Emi Ha has a somewhat Sam-and-Diane-ish relationship with Facebook. One season, she's madly in love with the social networking site; the next, it does something oafish. She swears off Facebook, knowing it's bad news, seeking solace in the arms of simpler pleasures like YouTube and regular e-mail (the Frasier Crane figure in the relationship, if you will). But deep down, we suspect she'll always come back to her true love.
We can sympathize: Facebook can certainly be inane, tedious, a drain on one's time. But we think her displeasure stems from misplaced expectations. Facebook is a community--but only of sorts. In this community, you are surrounded by "friends." But spending time in Facebook is not the same as spending time with one's friends. And not because many of these friends are not friends but "friends"; the relative dearth of true soulmates is no reason to condemn Facebook. After all, true friends were scarce long before Facebook came along. So why lament the fact that most of our Facebook relationships go no deeper than a surface level? The same could be said of most real-world relationships.
It's a matter of perspective: If you think of your Facebook community as your true friends, you're bound to be disappointed--even by those people on Facebook who ARE your true friends--because nobody has anything like a deep meaningful relationship on Facebook. Remember, though, that the medium is the message. The relationships you have on Facebook are not, for example, "high school friendships"--not as such, anyway: They're more like homeroom. In homeroom, you sat with your group. Some of these people were the best friends you've ever had; others were transitory acquaintances. At any rate, though, the conversations you had in homeroom were necessarily shallow, brief, possibly inane--simple, often humorous exchanges that helped you get grounded and ready to face the day ahead. The work equivalent is the water cooler. It's not about who you're hanging out with or what you're talking about: It's about the fact that you're talking at all. It's like E. M. Forster said: "Only connect."
Facebook disappoints people because people feel Facebook should do much more than it does. But it doesn't. Take solace, though: The good news is that it does allow much more frequent connection to the people who really do matter than most of us have ever had. Facebook isn't a destination--it's a mode of transport. Don't get mad at the bus because it isn't your home: Thank the bus for taking you there.
Who would want to live on a bus, anyway?
If Facebook is like homeroom, what does it mean for those of us who determinedly read our science fiction novels (OK, Star Trek) with rapt attention, in an effort to appear to caught up in the store to socialize with your peers, if only for the 15 minutes it took to call attendance? I guess that's why I'm such a social networking curmudgeon. I can barely keep up with my friends in "meat-space", much less the cyber variety. But then, maybe I'm just burned out since I was a die-hard early adopter in the 90s of AOL chat and the like. Been there, done that, wasted the money.
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