Facebook and Other Social Networking Value

I have a Facebook account. I was curious about just who I might know on the network; thought maybe I could find out some interesting things my classmates are up to now after so many years.

Small confession...if there's a Barry Atric there, it's not me. I'm techy, and occasionally techie, but not like here.

Anyway the primary reason I made the plunge was because I was looking for a few specific people from my college alma mater; I didn't find him there, but I did find many others that I thought had disappeared.

The web has plenty of tools available for people to use for expressing themselves in various ways (no, not talking about porn...although I guess there's venues for that too). Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, even Blogger...all wonderful sites for stroking your virtual ego to no end.

I lately have questioned the value of using Facebook. I occasionally see something interesting, like finding out about an old aquaintance being attacked by a dog or someone else getting lost on a hike in the woods and having to spend an extra day in the wilderness with her husband until finding their way out the next day.

Far more often, however, I see updates about how Billy wants me to join a mafia war (what the hell is that?), or some other bulb managed to get a high score playing a virtual gardener. Worse are the quizzes; I think they're originating from some dimwitted kindergarten class. I took one quiz off Facebook when I first saw an interesting one about Star Trek; one of the questions had an answer that was one-hundred percent wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

I was rather curious about this. That's when I discovered that other people write the quizzes. You don't need to be qualified in any way, shape, or form. Any idiot that can type can create some "wunderful" quiz for others to take and pass on like a meme-virus on Facebook.

So people are spending tons of time into a black hole of playing crappy games (get a Pogo account, people) and taking quizzes that are as meaningful as what any 12-year-old could come up with when they're not sharing small tidbits of their lives to their "friends". At least, I think they are friends. Apparently there's a group of people that make it their mission to "Friend" as many people as possible. I think it's like some form of virtual street cred or electronic Viagra for them to be able to say they can share the fact that Furball went poop on a pile of clean clothes (hee hee!) with 984 seemingly random individuals.

It's getting harder and harder to cull useful material out of Facebook. I went there hoping to reconnect with old friends. I did that to a degree. I found one person who I was remembering from old albums by finding a mutual friend. The person I was originally looking for? Again, friend of a friend, finally. I found out that the mutual friend was still in touch with him when I saw him post pictures of my lost aquaintences' second wedding on the website.

Yeah. He got married again. He was my best man at my wedding...and I wasn't invited to the second wedding.

Another friend I reconnected with acted like kind of a jerk to a ribbing I commented on. He deleted the whole thing and replied as if nothing had happened, but I was rather offended that he'd have said what he said. Well, written. Rather than make it worse I just didn't say much of anything other than, "Man,...that was harsh, don't you think?"

He erased that with his other comments, but still...it bugged me.

Really. What good is Facebook?

I contacted a few people, but they rarely say anything. It's a cacophy of people advertising themselves or some small highlight of the day, and once in awhile making comments about what someone else does. The little blurbs take on a life of their own for a few minutes before being drowned out by the latest game score someone managed to achieve in VeggiePatch or on some meaningless quiz.

Meanwhile I'm sinking time into Facebook that I could have used to write a story or try getting some time in learning a programming language. It's my own fault, I acknowledge that. But I think that maybe I should cut some of that time on Facebook.

I've noticed that most of the people populating it seem to be more concerned with themselves more than what their friends are up to. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but really, what do I accomplish by using it? Most people don't say much of anything about what I'm up to. Most probably don't even care. Once in awhile I'll get something from someone as feedback, and I try commenting on other active status updates, but most of the time...nada.

Lately I've just been posting song lyrics and whatever music video I happen to be listening to as a YouTube link. I don't bother investing energy in trying to use it as a conduit for keeping up with people's lives or having them keep up with mine. If it were something they were intersted in I think they'd have emailed me.

Or they'd already know about this blog. The only one that knows more about what's in my head is my insurance-mandated psychologist with my journal (yeah, I keep a journal...it's easier than running through things in-session most of the time and I don't think he spends enough time on the Webbertubes to read my blog. I'm not so sure even my doctors at the baritric office still read it at all, to tell the truth...)

So do you use Facebook or Myspace or the other sites? Why? I mean, do you get any benefits from using the site? Feel free to share...