There’s a line in the sand for every generation, an entry point to new technology that a few of its most recalcitrant members refuse to cross. Believe it or not, there remain a few computer naysayers out there somewhere; and there probably always will be those who want to remain loyal to the low-tech typewriter and its clackety-clack touch; David Mamet, among other prominent typists of our time, still stands firm against the computer and its evils. Others rail against BlackBerrys and cell phones and Instant Messaging for their imposition on our privacy. But these scattered holdouts have no hope of blocking progress; as the rise of the machines continues unabated, they’ll only have more shiny toys to boycott and avoid.
Interestingly, though, even those most resistant to change have found fun in the Internet’s newest plaything—Facebook, the social networking site that functions as a way to counteract the isolating aspects of the Internet. With its easy-to-use format and its myriad opportunities to play, millions of all ages have given in to the website that didn’t even exist only a few years ago. They love the way it connects them to long-lost friends, the chance it gives to showcase their cleverness, and the fun it provides in reliving the popularity contests of our days in school. How many friends can I make? Do I have more friends than my friends have? Who wants to be my friend, and who wants me to be theirs? These questions now shape the experience of anyone who has signed up for a Facebook account.
But as with any new technology, Facebook has already become inadequate to the needs of its most devoted users. Yes, it offered a way to provide a member’s social network with a status report update—“What are you doing right now?” the site probes gently of every user—but how many members of a social network check their Facebook page more than once a day or two? For Facebook addicts there quickly grew a need to more frequently update those who found their funny comments a necessary part of their Internet experience. And so, before long, social networkers added other ways to widen their influence: They sent their friends YouTube videos, Flickr photos and MySpace music links.
And it was good; but it still wasn’t enough.
The birth of Twitter took care of those who simply couldn’t restrain themselves; they had so much to repeat and report that they needed a way to reach out to their social network on a minute-to-minute basis. Now we have Twitterers who have “Followers”—members of their social network who must know, want to know or have no choice but to know the updates several times a day on what their friends, think, do and feel. Twitter takes its user inside the mind of its content provider; with it, you get Twittered on that strange dude just seen on the corner of Bleecker and Seventh Avenue South, or a delay just experienced on the R train, or the numbness of a just-Novocained mouth. It’s too much information for some and not enough for others—a shaky bridge between the Facebook update and a total mind-meld.
The advent of FriendFeed—the aggregation site devised by some of the folks who brought us Gmail, the brilliantly intuitive email system that now dominates our daily lives, strongly suggests that for Twitterers and Facebook fiends, there’s no limit to the information the Internet can provide. FriendFeed puts together, in one place, the multiple methods we now have at our disposal to share our tastes, our passions and our thoughts. With FriendFeed our social circle can instantaneously have access to our favorite YouTube videos, Flickr photos and MySpace music—not to mention our updates and status reports. While this may seem hellish to most of us who relish our relative privacy, thousands have already signed on for the privilege of using this over-sharing mechanism, available free of charge to all comers.
This isn’t a call to arms against Facebook and its ilk. For me, Facebook has a pleasant, endearing aspect—it liberates those who might not approach a stranger at a cocktail party to form a friendship nonetheless. People find former lovers and long-lost friends on the user-friendly and attractive website, and they laugh at the witty updates of their goofy pals. Sure, there’s tension and oddness in the broadening of the term “friend” to include people you’ve never met or even heard of—I now have 384 friends on Facebook, most of whom I barely know—but so what? Maybe that’s a good thing for those of us who, after a certain point, close ourselves off to the possibility of new relationships and fresh faces in our lives. People who have hundreds of friends on Facebook aren’t much different from those we knew in college who threw open their apartments to host parties for everyone in sight.
Who knows? Maybe in a decade, no one will mind the idea of information about our every thought being transmitted electronically to everyone we know. Right now it seems scary and weird, but wasn’t there a time that cell phones made us feel over-wired? It’s easy to let our Luddite tendencies overwhelm us and lead us to think those on the cutting edge of technology have got some sort of neurotic obsession that needs a cure. Facebook took a while to catch on; so did cell phones, so did email, so did laptops and software and floppy disks and modems and faxes and IBM Selectrics. It’s worth reminding ourselves that at the core of all these changes lies the enduring and invaluable bond of friendship.
Interestingly, though, even those most resistant to change have found fun in the Internet’s newest plaything—Facebook, the social networking site that functions as a way to counteract the isolating aspects of the Internet. With its easy-to-use format and its myriad opportunities to play, millions of all ages have given in to the website that didn’t even exist only a few years ago. They love the way it connects them to long-lost friends, the chance it gives to showcase their cleverness, and the fun it provides in reliving the popularity contests of our days in school. How many friends can I make? Do I have more friends than my friends have? Who wants to be my friend, and who wants me to be theirs? These questions now shape the experience of anyone who has signed up for a Facebook account.
But as with any new technology, Facebook has already become inadequate to the needs of its most devoted users. Yes, it offered a way to provide a member’s social network with a status report update—“What are you doing right now?” the site probes gently of every user—but how many members of a social network check their Facebook page more than once a day or two? For Facebook addicts there quickly grew a need to more frequently update those who found their funny comments a necessary part of their Internet experience. And so, before long, social networkers added other ways to widen their influence: They sent their friends YouTube videos, Flickr photos and MySpace music links.
And it was good; but it still wasn’t enough.
The birth of Twitter took care of those who simply couldn’t restrain themselves; they had so much to repeat and report that they needed a way to reach out to their social network on a minute-to-minute basis. Now we have Twitterers who have “Followers”—members of their social network who must know, want to know or have no choice but to know the updates several times a day on what their friends, think, do and feel. Twitter takes its user inside the mind of its content provider; with it, you get Twittered on that strange dude just seen on the corner of Bleecker and Seventh Avenue South, or a delay just experienced on the R train, or the numbness of a just-Novocained mouth. It’s too much information for some and not enough for others—a shaky bridge between the Facebook update and a total mind-meld.
The advent of FriendFeed—the aggregation site devised by some of the folks who brought us Gmail, the brilliantly intuitive email system that now dominates our daily lives, strongly suggests that for Twitterers and Facebook fiends, there’s no limit to the information the Internet can provide. FriendFeed puts together, in one place, the multiple methods we now have at our disposal to share our tastes, our passions and our thoughts. With FriendFeed our social circle can instantaneously have access to our favorite YouTube videos, Flickr photos and MySpace music—not to mention our updates and status reports. While this may seem hellish to most of us who relish our relative privacy, thousands have already signed on for the privilege of using this over-sharing mechanism, available free of charge to all comers.
This isn’t a call to arms against Facebook and its ilk. For me, Facebook has a pleasant, endearing aspect—it liberates those who might not approach a stranger at a cocktail party to form a friendship nonetheless. People find former lovers and long-lost friends on the user-friendly and attractive website, and they laugh at the witty updates of their goofy pals. Sure, there’s tension and oddness in the broadening of the term “friend” to include people you’ve never met or even heard of—I now have 384 friends on Facebook, most of whom I barely know—but so what? Maybe that’s a good thing for those of us who, after a certain point, close ourselves off to the possibility of new relationships and fresh faces in our lives. People who have hundreds of friends on Facebook aren’t much different from those we knew in college who threw open their apartments to host parties for everyone in sight.
Who knows? Maybe in a decade, no one will mind the idea of information about our every thought being transmitted electronically to everyone we know. Right now it seems scary and weird, but wasn’t there a time that cell phones made us feel over-wired? It’s easy to let our Luddite tendencies overwhelm us and lead us to think those on the cutting edge of technology have got some sort of neurotic obsession that needs a cure. Facebook took a while to catch on; so did cell phones, so did email, so did laptops and software and floppy disks and modems and faxes and IBM Selectrics. It’s worth reminding ourselves that at the core of all these changes lies the enduring and invaluable bond of friendship.
