytime soon. And sometimes one posts something that, later on, I just know we’ll all think of as a warning sign we missed. (Friend, you know who you are.)
But generally, when I sit down at my computer, Facebook is a pleasant way to get out of doing actual work. It’s a fun country to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Contact drosby@rushmore.com or see www.dorothyrosby.com.
