Facing Up To It (One Site Fits All)

"I don't wanna know what kind of cocktail you are or which member of the Beatles or which 1950's movie star. I don't give a toss if you're a ninja or a pirate, I'd suspect you'd be a pirate but I don't wanna verify it. and I don't give a shit what your stripper name is or if your Kitty had a litter.." - from the song by Kate Miller-Heidke - "You Wanna Be My Friend on Facebook"

"A quick, optional way to organize friends so you can control what you see in your News Feed and post updates to specific people. We won't tell your friends if you add them to these three new lists." - from Facebook's "What are Lists?"

I "shared" the photo on the left on Facebook today. Someone else posted it first of course. Perhaps it was reposted many many times, but eventually it showed up on my "wall".

I don't even remember his name of the person who posted it just before I saw it, though his name was displayed. I didn't know him anyway. Someone else, someone who I DO know, well "sort of know", had re-posted it. I say, "sort of" because the friend who re-posted it, is someone I have never met. I know who he is though. I came across him originally on the members' section http://www.australiansabroad.com in its heyday.

I liked the photographed "definitions, so I "shared" them - it took only a seconds AND - there's the rub ...

I didn't even have to THINK. Once, when cyber social networking was yet to become "generic", when one site didn't fit all, pre-Facebook. Back in the old days, whenever I came across something I found amusing or interesting, I'd think, "Hey John would like that", and I'd send it off in an email. I might even add Betty. The thing is, I would THINK. And people would send me stuff. And we'd all get to know what each other liked and our lives would be individually richer.

Nowadays I don't need to bother thinking who would like what. I just post it on my Facebook wall and it they want it, they can come and get it. If not, I'm easy!

Now, I'm not an anti-Facebook person. Really I'm not. I don't contribute much with Twitter, but I look at it a few times a day. Twitter and Facebook have functions. It's all net and no work. You can disseminate all sorts of stuff, literally at the click of a button.

A lot of the stuff that gets disseminated is rubbish, and a lot is a load of hogwash. But sometimes something funny strikes my eye and I pass it on to a group of people - a broad group comprised of people who range from family and friends, to acquaintances both real and cyber. A group of people who I could not even list, unless I was logged on to Facebook. An amorphous mass of people who have cybered their way into being my Facebook friends.

Nevertheless, I feel I have to say nice things about Facebook as I don't take kindly to Luddites. Some of my best friends are Luddites! Even some of my Facebook friends are Luddites ... Even Luddites have to move with the times.

An Old Fashioned Lady - DUMBO Festival, New York

Times change. I'm ALMOST old enough to remember (joke Joyce) when ladies went visiting and left "cards" with the maids. This was before there were telephones. I imagine that when telephones came on the scene people despaired of the direction they imagioned society was headed. "No one will VISIT anymore," they'd cry. "We will just know people by their VOICES!"

So it is just plain silly to decry products like Facebook.

No one forces you to use the telephone, or Facebook. Or eBooks. Interestingly, while eBooks are sounding the death knoll for dead tree books, the telephone has yet to be replaced by cyber social networks and email. Most likely because phones now incorporate both.

I hate to beat a dead tree, but for those people like the ones I wrote about in Yes to Scrolls, No to Codex, those people who claim they love the smell of paper and the feel of turning a page - I just wonder, how often do they really actually sniff and feel their books? And do they use abacuses instead of calculators.

And more important, when they see something interesting do they actually THINK about who else might like it and email it? Or like me, do they just re-post it for all and sundry to see should they care to do so?

A little while back I noticed you could have the category "close friends" and "restricted" as well as "family" people on Facebook. I started to diligently go through everyone I had in my Facebook, categorizing them according to "close friend", "family" and "acquaintances".
But I soon gave up on categorizing everyone. I felt mean demoting some people to just "acquaintances".

Easier to lump all of 'em together and let them look at my wall!

Another social nicety bites the dust.