I've written before about how fascinated I am with the social networking phenomenon called Facebook. There are about as many reasons for people to sign up with Facebook as there are people who sign up. It is used to keep track of friends, chat with friends, communicate business information, find each other, etc. It is used as a bulletin board, a platform, a soap box, a pulpit, a for-sale sign, a classified ad, and a megaphone, among other things. My favorite postings are when not-so-bright individuals complain about bosses or workplaces. Even though the court-system has just declared that individuals cannot lose their jobs because of something they 'said' on Facebook, it still defies common sense as to why someone would post content of that nature to begin with. Do 'people' not think that their bosses will see what they wrote for the world to read and that these disparaging remarks will not, somehow, affect their bosses' and supervisors' impressions of the employee(s) whose page(s) the remarks appeared on? Not to be on my own giant soapbox, but this is a giant DUH to me.
Now I read that there is a site I can visit to see who has deleted me as a 'friend' on Facebook. The whole idea of 'friend', by Facebook definition, is a farce, but that is a topic for another blog posting. I just read a quote from someone who had visited the site, found that she had been deleted by numerous 'friends' and was both enraged and demoralized that she would be removed from friend lists.
Personally, I like the ease with which irritating and annoying people can be here today and gone tomorrow on Facebook. It is as if a wand can be waved, and "Poof, I'm gone, You're gone". There is nothing wrong with that. It happens in real life all the time. People come in and out of our lives, either intentionally or unintentionally. And, this is not something new to this decade or present generation. It has been going on since mankind learned how to communicate and will continue, one way or another, as long as humans are on this planet. The problem is that now we've learned how to find out, for real, that someone didn't like us. No more snickering in the bathroom at school or venting over lunches/dinners, or on the phone through conversations, tweets, or texts, through emails venomous to vaporize the recipient or through the tried-and-true Dear John Letters of the past. We just have to visit the website and see for ourselves.
Ah, progress. Perhaps we all should have an electronic 'D' implanted in our foreheads that only others can light up when we no longer meet the criteria they have set forth for friendship.
Ancora imparo
